Speaking of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, Humphrey Carpenter writes in J. R. R. Tolkien:  A Biography (Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977):

[H]is [Tolkien’s] choice of clothes in middle age was also the sign of a dislike of dandyism.  This he shared with C. S. Lewis.  Neither could abide any manner of affectation in dress, which seemed to them to smack of the unmasculine and hence of the objectionable. . . .  [F]undamentally both men had the same attitude to their appearance, an attitude that was shared by many of their contemporaries.  This preference for plain masculine clothing was in part perhaps a reaction to the excessive dandyism and implied homosexuality of the ‘aesthetes’, who had first made their mark on Oxford in the age of Wilde and whose successors lingered on in the nineteen-twenties and early thirties, affecting delicate shades of garment and ambiguous nuances of manner.  Theirs was a way of life of which Tolkien and the majority of his friends would have none; hence their almost exaggerated  preference for tweed jackets, flannel trousers, nondescript ties, solid brown shoes that were built for country walks, dull-coloured raincoats and hats, and short hair.

As I read that, I thought, “This couldn’t be written today.”  No one would even say it, let alone in such a matter of fact manner and that was in 1977, which was my sophomore year in high school.  What else does the quotation say?

There is masculine dress.  There is effeminate dress.  People can know and know what masculine and effeminate dress are.

Regarding “dandyism,” read the Wikipedia article on “dandy,” but in that article, Albert Camus said in L’Homme révolté (1951) that:

The dandy creates his own unity by aesthetic means. But it is an aesthetic of negation. “To live and die before a mirror”: that according to Baudelaire, was the dandy’s slogan. It is indeed a coherent slogan. The dandy is, by occupation, always in opposition. He can only exist by defiance. Up to now, man derived his coherence from the Creator. But from the moment that he consecrates his rupture from Him, he finds himself delivered over to the fleeting moment, to the passing days, and to wasted sensibility. Therefore he must take himself in hand. The dandy rallies his forces and creates a unity for himself by the very violence of his refusal. Profligate, like all people without a rule of life, he is only coherent as an actor. But an actor implies a public; the dandy can only play a part by setting himself up in opposition. He can only be sure of his own existence by finding it in the expression of others’ faces. Other people are his mirror. A mirror that quickly becomes clouded, it’s true, since human capacity for attention is limited. It must be ceaselessly stimulated, spurred on by provocation. The dandy, therefore, is always compelled to astonish. Singularity is his vocation, excess his way to perfection. Perpetually incomplete, always on the fringe of things, he compels others to create him, while denying their values. He plays at life because he is unable to live it.

More “men” (of actual biological gender, but perhaps only to varying degrees in practice) than ever are dandies.  No Christian should be a dandy and this at one time was the normal way for a Christian to think, because the opposition to dandyism matches with what scripture teaches about manhood.

When I think the word “dandy,” I also remember, Yankee Doodle Dandy, the revolutionary war song.  So what’s that all about?  It’s not good, which is why it was a popular American song, singing about the British in a derogatory way.  It was a song of defiance from the Americans.  Here are two paragraphs from Wikipedia, that seem to be accurate:

The term Doodle first appeared in English in the early seventeenth century and is thought to be derived from the Low German dudel, meaning “playing music badly”, or Dödel, meaning “fool” or “simpleton”. The Macaroni wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became slang for being a fop.  Dandies were men who placed particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisure hobbies. A self-made dandy was a British middle-class man who impersonated an aristocratic lifestyle. They notably wore silk strip cloth, stuck feathers in their hats, and carried two pocket watches with chains—”one to tell what time it was and the other to tell what time it was not”. 

The macaroni wig was an example of such Rococo dandy fashion, popular in elite circles in Western Europe and much mocked in the London press. The term macaroni was used to describe a fashionable man who dressed and spoke in an outlandishly affected and effeminate manner. The term pejoratively referred to a man who “exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion” in terms of clothes, fastidious eating, and gambling.

Some men, professing again to be men without showing the quality, it seems, would rather be a dandy than be a daddy.  They are still playing around with clothes like little girls did with paper dolls when I was a child.  I’m reminded of what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:11:  “when I became a man, I put away childish things.”  It’s worse than just childish to be a dandy.

Join Tolkien and Lewis.  Reject dandyism.

Apostates deny the Lord who bought them (2 Peter 2:1).  Their problem with Jesus is His sovereign lordship, that is, they don’t want Him in charge.  Why?  Their lust.  They want what they want, and only what He wants when it’s what they want.  On earth in real time, however, they don’t clash with Jesus.  Their conflict is with human authorities.

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.

Wikipedia lists what social media is, and I looked, because getting that accurate might be important to someone with a strong support for social media, so I don’t mind representing it with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.  I know it’s more, but those suit the discussion.

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

Part One   Part Two

Since Peter commands “abstain from fleshly lust” in 1 Peter 2:11, a believer can know what “fleshly lust” is.  Someone can’t abstain from something he can’t ascertain.  God doesn’t have a word that is indecipherable.  God wants us to know it and do it.

In the first two parts, we have established that “fleshly lust” isn’t synonymous with a particular sin, but it is in itself sin.  It also leads to further other sins.  Someone should abstain from fleshly lust itself as sin, but also abstain for the sake of other sins.

“Fleshly lust,” however, must be identified.  The command to abstain from fleshly lust must be applied.  What I’m writing here is that people are not applying it because they can’t, but because they won’t — it is deliberate, convenient ineptitude at applying the lust passages of scripture.

The lust passages need to be applied in a number of different areas, but I’m applying it especially where I am not seeing it applied.  The convenience is that people, who very often call themselves Christians, want to keep their pet lusts.  They want to be a Christian, but they also want their lust.  Are they saved people?  Maybe not, and they should be concerned about that.  Peter deals with this in 2 Peter, himself concerned about false professions related to lust, to help give assurance to true Christians and not false ones.  The chief differentiating factor is lust, the false ones operating on lust and not true faith.

Lust Passages Applied to Music

Lust for professing Christians surfaces in their music and entertainment with the infatuation with pop culture.   A better adjective to use to describe either the music or entertainment, when it is characterized by lust, is carnal.  Carnal music violates the lust passages of scripture.  It is not abstaining from fleshly lust and what is it?

It is the seductive soft rock rhythm, the sensual scooping and sliding voice technique, and the non-resolving chord cadence.  It has a sensuous effect, stylistic intimacy with such techniques as sliding, flipping, crooning, scooping, delayed vibrato, and intimate use of the microphone.  It has the rock beat, achieved by beat syncopation, a rock feel with a highly syncopated rhythmic pattern, which promotes sensual body movements.  It brings a compulsion to move the body.   It is the boogie and the blues rhythm, jazzy, dance rhythm.

What I’m describing is popular music, the music of which the world approves.  It is worldly.  It is carnal.  It is fleshly.  It is profane.  It is rock, rap, blues, jazz, hip-hop, and country western.  It isn’t for a Christian, because Christians are to abstain from fleshly lust.  It is sin of itself and it will lead to sin, essentially dialing a Christian into functioning on a fleshly plane.

I’m not saying the previous paragraph is the best representation of what I’m talking about, but I think it is enough to understand what I’m talking about.  Someone can just hear it.  This does not represent God.  It violates the lust passages.  It is fleshly lust.

Sure, the Bible doesn’t say “no” to rock, country, hip-hop, over syncopation, sliding, scooping, and everything else I used and described that is like that.  The lust passages must be applied.  What I’m writing is applying them.  I don’t think it is difficult to do.  People who keep lusting and don’t want to stop won’t like the application, but that doesn’t mean the application isn’t true.  Churches and church leaders that apply those passages need to keep doing it, despite the opposition.  God is the judge, not the pandering churches and the people to whom they pander.

Lust Passages Applied to Entertainment

I don’t think it is as hard to apply lust passages to entertainment.  Christians will violate most lust passages by participation with almost all modern or popular entertainment in the world today.  A lot of carnal music is used in entertainment just to start.  That already prohibits the entertainment.  However, it is more than that.

Immodesty, nudity, sex, and foul language disobey lust passages.  That makes up most entertainment.  Today I read professing Christians who advertise all the foul entertainment they are watching, including something like Game of Thrones.  Someone is not watching Game of Thrones or anything like it or even much better than it and obeying what scripture prohibits in lust for a Christian.

Almost all television commercials violate lust passages.  Some of what appears on the sidelines of NFL football in the way of cheerleaders is prohibited by the lust passages.  Those passages do not give the application.  They don’t list specifics.  That is for Christians to do.  When they don’t, they are disobeying those passages.

Disobedience to the lust passages of scripture characterizes most of evangelicalism today and a growing, if not majority, part of fundamentalism.  Violation of the lust passages differentiates fake Chrsitianity from true Christianity.  Not conforming to what scripture teaches on lust results in churches reshaping their doctrine and practice to fit the lust.  It corrupts their worship.  In short time, they have a different God.  God doesn’t conform to lust.

Evangelicals don’t care that they disobey the lust passages of scripture.  Fundamentalists say that they aren’t sure what to do.  The passages don’t mention specifics, so they wonder how to enforce the passages.  They are intended to be applied, like most of the rest of scripture.  Not applying those passages isn’t acceptable, it is disobedience to scripture.

Anyone who reads here would know I don’t endorse or associate with someone such as Jeff Durbin, pastor and found of Apologia Church in Arizona, the Phoenix area.  James White has joined him as pastor there.  I would characterize Durbin as one of the new Calvinists, new not chronological as much as it is a different kind of Calvinism, which relates mainly to the practice or application of scripture.

Andy Stanley is one of the most influential church leaders in the world, even as his church in Georgia is the largest in the United States.  His dad is the very well known, Charles Stanley, long time also pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Georgia.  In the last year Stanley wrote a book, Irresistible, that caused a furor within evangelicalism, because of some of the major teachings of the book.  I’m not going to go into the problem here.  I’ve just read reviews.  I’ve never read the book itself, and that’s not point for this post.  My point with this paragraph was to introduce a debate between Stanley and Durbin.

There is a radio station in the UK, called Premier Christian Radio, and a program on that station in the UK called, Unbelievable.  Unbelievable is hosted by Justin Brierley, and he moderated the debate between Stanley and Durbin.  The premise of the debate on May 31, 2019 was something that Stanley had said in a sermon and then in his book, which is the title of the podcast:  Unhitching Christianity from the Old Testament?  At the time of this writing (Thursday), it had been viewed 47,128 times.  Watching the debate could be very helpful, but I want to add another disclaimer.

What Stanley asserts is wrong.  As you watch the debate, you can see Durbin undo Stanley and put to rest his position.  Stanley hardly debates.  This is a somewhat complicated issue, partly because of the false teaching that is out there.  I would not fellowship with Durbin and he uses a modern version to argue.  However, I agree with everything that Durbin says.  As far as a doctrinal position, I didn’t hear anything from Durbin that I thought was wrong, and Stanley is very, very wrong, and it would take awhile to break down all the damage that believing Stanley would do.  Durbin, however, eviscerates Stanley, using scripture to do it.  It is a helpful subject to understand, first, to understand a biblical position on apologetics, what is referred to as presuppositionalism, which was defended, and, second, to elaborate on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.

I don’t know Durbin enough to explain how he goes off the rails with the practice of scripture.  I’m guessing, he fails at biblical application, and isn’t consistent on how his own doctrine should affect how his church grows.  He and his church are worldly.  I hadn’t heard of Durbin until I saw him with James White in the last year.  This debate showed up when I clicked on my youtube app, because it knows what kind of thing I might want to watch.  Durbin is not consistent in this application and practice of scripture, even according to what he espouses in this debate, but what he says is good, right on, and confronts Stanley very well.

Stanley and Durbin don’t discuss their view of grace, but antinomianism proceeds from Stanley’s view.  The detachment from the law leads to cheap grace, the so-called “scandalous” grace that I’ve written on a few times in recent months.  The grace of God serves like a garbage can to sin.  This itself is not saving grace.

One more thing.  What Durbin says about scripture contradicts the Durbin and White position on the preservation of scripture, and, therefore, their apologetics with Moslems, something I wrote about here in the last month in a posting of an interview of Pooyan Mehrshahi.  Presuppositional apologetics starts with what scripture says about itself to come to a conclusion on the text of scripture, what and how it was preserved.  Durbin and White, against their own defended apologetic, do not start with the authority of scripture about itself.  Like Stanley says that events are a basis of faith, Durbin and White say the same in their defense of a critical text.

Part One

Sanctification, the practical outworking of actual salvation, which surely proceeds from justification, Paul characterizes in Romans 6:12:

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Essentially the Apostle Paul is stating the expectation of the reality of true salvation in someone’s life, commanding someone to cooperate in practice with what God has already done.  A verse I quoted in part one speaks of this, Galatians 5:24:

And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

Saved people, “they that are Christ’s,” “have crucified the flesh with the. . . . lusts.”  Sin won’t reign in the body of a person where the flesh with its lusts has been crucified.  “Crucified” is aorist tense, so completed action at one point in time.  In Romans 6, this is what Paul said in the previous verse (v. 11):

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

[A]ll things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

Young people. . .  should and must receive an education in music as well as in the other arts if we are to wean them away from carnal and lascivious songs and interest them in what is good and wholesome.

The Bible doesn’t say what lust is.  It assumes we know, because we do know.  Not knowing is either blindness or feigning ignorance.  Blindness or feigned ignorance won’t work in the end with God.  He knows we know.  People can understand and apply the passages on lust.  They don’t want to give up their lust.  I’m asserting a deliberate, convenient ineptitude of professing Christians at applying the lust passages of scripture.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.

And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee.

Young people are encouraged to feel the very same sensational nervous impact of loud rhythmic music on the body that they would experience in a large, worldly pop concert, complete with replicated lighting and atmosphere. At the same time they reflect on predestination and election. Worldly culture provides the bodily, emotional feelings, into which Christian thoughts are infused and floated. Biblical sentiments are harnessed to carnal entertainment. . . . When you look at their ‘favourite films’, and ‘favourite music’ you find them unashamedly naming the leading groups, tracks and entertainment of debased culture, and it is clear that the world is still in their hearts. Years ago, such brethren would not have been baptised until they were clear of the world, but now you can go to seminary, no questions asked, and take up a pastorate, with unfought and unsurrendered idols in the throne room of your life. What hope is there for churches that have under-shepherds whose loyalties are so divided and distorted?