Gregg Strawbridge: An Appreciation

I cannot say for sure what year it was. It would have been between 2003-2005. I was the minister of East Columbus Church of Christ in Columbus, MS and was working in my office at the church when the phone rang. The man on the other end explained that he was visiting family while on vacation and was looking for a Church of Christ minister who knew something about the history of the movement. My car was scheduled to be serviced, so I dropped it off and arranged for the caller to pick me up at the dealership. We went to a Mexican restaurant and sat down to eat and to talk. The man was a Presbyterian minister from Pennsylvania. His name was Gregg Strawbridge.

Gregg was the first Presbyterian I ever met, the first Reformed Christian I ever talked to. I had grown up in the Churches of Christ, and even though I had been called to full-time ministry in those churches in 1998, my contact with Christians in other communions was very limited. That was partly due to the fact that I didn’t think there were Christians in other communions, at least, not any faithful Christians. I had been taught to believe--and for many years taught--that the Churches of Christ were the only faithful churches, and not even all of them qualified. Denominationalists were in denominations because they did not believe the Bible. Some of them might have been scripturally baptized, usually if they had been baptized in a Church of Christ, but most of them were in no meaningful sense Christians. That was my frame of reference when I met Gregg Strawbridge. Those beliefs and assumptions took a long time to change, many years in fact, but I can tell you when they began to change. It was when I ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant and spent a couple of hours talking to Gregg Strawbridge.

When Gregg picked me up for lunch, he was immediately friendly, kind, and respectful. He did not treat me the way that I viewed him. He treated me as a brother in Christ, as a Christian. We sat down and began to talk, and God began planting seeds of grace in my heart. I had no idea how profoundly that conversation with Gregg would shape me, but I continued to think about it for many years. He had asked to meet to talk about the history of the Churches of Christ. The most prominent organizers of what became known as the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement were originally Presbyterians, and Gregg had been doing research on that topic. I was not an expert, but I was a fifth generation member of the Church of Christ and had done a lot of reading. We talked about the Churches of Christ and Thomas and Alexander Campbell, but we quickly moved on to other topics. Maybe it was because I didn’t have much knowledge to share. Maybe Gregg realized I could not be as helpful as he had hoped. Or maybe he simply loved talking about the Scriptures. Whatever the reason, we began discussing the Bible, and the conversation that followed began, slowly, to change my life.

The Lord had already begun exposing me to Reformed theology, though I did not realize it. I had read J. I. Packer’s Knowing God and Jerry Bridges’s The Practice of Godliness some years before and was profoundly impacted by both books. I first heard John MacArthur preaching on the radio while serving a little church south of Birmingham, AL from 1999-2002. I would tune in every week as I drove to teach a Bible study. I didn’t know who MacArthur was. I didn’t even know his name for several weeks because I never heard the beginning or end of the program. But the sermon in the middle was thoroughly biblical. I am ashamed to admit how astonished I was that a preacher outside the Church of Christ could be so committed to Scripture. After listening for several weeks, I concluded this radio preacher might even be a Christian! It would be many years before I realized how many Reformed authors and influences God had placed in my life, years before I attempted to preach through a book of the Bible as I heard John MacArthur do, years before I realized these men all agreed on the sovereign and efficacious nature of God’s saving grace.

Gregg did not disparage or directly confront any of my idiosyncratic and unbiblical beliefs that day. He simply talked to me about the Bible. He pointed out things I had never noticed in texts I had read all my life. He listened to me when I spoke and treated me as a brother worthy of respect, even though I didn’t know what I was talking about. He raised questions that would remain with me for many years only to bear fruit at a later point in time. I had no idea that I would ever leave the Churches of Christ, no idea that one day I would be the Reformed pastor reaching out to ministers in the Churches of Christ, no idea that my meeting with Gregg would become an important way station on my journey to the Celestial City. But since embracing the doctrines of grace in 2011-2012 and joining a Reformed communion in 2016, I have told dozens and dozens of people my story about meeting Gregg Strawbridge.

When I realized almost ten years later what God was doing in my life in leading me to the Reformed faith, I reached out to Gregg online. I did not expect him to remember me, but he did, and I thanked him for the ways God had used that first meeting to bless and encourage me. He rejoiced with me in how the Lord continued to lead and bless my life and ministry and in the changes I was making. We remained in irregular contact by email after that. I would reach out to him periodically to express appreciation for his influence in my life and to share with him what I was learning and questions I had. I contacted him when I came to love the Book of Common Prayer and began learning about Reformed liturgy. I shared with him sermon notes and blog articles on various topics, and he continued to encourage me in various ways. I listened to his debates and sermons and continue to learn from him even today. I was last in contact with him in August of last year. I used some of his material on reconciliation in preparing a workshop on biblical peacemaking, and I sent him what I developed and acknowledged my debt to him and his work.

I had no idea where my first conversation with Gregg would lead or how it would continue to shape me even after I became Reformed. My contact with Gregg was a major factor in my own pursuit of Reformed catholicity. His grace toward me was a model I continue to aspire to but consistently fall short of. He did not have to treat me with the kindness that he did. I did not recognize him as a brother. I thank God that he recognized me.

When I woke up this morning, I learned that Gregg had a massive heart attack and died on Wednesday. We were not close friends. I never met his family, visited his church, or saw him in person since that one visit in Mississippi almost twenty years ago. But I have never forgotten our conversation, and I will continue to thank God for it and for him as long as I live.

ALMIGHTY and everliving God, we yield unto thee most high praise and hearty thanks, for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all thy saints, who have been the choice vessels of thy grace, and the lights of the world in their several generations; most humbly beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow the example of their stedfastness in thy faith, and obedience to thy holy commandments, that at the day of the general Resurrection, we, with all those who are of the mystical body of thy Son, may be set on his right hand, and hear that his most joyful voice: Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Grant this, O Father, for the sake of the same, thy Son Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen. (1928 BCP)

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. (Psalm 116:15)

--JME

Book Review: "It's Good To Be A Man"

Michael Foster and Dominic Bnonn Tennant. It’s Good to Be a Man: A Handbook for Godly Masculinity. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2021. Reviewed by Joel Ellis, January 2022.

The authors of It’s Good to Be a Man have not attempted “to create a timeless work but a timely one” (225). What they have written is a concise and accessible manifesto propounding a biblical alternative to the secular manosphere and the red pill response to feminism in the broader culture. “Every boy is born a male--but manhood is something into which he must mature” (107). This requires teaching men who they are as image-bearers of God, made for dominion (17-22), instilling a sense of the goodness of masculinity, warped though it will inevitably be in a fallen world (25-27), attaining manhood by learning sonship under the Fatherhood of God (107-125), cultivating masculine virtues of wisdom, workmanship, and strength (145-149), and pursuing mission (175-187) within a spiritual brotherhood (189-206).

Chapter one begins by laying a foundation for the authors’ discussion. “Patriarchy is inevitable,” they affirm. “Men were made to rule…. It is not a question of whether men will be ruling, but which ones and how” (1, emp. in original). Thus in a fallen world, we can expect the appearance of “an evil patriarchy: the rulership of wicked fathers, who do not represent the fatherhood of God” (5). Foster and Tennant briefly survey biblical texts in describing how this evil patriarchy targets young men by seeking to harness, pacify, and finally destroy them (7-15). The next three chapters respond to these attacks by demonstrating the creational goodness of masculinity (ch.2) and sex (ch.3) and by describing the war on sex and why the Devil hates and opposes it (ch.4). This last point may seem counterintuitive, but the authors employ biblical theology and ontology to demonstrate Satan’s “primordial strategy of turning the sexes against each other--and against God” (50).

Chapter five places the struggle within and against God’s creational order in its spiritual context, as a spiritual war regarding worship. Citing the work of Peter Jones and supporting it by referencing secular authors, Foster and Tennant argue, “Androgyny is a foundational doctrine of paganism” (59). Chapter six chronicles the war between the two humanities, those in Adam and those in Christ, that unfolds through redemptive history and how that story displays the persistent problem of “toxic sexuality.” They explain: “Toxic sexuality exists for both sexes. In both cases, it takes the form of a spiritual subversion of God’s design. So just as there really is toxic masculinity--wicked patriarchy--there is also toxic femininity” (75). Chapter seven describes the effects of this war in “The Church Effeminate.” This may be the most controversial chapter in the book for many readers, but the authors provide a helpful caution against the false dilemma, so common in churches today, between “man as trapped spirit” and “man as biological machine.” They insist, “We must reject both the pietistic neo-Gnosticism of evangelical androgyny and the mechanistic materialism of evolutionary psychology” (95-98).

The second half of the book outlines a model, drawn from Scripture, for masculinity that glorifies God and serves one’s family, church, and neighbor faithfully and effectively. Chapter eight describes the need to learn manhood by first learning sonship. Many men will not receive this mentoring from their biological father, but every believer has such a relationship with their heavenly Father. Chapters nine and ten discuss the masculine virtues of wisdom, workmanship, and strength which every godly man ought to cultivate and employ in his social responsibilities. Chapter eleven cautions men against the “red pill rage” which has developed as a secular (and ungodly) response to feminism and the madness regarding gender in western culture. Instead, godly men will find strength to be faithful and to endure in submitting to Christ and focusing their strength on the missio Dei. Chapter twelve unpacks that mission in more personal and individual terms, helping men to understand how to serve God where he has called them. Chapter thirteen describes the necessity of brotherhood, and chapter fourteen concludes the book with a discussion on “The Excellence of Marriage.”

Foster and Tennant finish the book by stating: “Our goal has been to give every man a place to start. Whether you are single, married, or divorced, young or old, wealthy or broke, driven or listless, starting out or starting again, you have to start somewhere--and that is with being a man” (226, emp. in original). The book is a call to action, to faithfulness, to obedience and submission to God by taking responsibility and exercising leadership and rule in God-honoring ways. No doubt, many will find the title and contents provocative, but the substance of the book is biblical, accessible, and ought to be largely unobjectionable to those who look to Scripture for authoritative guidance in matters of gender and gender roles. This volume can be a helpful resource for discipling men, especially young men, and helping to offset the hostility toward masculinity which they are exposed to in our current social context. --JME