Evangelicalism in England: A Short History (Pt. 3)

Part Two

Re-forming Reformed Evangelicalism.

In the first article we surveyed some of the great heritage of English Christianity up until the death of Spurgeon. I also took notice of the burgeoning Liberalism of the 19th Century. The second article charted the progress of Liberal theology and the corresponding waning of the conservative cause until things picked up owing to the influence of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and others in the middle of the last century. Nevertheless, the muddy boots of the Liberals have left their marks all across the English religious landscape, with the result that many people in Britain are thorough-going secularists today. The second feature ended with an imaginary visit to one of the Grace Baptist Churches in England. And I left off by alluding to the fact that things were in the process of change.

This brings us to the present day scene, which I shall attempt to describe, evaluate, and then to peer into the future of. Hopefully, by the close of this essay you will have a reasonable idea of the state of Evangelicalism in England.

• A Withering Plant.

The American philosopher Elton Trueblood once wrote that “…the fruit separated from its root… is bound, in time, to wither, even though it may look good for a time.” – Foundations For Reconstruction, p. 2.
Although Trueblood was referring to the fragmentation of morals in the West, his words well describe the present scene within Evangelicalism in the U.K. We have seen how that land has been blessed with many great men of God down the centuries – it is a rich heritage indeed. Yet the heirs of this inheritance, while repeating the old refrains of Reformed orthodoxy, are more and more showing themselves to be devotees of the prevailing ethos of pragmatic expediency. They are lured by the outward success of the charismatic fellowships, and they believe that with a bit of ‘tweaking’ here and there, they can have a slice of the action. Thus, normative church services such as the one I described in my last article are in the throws of being revamped. Meanwhile, the old leadership is seeking to pass the buck for the new downgrade by pointing to soft- targets outside their own particular sphere.

• Evangelicalism Divided.

The book by English Reformed writer Iain Murray entitled Evangelicalism Divided shares in the general excellencies and deficiencies of his other works. After a brilliant opening 100 or so pages Murray then gets bogged down discussing a theological hobby-horse (in this case it’s Evangelical Anglicanism), before closing off his book with thoughtful observations and helpful applications (I can’t be the only one who feels this way). The book was written to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Lloyd-Jones’s seminal address in 1966 in which he warned Evangelicals of the need for separating from the theological liberals within their denominational ranks. The book does contain some helpful information and analysis. For all that, I have to say that an American reading Murray’s book would probably come away with the idea that the Anglicans are to blame for the problems besetting British conservative Christianity today. Indeed, one might come away with much the same opinion after perusing The Banner of Truth magazine as well. The whole trouble is with these Anglican evangelicals! That is where the finger must point.

Now the trouble with that view of things is that it is simply false. Yes, the Packer-Stott line has been influential in some quarters, but the buck does not stop with them. The truth of the matter is that the downward slide of Evangelicalism has had many contributors who are outside the pale of the Church of England.

• Weaving Down A Straight Line.

Granting the constitutional myopia which afflicts us all when our own circle is at fault, it is still disturbing to find the leaders within the independent churches in the U.K. fastening blame upon those dissembling Anglicans. I do not intend to follow suit.

Aside from those benighted Anglicans (Packer, Stott, et al.) the Evangelicals are largely represented by three organizations; the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC), the British Evangelical Council (BEC), and the Association of Grace Baptists. None of these groups is now what it was originally meant to be. This is why people like Dr. Peter Masters, minister at Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, is not in membership with them. Certainly, there are still a minority of “old-style” evangelicals within these groups, but Dr. Masters is pessimistic about the future. He has written, “…we are profoundly doubtful that the existing evangelical organizations will take any stand against the advancing corruption of our churches.” – (Sword & Trowel magazine, 1999, #4, page 11).

One example of such corruption was the subject of an article from Dr. Masters’ pen just one year later. In the first number of 2001 Sword & Trowel he commented on a new hymnbook initiated by leaders within the FIEC and Grace Baptists. This hymnbook, called “Praise”, introduces contemporary charismatic songs into Reformed churches. It is the culmination of a movement that has been growing in impetus since many of these fellowships adopted the “Mission Praise” songbook which accompanied Billy Graham’s Crusade of 1985. The leaders have had their set agenda, and they will see it through. For sure, the fruit will remain for a time , but it has to wither. As Peter Masters so poignantly expresses it;

“What is the point of preaching or contending for sound doctrine, if the church’s practice has submitted to the world and become offensive to God?” (emphasis his).

The hard truth is that doctrinal exactitude (whether Reformed or Dispensational) is never enough.

Masters asks: “But are there not some reformed men who have espoused [this]?… With great grief we acknowledge that there are; but we can only say that Reformation tenets are in their head, not their heart; in their claims, but not in their allegiance; in their words, but not their deeds. In the days ahead the onward march of contemporary worship will reveal some painful surprises.” (Ibid, p. 7). Someone needs to sound the alarm.

• A Personal Experience.

I found out while attending Seminary in London that a ministry of warning is disallowed ‘up-front’ by men whose job it is to know better. If you will permit me one of many personal experiences. Our Theology Lecturer had two 90 minute periods left in which he wanted to discuss a prominent issue with the class. We were to put forward suggestions and then vote on them. My suggested topic was “New Evangelicalism” – which received the most votes. For the rest of the period our Tutor dithered and vacillated about and managed to evade the chosen topic. Come the next 90 minute period he took another vote. To his chagrin the class again opted for my previous suggestion. Whereupon we were treated to a lengthy discourse on…church architecture! There and then I learned why our churches were wide open to declension. The ministry of warning, repeatedly taught in the NT, was not welcomed. A vacuous orthodoxy might sound good, but it is impotent to retard the ranks of evangelical high-flyers who have mastered the art of accommodation. I am reminded of something that John Frame wrote. He said “The present climate of theological criticism has become almost too genteel, it is virtually unheard of for one to charge another with heresy.” – Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought, p. 356. And so we choose soft targets to convince ourselves that we are made of the same stuff as our forefathers. How easy it is to trot out those Reformed catchphrases. But it is quite another thing to emulate the men who first expounded them.

• Rifling Through The Baggage.

As the subtitle indicates, this section is a bit of a smorgasbord. Space will only permit me a cursory look at the state of things.

I start with the Alpha Course, a hugely successful course of basic introduction to the Christian faith. Or at least that is what it masquerades as. In reality it is a watered down version of the real Gospel. Sin is depicted as an unfortunate inability to live together with God. God Himself is not so foreboding, nor is He so full of majesty as scripture presents Him to be. The holiness of God is scarcely mentioned, leading to an unbiblical disjunction between God’s holiness and righteousness and His love. The whole direction of Alpha is anthropocentric.

Backed in the US by Fuller Seminary, (that purveyor of all things suspect that still paints its face to persuade the unwary that it is evangelical), together with endorsements from J.I. Packer and Luis Palau, this adventurous but misguided group study is perfectly adapted for those who equate moral reformation with conversion. Developed at a charismatic Anglican Church in London, Alpha is being enthusiastically used by a broad spectrum of churches (including Roman Catholics) It scores because it is positive, inoffensive, and hopeful. It also offers the individual something that she needs in order to be fulfilled. With its impressive results and arresting merchandising, Alpha will either cause faithful Christians to contend for the true Gospel, or capitulate to its message. We hope that they will be steeled to respond in both a decisive and a relevant way.

Another sign of the weakness of the church is the large amount of congregations without pastors. It has been my experience that these fellowships have in the past been in a position to call a new pastor, but have failed to do so partly because the deacons have been content to rely upon the steady supply of lay-preachers (of which I was once one), thereby insuring that things do not change. Also, many pastors have grown old with their congregations and have neglected to adjust to the times. They have let things slide due to a lack of vision and a wariness of new blood. I say it with some sympathy, these congregations want to preserve the status-quo, and have consequently got trapped in a Time-warp. I well remember preaching at a Church where the head deacon frankly informed me that they were not looking for a new pastor as the deacons were well able to run the church without one! There isn’t space for me to analyze this, but I believe that a root cause is an unwillingness to be in step with the times. Golden memories of former days obscure from view the reality of removed lampstands in so many local churches up and down the land.

The Evangelical Line represented by the FIEC and the Grace Baptists has taken the steps that can only lead them away from the light. The Banner of Truth and Westminster Conferences delight in the battles and personalities of yesteryear, but they have little or nothing to say to the present. Only Peter Masters and those who will associate with his outlook offer the needed antidote. First, a presentation of well articulated and sensitive experimental theology (with its roots in the past but its branches grasping the present), and, second, a willingness to confront error and engage in a ministry of warning. And while I do not agree with all he does or says, I nevertheless hope to see his influence grow. There is no other sure leadership in sight.

• In Closing.

My objective in these articles has been to leave the reader with an overall impression of the English evangelical scene. I have had to be very selective, yet I believe I have got the pulse. If my comments have seemed somewhat negative I reply by saying that I am not a dispassionate reporter – though I have aimed at accuracy. These sentiments would be echoed by a good number of people “back home“, and I have incorporated some of their insights in these pieces.

It remains for me to offer a thought about the future. We are living in very different times to those known to the Puritans, or to Spurgeon, or even to Lloyd-Jones. We have entered a new paradigm where few people think in categories informed by the language of the Bible. Believers in the U.K. must be men and women of the hour – encouraged by the past, but not controlled by it. Christians have just one Word in the modern thoroughfare of words. It happens to be the only saving Word. But it needs to be spoken relevantly, intelligently, uncompromisingly!

Evangelicalism in England: A Short History (Pt. 2)

PART ONE

Evangelicalism’s Fall and Rise (The 20th Century)

In the first article I provided a condensed overview of the aspects of English Church History which were salient to my goal. I zeroed in on those persons and developments that shaped the backdrop to the present Evangelical landscape. Naturally, I am aware that in the last 40 years or so the band of churchgoers who have taken possession of the name has become broader (though not deeper). This group (e.g. the Charismatics and their sympathizers) are everywhere and their effect is too well known to require comment here.

This post will try to do two things:

I. Sketch the major influences on English “Christianity” from circa 1900 to around 1970.

II. Point out the main theological ideas with which most British conservatives (minus the Charismatics) identify.

• The ‘New Theology.’

The world at the end of the 19th century was ripe for the propagation of Liberalism, both theological and social. People had become sick and tired of the class divisions of “old England.” Poverty was a problem that would not go away, and the old orthodoxy was thought to be one of the central pillars of the old order. Adolf Harnack’s little book, What Is Christianity? had reconfigured the elements of the Christian belief system to fit the burgeoning mindset of “the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man.” George Eliot had already given us Strauss’s and Feuerbach’s works in English dress; Freud was busy dismantling biblical faith and reassembling it in terms of personal window-dressing, and Albert Schweitzer was soon to show that this more human theology was also more humane. Socialism was the new gospel.

To articulate this new self-understanding, Liberalism produced the likes of R.J. Campbell who could confidently assert that,

“The great social movement which is now taking place in ever country of the civilized world toward universal peace and brotherhood and a better and faster distribution of wealth is really the same movement as that which in the more distinctly religious sphere is coming to be called the New Theology.”- Horton Davies, Worship and Theology in England, Vol.V, p.126.

Liberal theology was riding the crest of a wave. It was fresh and full of promise, and, most importantly, it looked relevant, in sharp contrast to the recently thrown-off idiosyncratic Evangelicalism.

Whenever man makes some significant advance in technology or “science” he is apt to regard what came before as greatly inferior. One only has to recall that it was the men of the Renaissance who dubbed the preceding centuries “The Dark Ages” and not the Reformers. And they were referring not to spiritual but to metaphysical ignorance. This is how the Liberals and neo-orthodox viewed the Evangelicals, even well into the 1950’s. The influence of figures like Archbishop William Temple, the doyen of the Ecumenical Movement, along with Leslie Weatherhead and Donald Soper, prevailed upon the masses of ‘Christian England’. Dr. Weatherhead of the City Temple was one of London’s most popular preachers, whose anti-evangelical stance is perfectly (and sardonically) expressed in a limerick:

There was a young lady of Ryde,
Who was carried away by the tide.
A man-eating shark,
Was heard to remark,
“I knew that the Lord would provide!”
(Ibid, p. 223)

I can recall hearing Lord (Donald) Soper at Tower Hill, London, in the late 1980’s, preaching what he claimed was Christianity -, though he always sounded more Marxist than Christian.

• Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

Although new theological fads may garner applause from all sectors for a while, the superficiality of any man-centered religion will eventually be the cause of its own demise. At the end of the day, all that these men, with their consummate gifts, had to offer, was sentimentality and arid intellectualism. The rude thud that was World War II and its aftermath would reveal these pulpiteers to be hollow men with a hollow message.

When Evangelicalism is on the wane we might conclude that it will die out. But such predictions are usually premature. God always has His 7,000, even when there is no leadership around to give them visibility. What usually happens is that Bible-believers spend too much time trend-spotting, until, little by little, their thinking is prevailed upon by the ethos of the world. This describes the general state of conservatism in the period 1900-1940.

What the Evangelicals needed was a figure who could boldly communicate the ever-new message of Christ in the power of the Spirit of God. Such a man was Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

By the time he gave up medicine to commence his ministry in South Wales, Lloyd-Jones was recognized as being one of the foremost young surgeons in Great Britain. Though it was to be some time before he would throw off the label of “the man who exchanged Harley Street for an obscure Welsh pulpit,” it was his preaching that would rekindle the dying embers of Truth in the land.

To read his early sermons printed in the book Evangelical Sermons At Aberavon is to experience Gospel preaching at its very best. From the outset there was a noticeable difference from the common stock of messages. As Iain Murray reports it,

“One thing that was dearly recognizable about this preaching was that it was based upon no contemporary models…among the elements which distinguished it from much of the best-known preaching of that period was its absolute dependency upon the authority of the Scriptures.” – D.M. Lloyd-Jones, The First Forty Years 1899-1939, pp. 146-147.

Lloyd-Jones joined G. Campbell Morgan at Westminster Chapel in 1938, taking over the full reins in 1943. From the capital he was to exert a large influence. In addition to the excellence of his preaching, he was instrumental in the rediscovery and republishing of Puritan literature (The Banner of Truth), the founding of a number of various institutions such as Inter Varsity Fellowship, The Evangelical Library, London Bible College, London Theological Seminary (no connection), and also the Puritan Conferences. As one writer put it, “All this was to give Evangelicalism in general, and Calvinism in particular, a renewed impetus.” – Nigel Clifford, Christian Preachers, p. 312. Even though he found himself in the midst of controversy with less ardent Biblicists than himself, his impact upon British Evangelicalism can scarcely be exaggerated.

• New Voices, Old Strains.

In no small measure due to the ministry of “the Doctor”, a crop of gifted preachers, theologians and writers began making an impression upon the nation. The promise of the ‘New Theology’ of spiritual socialism had turned into fool’s gold, emptying churches in the process. Leading the resurgence were people like J.I. Packer, Ernest Kevan, Philip E. Hughes, Herbert Carson and Iain Murray. Their theology was drawn from the wells of Reformation and Puritan literature. This both established continuity with the past and threw suspicion upon anything perceived to be new.

Dispensationalism, or likenesses to it, made ground for a few years under expositors like W. Graham Scroggie and J. Sidlow Baxter, but its tenure has been short-lived. A recent survey of commentaries warns the unwary to beware of the premillennialism of James M. Boice – and he’s a Covenant Premillennialist. You might imagine how Dispensational authors fare! It says a lot about the man that Lloyd-Jones could speak of J.N. Darby as “the great” (see Tony Sargent, The Sacred Anointing, p. 48), and even refer to the “great volume on Pneumatology” of Lewis Sperry Chafer (see The Puritans, Their Origins and Successors, p. 7). However, one should not hold one’s breath in anticipation of a repetition of those sentiments from among his peers.

• A Visit To An Evangelical Baptist Church.

In closing this second feature, I will give a thumbnail sketch of an average service in a mainline Evangelical Baptist Church in England, at least as it was around 2000, and I believe things have not changed much. This will prepare the way for the third of the series.

Upon entering a rather austere brick building which could be well over a hundred years old (many chapels were built or rebuilt in reaction to the revival of the mid 1800’s), one would take one’s place in a pew. The mood would be quiet and conversational. A hymn in the mold of Wesley or Watts, and normally without a chorus, would be sung, the congregation rising automatically at the right point in the organist’s intro. No song-leader is required. There would be no choir since choirs are to be found in Anglican and Methodist churches.

After a deacon has given the announcements, the offering is taken, followed by another hymn. The Pastor, clad in formal suit and tie, will pray the ‘main’ prayer which could be over 20 minutes in length. His 45-minute sermon is doctrinal but seldom really expositional. Standard Calvinist tradesman’s terminology like, “the doctrines of grace”, “the Sovereignty of God”, “His people”, etc., will be heard at least once in the service, together with an allusion or two to a great Calvinist of the past. Illustrations will be short, though not always pertinent. No invitation is given. A hymn and a benediction close out the proceedings, with the Pastor waiting at the door of the chapel to thank you for coming.

Lest you think my tone is pejorative, I should say that I find some of these elements (e.g. hymns, no invitation, reference to Calvin or Spurgeon) both appealing and commendable. The lack of show, the pattern of worship, and the links with the past are the things I miss now I live in California. Though, as we shall see in the final article, the wind of change is blowing!

Evangelicalism in England: A Short History (Pt. 1)

I stumbled across this series of three posts while looking for something else. They were originally written about 20 years ago. but I don’t think the situation has changed for the better since then.

The Importance of the Past: Wycliffe to Spurgeon.

As an expatriate Englishman I was been asked to outline the state of British Evangelicalism for readers of a Newsletter. I suppose I could just charge in headlong and hope that you would perceive where I’m coming from, but that approach would essentially undermine one of the key things I would wish to communicate; vis à vis the spiritual milieu within which many conservative Christians in Britain understand themselves. Without this backdrop one cannot really understand the way things stand in the present. To put it differently, some sympathy must be established with Britain’s evangelical past before one can interpret the state of things in our day. Indeed, I have noticed that British evangelicals seem more in tune with the past than their American counterparts.

The point I wish to reach by the time you put down this article is this: Where are English Evangelicals coming from? How do they understand themselves?

As you are all doubtless aware, Great Britain has a rich (some might say, unrivalled) heritage of Christian spirituality. From proto-Reformers Bradwardine and Wycliffe, and the Great Lights of 16th and 17th century Protestantism, to the giants of the so-called Evangelical Awakening in the 18th century (Wesley, Whitefield, Rowland, etc.), through to the Spurgeon’s and Maclaren’s and Ryle’s of the 19th, and the likes of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in the last century. All these have left their impress upon our Christian history, and their influence upon those who followed after them.

Proceeding on the back of those two entirely overlong paragraphs I will attempt now a “bird’s-eye” sweep over this ground in order to provide us with a clearer focus for my ensuing articles.

• Wycliffe.

The population of the British Isles in the 14th century, like the rest of Europe, was enveloped in spiritual darkness. Romanism had had centuries to fritter down the Gospel into obscurity and replace it with gross superstition and ignorance. Holy places, relics and fables abounded. One might say that religion in these times resembled more a “christened fetishism” than anything like true Christianity.

Into this gloomy situation came the figure of John Wycliffe. It was while lecturing on the Bible to his students at Oxford that Wycliffe met the Saviour. Lechler observes that, “In teaching the Scriptures to others, he learned the true meaning of them himself.”– John Wycliffe and his English Precursors, 112-113. This led him to insist upon the sufficiency of Scripture alone, to call the Pope “a fallible man”, and to undertake to translate the Latin Vulgate into English. With at least parts of this Bible in hand he sent out his Lollard preachers into the highways and byways of the land, so that by 1362, two years before his death, Wycliffe had presided over the production of the first English translation of the Scriptures, and had seen the light of the Gospel begin to dispel much spiritual darkness in his homeland.

• The Reformers.

Had you and I been alive in England in about 1500 it is doubtful whether we would have known anything at all about the message of salvation preached by Wycliffe and his Lollard preachers. It is a peculiar fact of history that as light scatters darkness, so, after a generation or two, the light recedes and the darkness fills the void. Thus, by the time William Tyndale was converted through reading Erasmus’ Greek Testament in around 1520, the Gospel was again rarely heard. By the way, it was Tyndale who first coined the term “Evangelical” to describe himself. He styled himself a “Gospel man”.

God used Tyndale and a small group of fellow students at Oxford (Bilney*, Cranmer, Latimer, Hooper, etc.) to prize open the door which Wycliffe had earlier unlocked. Through their preaching and writing, and then by their martyrdom, these men set up the standard for the Gospel to which successive evangelicals have rallied. Throughout England even today meetings are held to commemorate the sacrifices of these men.

• The Puritans and Nonconformity.

When men of the spiritual character and intellectual rigor of these Reformers seal their allegiance to Jesus Christ with their own blood, it is not surprising that they will attract to the Saviour a whole army of the best men and women of the next generation. By the mid to late 1500’s, the Reformation was in full swing throughout Europe, and opportunity arose for more intramural debates among Christian leaders. Some, satisfied with the accomplishments of their predecessors, and still believing in the divine right of kings (even in matters ecclesiastical), adhered to the beliefs and practices of the Church of England. But others wanted to rid the Church of every vestige of Romish influence and pressed for purer worship and practice. This second group can further be divided into Puritans and Separatists (Brown, Penry, Smyth, etc.). There is no room here to distinguish between these two sub-groups. Besides, for present purposes (though I am all too aware of the deficiency) I can concentrate on the Puritans, since their influence can scarcely be ignored.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that English Puritanism, particularly under Cromwell’s Commonwealth (1649-58) constituted a Golden Age of Christian preaching and writing. In spite of some glaring deficiencies—particularly among the Presbyterian party—anyone who is familiar with the works of these men has to concede that they were a race of giants. They sought to live entirely as if under the gaze of God. Their preaching was expositional and, most important to them, experimental (applicatory), and their publications followed suit. It is simply impossible to understand a Whitefield, a Spurgeon, or a Lloyd-Jones, or many of their kin today, without some acquaintance with men like Owen, Goodwin, Manton, Brooks, and Flavel. Their books are staunchly Calvinistic in soteriology, and post-millennial in eschatology. Their doctrine of the Church (i.e. the kingdom) led many of them, but especially the Presbyterian wing, to oppose freedom of conscience and to bite the hand (Cromwell’s) which fed them. We would have problems with them in these areas. Nevertheless, we impoverish ourselves when we ignore their achievements in practical theology. An American who did not have even a smattering of Puritan knowledge would find himself or herself out of sorts in a gathering of Evangelicals at, say, the annual Westminster Conference.

• Evangelical Anglicanism: Wesley and Whitefield

In supporting the restoration of the godless Charles II in 1660, Puritanism essentially cut its own throat. Indeed, English Presbyterianism has never recovered since that time. It is not surprising then that John Wesley, George Whitefield, and their companions encountered great resistance when they set about their Gospel labors in the late 1730’s. England had become a hive of drunkards and criminals. Luke Tyerman, in the first volume of his Life of John Wesley wrote that for little money a man could drink himself into a stupor and then sleep it off on a bed of hay before going home.

Despite their well-known theological differences, Wesley and Whitefield, by their phenomenal labors, succeeded in evangelizing most of Great Britain.

At this juncture, I must say something about the institutional church in England. It is true that the Church of England can boast a gallery of Evangelical heroes. And nowhere is this the case more than in the 18th century,—as a reading of J.C. Ryle’s Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century will prove. Yet the Church of England (Episcopalian) has always been a mingling of good and bad. And for every Cranmer there have been two Whitgifts or Lauds. For every Wesley two Aylmers, and every Ryle two or three Newmans. The distinction between Anglicans and Nonconformists (e.g. Baptists, Congregationalists, etc.) has always been understood, and continues through to the present day, both in the minds of “rank and file” churchgoers and the populace at large.

Baptists in the 18th century became embroiled in the Hyper-Calvinist controversy which threatened Nonconformity in the second half of the 1700’s. The famous John Gill, for instance, was teaching Eternal Justification. But this was also the age of William Carey and Andrew Fuller.

• The Nineteenth Century: Pros and Cons.

If the 18th century was a high-watermark for evangelical Anglicanism, perhaps the next century was somewhat equivalent for Nonconformity. Because of space considerations, I shall try to make the greatest impact in the fewest words. Therefore I simply give a list of names. During this period, and in addition to a host of considerably gifted but less well-known individuals, we find John Angell James, William Jay, Robert Hall, C.H. Spurgeon, Alexander Maclaren, Alexander Whyte, Octavius Winslow, Marcus Rainsford, Joseph Parker, William Booth, F.B. Meyer, J.H. Jowett, George Müller, etc., etc. Through these men, and the additional impetus of the campaigns of American Dwight L. Moody, churches were packed and new meeting-houses erected.

A hundred years does not seem so long ago in the UK as it does in the US, and the impact of such ministries, with Spurgeon’s ghost looming large, is still felt among evangelicals in England. But the picture is not all rosy. The Oxford Movement of the mid- to late-1800’s attempted to make Anglo-Catholic “smells and bells” religion the norm within Anglicanism. At much the same time occurred the infamous “Downgrade Controversy” in which Mr. Spurgeon took such a conspicuous stand for the Bible. The “Downgrade” saw Evangelicalism buckle under the weight of humanistic optimism powered by the momentum of triumphalist evolutionism. The forces of Liberal theology were gaining strength.

C.H. Spurgeon died in 1892. The clarion voice of historic evangelicalism fell silent. Modernism was at its zenith, and, for the most part, the Evangelicals were left weak and intimidated. The seeds of secularization were sown. Not until Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ ministry started to set tongues wagging in the late 1930’s would the Evangelicals have a leader who could turn things round and provide new cause for optimism.

*Thomas Bilney (d. 1541) is very much the unsung hero of the English Reformation.

A “Must-Read” Booklist For Those Who Want To Study Theology (3)

Part Two

This post will be the last set of recommendations for those whom one might call “beginning students.” I had said that I would do Church history and biography, but first let me say something about the apologists Francis Schaeffer and C. S. Lewis. Surveying some of the works of these men does not mean that I endorse everything about their methodology or substance, but the importance of their work speaks for itself.

Francis Schaeffer wrote small but thoughtful books about worldview. His style requires a little effort to adapt to, but his concerns are of great relevance today. The first works by him that you should seek out are those which comprise what is known as The Trilogy. Those are, The God Who Is There, Escape From Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent. They can now be purchased in a single volume. These books deal with the consequences of abandoning Truth and Reason, and the reality of God. Yes, you’ll have to put your thinking caps on.

Also important by Schaeffer are his Death in the City, True Spirituality, and The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century. Finally, his How Should We Then Live? is a sweep through history with a diagnosis of Western despair. I’m not saying you have to read all these titles, but do try and read some of them.

C. S. Lewis was a man of great erudition but with a working man’s outlook. Of his fiction works, everyone should read (or listen to) his Chronicles of Narnia. As well as being rattling good stories they explore Christian themes such as temptation, folly and its consequences, the virtues, sacrifice, redemption, the struggle to do the good, and hope. After that I recommend the deeper, more “philosophical” yet still entertaining “Space Trilogy” (or “Ransom Trilogy”). These are remarkable reflections on the fallenness of our world, on providence and the reality of the spirit world. Lewis displays the arrogance and folly of intellectuals brilliantly; something we need to put our fingers on today.

Two more fictionalized accounts from his pen are The Great Divorce; an imaginary bus trip from “Hell” to the border of “Heaven.” The depictions of slavery to sin, and of the half-light in which we live when contrasted with Heaven are memorable. The second is The Screwtape Letters, which is profound yet delightful set of correspondence between an older demon to his apprentice regarding keeping a man from seeing truth, from dwelling on reality, and from trusting “the Enemy.”

Other non-fiction books by Lewis are Mere Christianity, and Miracles. Lewis is a thinker of the first order and his works need to be reread regularly.

Church History

Church History as History generally, seems to have suffered in our perverse and narcissistic times. It is essential that Christians have some grasp of their heritage. It links them with those who have now gone to their reward. In this regard I think the following books are most helpful:

Sketches From Church History by S. M. Houghton, and The Pilgrim Church by E. H. Broadbent. Of American authors see Bruce Shelley’s Church History in Plain Language, and Earl Cairns’ Christianity Through the Centuries.

A few books highly recommended to go with the above are J. C. Ryle’s Five English Reformers and Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century. Both are superb. S. M. Houghton edited the book Five Pioneer Missionaries which is very good. Then there is Leland Ryken’s study of Puritanism called Worldly Saints which is worth a mention, as is the similar volume by Peter Lewis called The Genius of Puritanism. But I’m pushing it a bit by including those titles as they’re a little tougher to get through.

Biographies

There are countless biographies of notable men and women of the Church. Some of them are maudlin encomiums of a revered individual, few are warts and all portrayals. Here are some suggestions:

Here I Stand by Roland Bainton is still the classic biography of Luther, although I also like Herman Selderhuis’s Martin Luther – A Spiritual Biography.

Since I referred to warts and all I am reminded to include Lady Antonia Fraser’s terrific biography of Oliver Cromwell: The Lord Protector (in England its title is Cromwell: Our Chief of Men after Milton’s description).

We have to have a biography of Spurgeon, and Arnold Dallimore’s Spurgeon: A New Biography fits the bill admirably. Anything by Dallimore is worth reading. If you can get it I advise reading H. C. G. Moule’s brilliant biography of Charles Simeon. Then there is the Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne by A. A. Bonar. Most of the biographies of John Pollock (Whitefield, Cambridge Seven, Hudson Taylor) are very good. Much the same holds for Kevin Belmonte (Wilberforce, Chesterton, Moody), although I can’t recommend all his stuff.

There are several good biographies of C. S. Lewis by Roger Lancelyn Green, George Sayer, and Alan Jacobs.

I close with Christopher Catherwood’s fine Martyn Lloyd-Jones: A Family Portrait. I know there are many volumes I could and probably should have included, but I must end somewhere. I shall pick things up when I do the list for “Advanced” readers.

Review: Martin Luther – A Spiritual Biography

Review of Martin Luther: A Spiritual Biography, by Herman Selderhuis, Wheaton; Crossway, 2017, 347 pages, hardback.

Quite rightly, in view of the historical and spiritual importance of the Reformation, there have been a spate of books about Martin Luther; this year, and indeed this day, being the five hundredth anniversary of the event that sparked the movement into flame – the nailing of Luther’s 95 theses onto the church door at Wittenberg on October 31st, 1517.

The author of the present book, Herman Selderhuis, has distinguished himself with his work on John Calvin, including a study of Calvin’s Theology of the Psalms and The Calvin Handbook.  He has also written a similar biography to this on John Calvin.

The very first thing I want to say about this biography of Luther is that it is very well written.  Selderhuis has a plain, pithy and subtly tongue-in-cheek style that really makes the material flow.  The second thing I would say is that this is not biography lurching into hagiography.  The book presents the Reformer as a very flawed but endlessly fascinating individual.  Luther was, for example, proud (179) and stubborn (181).  His greatest sin was undoubtedly his anti-semitism (286-288).  Even though there is some mitigating evidence provided by Ernest Schweibert’s The Reformation, who states that four times Luther sought to employ Jewish instructors of Hebrew at the university, there is overwhelming evidence that Luther’s attitude towards Jews was bigoted and ungodly (Further confirmation of this can be found in the first chapter of Hans-Martin Barth’s very fine The Theology of Martin Luther).  And even though it is anachronistic to blame Luther for the use made of him by the Nazis, the fact that his invectives could so easily be utilized makes it difficult to remove the odium that has subsequently been heaped upon him.

It is a testament to the many-sided character of the man that Martin Luther is still eminently inspirational and worth reading about.  He was a man of decisive character and great courage, being able to go against convention for conscience sake.

The world was a different place then.  Satan and demons were at large everywhere:

Miners, who worked in darkness deep underground, were terrified at the thought of meeting an evil spiritual being. (21)     

As for God, He was too lofty, too holy, and far too demanding for any sinner to know if he had done enough to receive his grace (e.g, 63), although after his trip to Rome he began to have doubts (71).  His lectures in theology and the Bible from 1513 to 1517 saw him searching for and developing a distinctive theology of grace which eventually found its center in God’s offer of righteousness in Christ (89, 108).  The whole thing is so well summarized at the start of chapter 6 that I quote it below.

A society that was based on the conviction that people have to restore their relationship with God changed radically when a new foundational conviction emerged: that God in Christ accomplished everything.  God’s justice was no longer the threat that drove someone to pursue a morally upright lifestyle, but rather, it was a gift that motivated people to gratitude.  This theology, this new relationship between God and people, removed the logical basis of the mass, pilgrimages, veneration of relics, celibacy, monastic life, purgatory, preoccupation with the salvation of the dead, and the all-encompassing and supreme position of the church.  Luther’s theology brought something totally different from what previous attempts at reformation had sought.  The fact that God provided righteousness instead of requesting it made it necessary to reconsider the church, preaching, lifestyle, marriage, education, politics, heaven and hell, death, and the Devil. (135-136).

This really was a sea change in European culture.  The knock-on effects are still being felt in our day.

Along the way Selderhuis dispenses with a few of the myths surrounding Luther’s oath to St. Anne in a thunderstorm (43-44), that Luther was the first to translate the Bible into German, and even the fact that Luther himself almost certainly did not nail the 95 Theses to Wittenberg Church door.  The Theses were nailed to the door, but it would have been a student who would have been entrusted to put them there (100).  Whatever romantic notions have to disappear before these details, the main facts are unaltered.

The author is an expert in the Reformation and he moves with ease from one personality or to another and one stage of Luther’s career to another.  He provides his information in such a winning way that I have to agree with Michael Haykin’s assessment on the flyleaf: “This is how biography should be written.”

Crossway Publishers (who provided me with this copy) are to congratulated for producing such a readable Life of Martin Luther.

An Overview of the History of Interpretation (Part 2)

Part One

 3. Allegorical Interpretation continued.

But what we must keep in mind is that allegorical interpretation was not foreign to Jewish understanding of their Scriptures in the first century.  Maier can say, “Jewish interpreters of the first century were convinced that the Holy Scriptures contained more than what the sensus literalis offered.” – Gerhard Maier, Biblical Hermeneutics, 68.

Thus, we should not yield to the naïve temptation to think that the Jews held to single-sense literal hermeneutics.

So what did the use of allegory accomplish?  In one important sense it enabled Christians in earlier ages to locate themselves and their situations in the Bible story.  As one writer puts it,

“…allegory was one of the main means by which Scripture continued to be a channel of the life of Christ to the church, rather than a dead letter.  It especially helped maintain the identity of a people.  It enabled Christians of the fourth, or seventh or fourteenth centuries to see themselves in the sacred text – and they can still do so today.  It is a community building manoeuvre, in which Christians of any ‘present’ are bonded with those of the past.” – Stephen I. Wright, “Inhabiting the Story,” in Behind The Text, eds, Craig Barthlomew, etc. 509.

Looked at that way, it is easy to see the attraction of allegory, just as it is easy to understand the urge to apply every verse in the Bible to Jesus Christ, or to erect large theological edifices via typology today.

4. From The Third to the Fifth Centuries.

It is no coincidence that allegorical interpretations of Scripture filtered into both the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church via Alexandria.  It was there that Clement (c. A.D. 150-215), and Origen (c, A.D. 185-254), used allegory to find ‘deeper’ meanings in the OT and NT. They particularly found difficulty in assigning OT prophecies about Israel to the Christian Church. But by discovering a mystical sense to Scripture, they could reassign troublesome passages and explain away what appeared to them to be incongruities within the Bible. Augustine (A.D. 354-430), who was a native of North Africa, was the greatest theologian-philosopher of the Early Church.  He came to Christ through allegory (Maier, 69).  It was his endorsement of the allegorical method of interpretation which had the decisive influence upon hermeneutics up until the time of the Reformation. Thus it was that early Roman Catholic allegorism was given its impetus by the Alexandrian school under Clement and Origen, and then through the Bishop of Hippo.

Origen’s prominence as a Bible scholar influenced many interpreters of the Latin church. One of these, the Donatist Tychonius, was the man who would set out the principles of interpretation which Augustine would follow in his ideal of relating everything to Christ. A major premise of Augustine’s interpretation was that the Catholic Church was the City of God – the kingdom. Therefore, Old Testament statements which gave promises to Israel were to be re-interpreted so that the promises were now inherited by the Church.  He often allegorized Old Testament passages in order to solve its “problems.”  He did this so skillfully that it is hard to resist his conclusions, even if they are drawn precariously from an allegorical method.

Augustine’s elder contemporary, Jerome (c. A.D. 341-420), was a man of great learning, particularly in Hebrew and Greek. Although his first commentaries followed the allegorical approach, later in life he adopted a far more literal hermeneutic. This was due, in the main, to the influence upon him of the Antiochene school, which we will describe presently.  Jerome’s later Commentary on Daniel, says Dockery, “remained strictly within the confines required by the text.”  Thus, “Through Jerome’s influence, a modified Antiochene literalism was mediated to the later church.” – David S. Dockery, Biblical Interpretation Then and Now, 133.

The school of Antioch in Syria was renowned for its exegetes Lucian (c. A.D. 240), Diodore (d. c. A.D. 394), and Theodore of Mopsuesta (c. 350-428), and for its great preacher John Chrysostom (c. A.D. 354-407), and its greatest theologian, Theodoret (c. A.D. 393-466). All of these men employed a more literal hermeneutic than the Alexandrians, wherein the literal sense was given precedence.  But it would be a big mistake to assert, as some do, that the Syrian approach to interpretation was the same as what has been called “grammatical-historical interpretation” in the present day.  To give two quick examples: Theodore of Mopsuesta was often so literalistic as to deny the prophetic teaching of many OT prophecies.  On the other hand, Theodoret often used spiritualizing in his expositions.

Still, it was true that, as a rule, the Antiochenes were far more concerned about reading the text for what it said rather than seeking for secondary meanings.  But, in the end, it was the spiritualizing of the Alexandrian school that prevailed and which was to hold sway for the next thousand years.

Next time:  Approaching the Reformation

 

 

An Overview of the History of Interpretation (Part 1)

This is a revision of a series I wrote some years back.

The history of the interpretation of the Bible is a long and involved one. For many centuries some have approached the Scriptures supposing that they should be interpreted literally whenever possible. Others have believed that one ought to look deeper than the surface meaning to find its true spiritual center. Still others have believed that the Old and (to a lesser extent) the New Testament is opened up by means of three or four hermeneutical strategies. Today, the amount of interpretative proposals for various parts of Scripture is dizzying.

In this article I shall try to review the main schools of interpretation throughout the history of the Church. But we’re going to start off where I intend to end: with the Bible’s own witness.

1. Pointers within the Bible.

If we take certain statements in the Bible itself as our guide, it will help us to see how the Holy Spirit wants us to interpret His Word. For example, Isaiah wrote,

To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isa.8:20).

What is important about this verse is that it implies a standard by which false teaching can be measured. For that standard to have any credence it has to be stable and clear. The prophet’s reference to “the law and the testimony” (cf.v.16) implies that the whole Old Testament is to be viewed as possessing this stable character. Taking a different example, in the opening lines of the Book of Ezra we read,

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying: 2 “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. (Ez. 1:1-2)

A simple passage like this presupposes a lot. For one thing it assumes that what God said to Jeremiah could be easily verified by Ezra. It only follows from this that if Jeremiah’s prediction of a return from exile after 70 years had not actually come to pass the rest of the Book of Ezra would have never been written. In the Law the test of a true prophet was whether what he said came true (See Deut. 18:22). For that to be a reliable benchmark the fulfillment would have to match the wording of the original prophecy literally. If this were not the case then anyone could spiritualize the prophecy and claim its fulfillment, no matter what the original wording said.

In John 21:21-23 the Evangelist seems to want to make a point that what God says must be grasped before we can correctly interpret. Thus, we think there is scriptural warrant for stable and plain hermeneutics. The anchor-points for this hermeneutics are God-given and are themselves clearer than perhaps anything else in the Bible. These are the Covenants which God Himself has made with men. But this is something we shall have to return to.

2. The First Two Centuries of the Early Church.

Before anything else is said, we must stress that the Post-Apostolic church was not inspired and should not be looked upon as authoritative in matters of interpretation. However, their use of Scripture is often instructional.

We cannot understand the church of the second and third centuries without knowing something about the difficulties which these early Christians encountered. On the one hand there was the very real threat of persecution from a Roman state not at all sympathetic to the beliefs and aims of these people. And on the other hand there was the persistent problem of heresy, which dogged the early church. These two major issues both played their parts in the formulations of hermeneutics. As a defense against the polemics of the influential anti-Christian Roman writers, such as Pliny the Younger, Menander, Celsus, and Porphyry, believers had to produce apologies that could address them, and in particular, their attacks upon the Old Testament, and their misunderstanding of the Christian God.

But alongside this the Christians had to respond to the rise of Gnosticism and the proliferation of Gnostic writings. To cite two examples, Valentinus (born, c.A.D. 100) was an extremely effective communicator who was perhaps even on the verge of becoming a bishop before his heresies were discovered. It was his followers who first composed commentaries on New Testament books. Second, Marcion (active ca. A.D.140-155) taught that the Old Testament was useless as a Christian document. He also severely edited the New Testament, producing one in which only Paul’s epistles were included, together with a condensed version of Luke’s Gospel, carefully purged of any Jewish “contamination.” All the Gnostics held that the God of the Old Testament was another lesser deity than the God of the New.

This then, was the kind of pressure that was being applied to these early saints and their Scriptures. It is hardly surprising then, that the most prominent Christians of the second century were apologists. The main three were Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 100-163), a converted Platonist who was the first to use the term “Israel” to describe the Church (A.D. 160). Then there was Irenaeus (c. A.D. 130-200), Bishop of Lyons in Gaul (modern day France), who wrote extensively against the heretics, produced the first formulation for biblical interpretation: the so-called “Rule of Faith.” This formulation was really a short statement of doctrine. Irenaeus believed that a Trinitarian meaning attached to both Testaments. This Trinitarian schema was observed in the apostolic witness, which, in turn, placed an emphasis upon the Christological interpretation of the whole Bible.

Hence, the Rule of Faith gave a kind of unity to the Church. Consequently, any interpretation which did not measure up to this Rule of Faith (such as the teachings of the Gnostics) could be rejected as contrary to the preaching of the Apostles. The Rule of Faith also made the interpretation of the Bible a province of the Church, and so, of Church tradition. But Irenaeus also promoted non-literal interpretations. In the midst of dealing with heretical teachings he allowed for hidden meanings in some passages of the Bible. As one writer puts it:

“…the early Christians acknowledged that their claim to the Christian meaning of the Jewish Scriptures [i.e. the OT] was less a matter of what these documents said, and more a matter of how they were to be read…For passages obviously commensurate with the Rule of Faith, the reading would be literal (with allowance for genre distinctions and figurative expressions) whereas, for passages that required a second reading to agree with apostolic teaching, that second reading would be figurative.” – William Yarchin, History of Biblical Interpretation: A Reader, xviii.

One may notice how already the assumed doctrines protected by the Rule of Faith begin to authorize the kind of interpretations deemed acceptable. This side-effect would have serious repercussions later on.

It is worth noticing that all the early fathers of the Church were premillennial in their eschatology. Nevertheless, they also tended to drift to and fro between literal or face value interpretations and spiritual interpretations.  This was clearly the case with the third prominent writer, Origen (born 184/5).

Roy Zuck notes that, “From these early church fathers it is obvious that while they started out well, they were soon influenced by allegorizing.” Owing especially to Origen’s influence (he wrote commentaries on many books of Scripture), this form of interpretation became the dominant one from the middle of the second century until the Reformation in the sixteenth century. It would therefore be helpful to review this phenomenon before examining the major figures of Jerome and Augustine.

To be continued…

A Great Set of Studies on Augustine

Dr Jim Gifford has just completed a terrific series called ‘Saint Augustine and Southern Baptists.’  The series title does not do justice to the usefulness of Gifford’s work.  The posts and the discussions in the combox are very helpful for anyone interested in Augustine.  You might not agree with all his insights, but you will appreciate Gifford’s demeanor and careful scholarship:

Augustine and Southern Baptists: Introduction

Augustine and Divine Omnipotence

Augustine and Human Nature A

Augustine and Human Nature B

The Upshot of Augustine’s Assumptions: Divine Determinism

Augustine’s Exegetical and Hermeneutical Method

Augustine’s Critics and Legacy A

Augustine’s Critics and Legacy B

The series is hosted by SBC Tomorrow, which is dedicated to analyzing “the Calvinizing of the SBC.”  The site has its friends and enemies, but wherever you find yourself on the spectrum, I hope you will be benefited by Gifford’s work.

Churlish Biography – Review of “Augustine: A New Biography” by James O’Donnell

A Review of Augustine: A New Biography, by James J. O’Donnell, New York: HarperCollins, 2006, paperback, 396 + 15. 

This review is written to help those wanting to read a good book on Augustine who might be fooled by this bad one.  The book has been on the market for 7 years, but since I endured reading it, I felt I should record my opinion of it here.

Augustine is not one of my favorite theologians.  Yes, he was brilliant and persuasive.  Yes, he deserves an exalted place in the history of Christian Doctrine.  He certainly elicits my esteem.  But in my view his teachings have done more harm than good.  Augustine’s ecclesiology and eschatology have skewed the teaching of the New Testament.  His predestinarianism, with its consigning of non-elected babies to perdition, I find a cold and unbalanced logic.

I say this so that the reader will know that I am no member of the Augustine Fan Club.  But neither am I such a bumptious snob that I cannot admire this great man.  Any reader of Peter Brown’s marvelous biography (as O’Donnell agrees – 73), or of Augustine himself, will find it hard to come away without abiding respect for the man.  Augustine is an intellectual giant whose writings, both for good and ill, have shaped much of the Western World.  He deserves respect even while he merits critical scrutiny.

But readers will find neither quality in evidence in this dismal effort by James O’Donnell.  O’Donnell’s book suffers under the unbearable personality of its creator.  It is a vehicle for his feelings.  A pulpit for his professorial cynicism.  Augustine himself is not the leading figure of his biography, O’Donnell’s ego pushes him aside so that he can retell his story.  The saint must be quiet; someone really clever wants to speak!  I was reminded of the whit who said, “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”

Augustine, it seems, told us a tall tale which we all believed.  O’Donnell is here to tell the truth.  The best way to do that is to let the author don the garb of a surrogate storyteller.  First order of business is to dismiss Augustine’s own witness.  The gaping hole that is left can then be filled with the sort of history which this bitter writer thinks should have been written but, until now, wasn’t.  That is how the truth is arrived at in the Classics Departments of some Universities.  The would-be hip postmodernist O’Donnell deconstructs Augustine before our eyes.  There are, in fact, several Augustine’s; none of them particularly attractive or worthy.

Now it is true that Augustine was a master rhetorician, and O’Donnell is right to signal this fact loudly and clearly.  But to cynically cast Augustine as a ruthless brown-noser and showman (36, 92-93, 119), and sub-par intellectual is another thing.  For O’Donnell, Augustine is like “Dickens’s Mr Macawber,… always waiting for something to turn up” (51); a man who “was always on the make” (89).

O’Donnell introduces us to an Augustine who presents us with several versions of himself, none of whom is the real man.  But in his attempt to lay bare the true saint, O’Donnell presents various specimens of himself.  First he is the well versed Classicist.  But he quickly changes into O’Donnell the Shrink (a character he enjoys playing).  We also meet O’Donnell the Cynic, O’Donnell the Storyteller, O’Donnell the Postmodernist; Oh, and let’s not leave out O’Donnell the Moralist!

Every so often he wanders off into a scenario of his own devising to make some point or other against a worldview which he all too clearly bitterly despises (80-81; 171-172; 174; 202ff.).  His real motives are all too apparent to everyone but those fellow academics laboring under the same delusions of grandeur.

He wonders why nobody has had a good laugh at Augustine’s expense.  He writes a whole chapter comparing Augustine and his beliefs with Don Quixote.  Such kitschy sentiments, while telling us nothing about the saint, speak volumes about his “biographer.”  Here the author fits the bill of the Hollywood stereotype liberal prof who has a sardonic comment for every occasion and who quickly becomes a bore.  Really, when will professional academics learn that in patronizing their readers and speaking condescendingly about their betters they turn themselves into the choicest fools?  Rather like the hardened atheist who hates God so much he cannot stop talking about Him, O’Donnell uses his 400 pages to pour his scorn into (with plenty left over for the interview the back of the book).  What is truly laughable is that the author has invested his academic life in the study of someone he obviously dislikes intensely.  Now there’s grist for the psychologists mill!

This book abounds in silly statements of all sorts.  For instance, he thinks Christians haven’t thought through the doctrine of resurrection (109); has a go at C.S. Lewis for taking for granted (according to O’Donnell!) that all cultured men would embrace Christianity (139).  Lewis, of course, held no such foolish notion.  Athanasius is redone and presented as “the greatest theological diva of the age” (196).  But wait, this book is about Augustine isn’t it?  Not really.  It’s about James O’Donnell’s intense dislike of Augustine and Christian Faith.  Being as it is a public declaration of his disdain, it is not surprising to find the author contradicting himself.  Hippo was a prosperous city (88), but was “a nothing town” (1).   Christians were not really targets for persecution (193), but they were (210).

When he takes on the mantle of a theologian O’Donnell is plain pathetic.  On page 65 he recommends Sabellianism.  Page 83 has him pontificating that no one can be sure whether his soul will be saved or lost (83).  Paul apparently, “never met Jesus and became an “apostle” by virtue of his encounter with Jesus’s god on the road to Damascus.” (100).  He doesn’t provide the reference; doubtless because he couldn’t find it!

O’Donnell claims that “the books making up the Old Testament (on Augustine’s reckoning) had been written some in Greek but mainly in Hebrew.” (198).  Now to be charitable, he may mean that Augustine reckoned some of the OT was written in Greek, but that is highly unlikely both historically and grammatically.  It is safer to assume the ignorance lies with the man who wrote that sentence.

Yesterday’s Giants – Part 3

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

America has produced many great minds; many men and women whose intellects have made them notables in the history books. One whose name shines as bright as any that could be named is Jonathan Edwards. Edwards was contemporary with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, but unlike them, he could not be called a child of the Enlightenment. He was a pastor of a medium sized Congregational church in New England, and one of the most remarkable things about him is that he was able to transcend the cultural outlook of those around him. Unlike even men like Charles Hodge and Benjamin Warfield, two of the greatest theologians of the next century, he did not buy into the widespread belief that Christians shared the same basic evaluation of the world as non-Christians. He saw clearly that Jesus Christ not only saves souls but can save minds too. His sermons, which were heard by farmers and ironmongers and millers, as well as by schoolmasters and physicians, were weighty, highly organized examples of forceful yet spiritual reasoning. For example, his sermon on “Christian Knowledge” (from Hebrews 5:12) he maintains, “There is no other way by which any means of grace whatsoever can be of any benefit, but by knowledge. All teaching is vain, without learning. Therefore the preaching of the gospel would be wholly to no purpose, if it conveyed no knowledge to the mind…If men have no knowledge of these things, the faculty of reason in them will be wholly in vain…Therefore a man cannot have his faculty of understanding to any good purpose, further than he has knowledge of divine truth.”

In our day of cozy sermonettes this sounds like a theological lecture, but Edwards was convinced that God had created man’s mind to hear God’s truth, so he could not shortchange the Apostles and Prophets. These weekly deliveries of solid doctrine did not dry his people up. In fact the very reverse is true. Edwards was at the center of powerful spiritual revivals on two separate occasions. His most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” a fairly untypical message, was preached in the midst of revival in 1741.

As a writer Edwards showed himself to be a profound philosopher-theologian. He had a knack for close analysis, a skill he had honed by his notable investigating of spiders and their webs. Such a profound thinker was Edwards that he is usually accounted America’s greatest theologian and one of her greatest philosophers.  I am not sure he deserves the first accolade.  He did have some unorthodox views about reality (he was an idealist who also held to continuous creation), and his teaching of omni-causality makes it scarcely possible to make anyone but God the author of sin.  But the broad scale of his Christian vision is a small marvel, and his determination to put truth ahead of status and security was admirable.  Edwards died of smallpox in 1758, shortly after assuming the presidency of the College of New Jersey (Princeton).