John MacArthur is a very good expositor. I am thankful for his decades-long work of producing and distributing excellent bible teaching. I don’t want to take away from that in any way.  More narrowly, I’m glad that Grace to You and MacArthur are critical of the mega-church and multi-site-church nonsense that seems now to be sweeping through conservative Evangelicalism.

But I wish one thing were different. I really wish they were on better footing to criticize.

Today I read a post by Travis Allen of Grace to You (“Embracing and Shunning”) about just that. He began by listing several essentials of faithful church ministry and asserting that

The modern love affair with pragmatism leads to compromise on every point. Every. Single. Point.

Well…I agree, but there is a very pronounced lack of clarity on what actually composes pragmatism and why it should be avoided. Perhaps it’s just my personality, but quick, rhetorical criticism of something–even something that truly is bad–is not enough to get me climbing aboard the bandwagon.  What can I say?  I’m such a suspicious person.

Allen continues saying things that sound great, but I still find it difficult to take them seriously when I consider that I am reading them on the carefully-branded and highly-polished Grace to You blog.  Here’s an example:

We want to help you identify and embrace faithful ministers and ministries. Take heart, there are many faithful who have not bowed the knee to Baal. They are too humble to promote themselves, and too busy to care. For them, ministry is not about drawing a crowd or building a fan base. Their single-minded aspiration is to live quiet, godly lives of faithful service in loving devotion to Christ, and to teach others to do the same.

Again, I like it, but…No self-promotion? Quiet service? You’ve got to be kidding me! Where would John MacArthur and the Grace to You organization be if they actually followed those guidelines?!

Some of the first few comments help to tease things out a little further. In comment #7 Lamar Carnes reacts to the criticism by insinuating that it is motivated by jealousy and other such nastiness before going on to admit with one hand that such churches are not perfect and then take back that admission with the other hand by arguing that they are addressing their imperfections in a, well, perfect way. Allen responds in comment #12 with a variation on “no, MINE’s better, so there!” by saying that Grace Church is not perfect but that MacArthur is very (perfectly?) humble about it.   He does, however, go on to specify what about the other guys he finds objectionable:

We’re talking about churches and ministries, pastors and leaders, who employ strategies from the church-growth playbook.

That might actually be helpful if there literally was such a universally-recognized church-growth playbook, but, as it is, it really equates to an ‘us/them’ sort of argument (We’re right because we’re us, they’re wrong because they’re them).  Certainly both good and bad things might be done in the name of church growth, but apparently the only way to tell which is which is to find out for each thing whether MacArthur is or is not doing it.  To many of us looking on from outside, the only difference seems to be that MacArthur uses a slightly older edition of “the” church-growth playbook.

Ryan Day appears to be troubled by the same thought. In comments #9 and #10 he very tactfully asks how MacArthur–who makes very effective use of blog posts and videos and openly celebrates how widely his sermons are circulated–could be considered immune from the charge of pragmatism.

Commendably, Allen granted the validity of the question (comment #11), but the answer he gives is silly. He defends MacArthur by proposing a distinction between ‘practical’ on the one hand and ‘pragmatism’ on the other. To be ‘practical’ is to value efficiency and effectiveness (e.g. using technology like the interenet to spread biblical preaching). To be ‘pragmatic’ is to have an:

end-justifies-the-means mentality that uses numbers/results/stats to baptize a ministry methodology as divinely inspired.

Again, that explanation would only help to distinguish between the two camps if one of them actually affirmed such a mantra.  In reality, those ‘pragmatists’ don’t think their means need to be justified any more than Grace to You thinks that it’s purchase of the domain name www.gty.org or its development of an attractive logo need to be justified.  All that I can seriously take from Allen’s defense is that the one term (‘practical’) is used to describe us while the other term (‘pragmatism’) is used to describe them.

Apparently Grace to You means to publish a series of critical posts–this one being the introduction; perhaps I will be won over by what follows. Perhaps I will be convinced, but then I already basically agree (that these groups should be criticized). I doubt they have much chance of convincing anyone who does not.

According to John Piper’s disciple, Justin Taylor:

John Piper once said something to the effect that if you’ve become a Calvinist and you haven’t shed any tears in the process, you probably don’t understand Calvinism in the first place.

I’m going to take it for granted that Taylor is a reliable witness in this case.

In my experience, Piper has a propensity to make these kinds of statements. You know, the kind where you start to feel that maybe you’re not all you think you should be but at the same time make you think that John Piper is all he should be and more — because odds are very few people listening to him have ever cried over Calvinism. And following Pipers formula that UNDERSTANDING CALVINISM = TEARS, they start to feel guilty. John Piper, then, tells a story about how gripped he was by the truth of Calvinism and how tears just poured from his eyes. Maybe he even gets a little weepy in the pulpit, and all of the Piperians go “Wow! If only I could be like Piper!” I’ve had too many conversations with Piperians that ended with “Wow! Piper is so amazing. If only I could be like Piper!” This kind of thing is a chronic problem, and Piper bears a lot of the responsibility for the obsession his followers have for him.

So have you shed tears over Calvinism? If not, you probably don’t understand it in the first place.

But what if you have severe allergies and your eyes are almost always watery. Can you ever be sure that your misty-eyed experience was Calvinism-induced? Perhaps your allergies were responsible but by coincidence the episode corresponded with a moment when you were really feeling how awesome Calvinism is. Maybe that’s all it was. How can you ever know that you really understand Calvinism with allergies like this?

Or maybe you’re just a naturally emotional person who weeps pretty easy anyway, should you really get the credit for crying over Calvinism. That hardly seems fair to me since I haven’t cried since I was a child.

And what about those people who have the multipurpose talent of producing tears on command? They could cry if you mentioned something even more clinical than Calvinism such as blood coagulants or cold sponge baths by overweight male orderlies. That isn’t fair, and no one can be sure that those were Calvinist tears.

Examples could be multiplied.

Sorry, Piper, but I’m calling bullshit on your whole formula.

For those not familiar with this Catholic doctrine, it essentially states that according to Matthew 16 and other biblical passages we can see that Peter — and Peter alone — was given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. According to church tradition, Peter was later the bishop at Rome. The claim of Petrine succession, then, is that whoever subsequently occupies Peter’s office in Rome possesses the keys to the kingdom. I’m sure you can see where this is going: the pope is the current occupant of Peter’s office at Rome and he alone possesses the keys to the kingdom.

Here’s the relevant passage from Matthew 16:

He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.‘

Many Protestants often try to get around the Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16 using interpretations that are more of a problem than the Catholic interpretation they are trying to avoid.

There are predominately two ways that Protestants try to get around saying that Christ gave Peter the keys to the kingdom. (1) They claim that “this rock” on which Christ will build his church is not Peter, but Peter’s confession that “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (2) They claim that when Christ says “this rock” he is pointing to himself as he was saying, “You are Peter, but on this rock, that is myself, I will build my church.” In support of this interpretation they often cite 1 Corinthians 3:10, “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

These interpretation of Matthew 16 are simply untenable. What is clearly motivating them is not a desire to understand of the text but a desire to avoid the Catholic interpretation. These interpretations fear identifying Peter as the rock on which Christ builds the church since it seems to lend credibility to the Catholic doctrine of Petrine succession. But this fear grants too much to the Catholic interpretation. Understanding the “rock” as Peter, isn’t just a Catholic interpretation — it’s a legitimate interpretation, and, as we will see, it does not entail Petrine succession.

In support of the interpretation that the “rock” is Peter, we must recognize that the name Peter means “rock” or “stone”. So when Jesus says, “you are Peter, [petros] and on this rock [petra] I will build my church”, it is clear that he is relating the person of Peter and the rock on which he will build his church. Furthermore, he clearly gives Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. This demonstrates that Peter is the rock on which Christ will build his church. Attempts to introduce foreign elements such as Christ gesturing to himself while saying “on this rock” are prime examples of forcing one’s theology onto the text. And yet, without this foreign element, the interpretation doesn’t make any sense. And, of course, neither of these interpretations can explain Christ giving a gift to Peter as significant as the keys to the kingdom.

So what’s the most that we could establish from Matthew 16 alone? Just this: that Peter — and only Peter — was given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. What we don’t get is a doctrine of Petrine succession. There’s nothing here about the keys being tied to Peter’s office or an ongoing passing-down of the keys to the kingdom.

We can see from other texts, however, that Christ doesn’t give the keys of the kingdom to Peter alone — he also gives them to the rest of the disciples and to the church itself.

In Matthew 18, Jesus gives his disciples commands for dealing with those who have sinned against them. After earlier attempts to make peace have been rebuffed, one is to “tell it to the church” (18:17). If this person will not heed the church, the church is to expel them from the congregation. Then Christ speaks to all of the disciples the exact words he spoke concerning Peter in Matthew 16: “Truly, I say to you [plural], whatever you [plural] bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you [plural] loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (18:18). Peter isn’t the sole possessor of the keys to the kingdom because, as Jesus says, “If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven” (18:19).

From Matthew 18, it is clear that the succession of possessing the keys to the kingdom is tied to the enduring church, not the enduring bishopric of Peter.

Furthermore, in John 20:23, Jesus reiterates that he has given all of the apostles the keys to the kingdom: ” If you [plural] forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you [plural] withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Christ nowhere ties the authority to forgive sins to a particular chair of an office.

Aside from the biblical evidence, the Catholic convert claims that Petrine succession “was demonstrated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when the Council Fathers, upon reading the Bishop of Rome’s, Pope Leo, Tome on the two natures of Christ, exclaimed, ‘Peter has spoken through Leo.’”

I presume that he’s giving his best evidence from church history for Petrine succession. Apparently, the best of the early evidence is a vague reference from nearly four-hundred years after Peter’s death. This is an enormously weak case for such a vital doctrine for Catholic authority. I can’t see how anyone can hang his hat on this kind of evidence.

Yet, in spite of the lack of evidence for Petrine succession I can see the appeal that the doctrine would hold for a Catholic convert who came from Evangelicalism. I think he is reacting to something that is a real problem in evangelical and reformed circles: no one is exercising the authority of the keys to the kingdom. There is a right exercise of this authority, but the catholic church narrowly restricts it to the pope, and the evangelical/reformed church abandons it altogether. By contrast, in the Lutheran church, there is a pronouncing of absolution by the pastor for sin upon confession. He is one who is called and ordained by Christ’s church, and thus he has the authority to pronounce Christ’s forgiveness.

When Evangelicals and the Reformed reject the right use of the office of the keys, it pushes others toward the appealing but false doctrine of false doctrine. The best response is for Protestants to adopt a better understanding of the office of the keys such as the one laid out by Martin Luther in the Smalcald Articles.

The authors generally appreciate the work of John MacArthur. John Fraiser is a Lutheran minister and Uri Brito is a Reformed minister. We are thankful for MacArthur’s commitment to the Scriptures and his love for the gospel of grace. Early on in our studies, MacArthur was certainly one wave that carried us into the rich world of 16th century Reformation. Yet, we must not be blinded to assume the Reformation did not offer a cultural way of thinking and living. We have embraced the larger Reformational world not simply because of its Soteriology—which we affirm—but because of the richness it provides to both mind and body. The Reformation means embracing the biblical vision of a new humanity engaging a re-created world in and through Jesus Christ.

Part of this larger Reformed picture is unmistakably missing in John MacArthur’s recent attack on the Young, Restless, and Reformed (henceforth, YRR). MacArthur’s analysis leads him to conclude that “It’s clear that beer-loving passion is a prominent badge of identity for many in the YRR movement.”[1] Now, neither of us belong to the YRR movement. So MacArthur isn’t directly addressing us and we have no interest in protecting the movement itself. Normally we wouldn’t even take the time to respond MacArthur’s argument, but sometimes you must bend to answer the absurd, if only because others take the absurd so seriously. Indeed a great many people have already answered him, but we wish to add our voices to the company of those Christians who think that alcohol should not merely be tolerated but commended, celebrated, and cherished among the people of God. We sense that MacArthur’s overall tone is a direct attack on broader Reformational groups, such as Lutherans and Calvinists.

In addressing MacArthur and his concerns, we wish to organize our response in the following manner: (a) The Lutheran and Reformed Historical Argument for the Use of Alcohol, (b) Arguments for Alcohol in Biblical Culture, (c) The Sociology of Abstinence, and (d) The Use and Abuse of Alcohol.

The Lutheran and Reformed Historical Argument for the Use of Alcohol

John MacArthur has condemned the so-called “Young, Restless, and Reformed” movement (YRR) for: “deliberately cultivating an appetite for beer or a reputation for loving liquor.” According to him recreational alcohol consumption is “bad missional strategy and a bad testimony.”[2]

We wonder: why should a celebration of the moderate consumption of alcohol among the Reformed be surprising or disappointing when this attitude is deeply rooted in the history of the Reformation and when alcohol is celebrated among the Reformers themselves and nearly all who subsequently identify themselves as Reformed?

MacArthur concedes that wine could be mixed with water for the purpose of purifying the water, but since modern convenience affords us clean drinking water, this use is virtually unnecessary leaving alcohol with no place in the life of a modern Christian. But is this how the Reformers – who also lacked refrigeration – viewed alcohol? Did they only see it as regrettable necessary substitute for pure water? Without any question whatsoever, the Reformers – Luther, Calvin, et al – did not have such a utilitarian attitude toward alcohol.

Here is a summary of their collective attitude toward alcohol. (1) Alcohol is to be extolled for its taste. (2) Alcohol has positive effects on our mood when used moderately. (3) Drunkenness is clearly a sin . (4) Alcohol is a good gift of God to his creation which should be celebrated when used in moderation. Furthermore, from their writings, we can discern (5) clean water was not generally preferred over a quality alcoholic beverage.

Ad fontes! Let’s go to the sources. Unfortunately, the limits of space will permit us to mention only a few of an abundance of examples.

(1) Alcohol is to be extolled for its taste.

Luther writes to his fellow reformer and friend, Justus Jonas:

Further, if you can buy, or hunt at no expense to yourself, some rabbit or similar meaty delicacies send them along, for we intend to satisfy the bellies of all of you, if that drink called beer finally turns out all right. For my Katie has cooked 7 Quartalia (as they call them) into which she has mixed 32 Scheffel of malt, because she wants to satisfy my palate. She hopes it will turn out to be good beer. Whatever it is, you and the others will taste it.[3]

Note that Luther’s concern with respect to the beer is how it tastes. The hope is that their labor will yield a delicious beer commensurate with an excellent meal that Jonas is to provide for the group.

(2) Alcohol has positive effects on our mood when used moderately.

In his commentary on Psalm 104:15, Calvin writes, “We gather from his words that it is lawful to use wine not only in cases of necessity, but also thereby to make us merry.”[4] Calvin understands the psalmist to say that a merry mood from the effects of alcoholic beverage is one of God’s gifts.

Luther offers this counsel to his children’s private tutor who is battling depression, “Never be alone. Act foolish and play. Drink a good deal.”[5] According to Luther, the cheering effects from alcohol can be an aid to lift our spirits.

(3) Drunkenness is clearly a sin.

Commenting on I Timothy 3:3, Luther understands the word πάροινος to mean “one who is always eager for wine or drink.” He clarifies that “it is not that he [a bishop] should dislike wine, but that he should not be a drunkard.”[6] According to Luther, Paul’s only concern is that we should not be drunk, but he is not concerned with the matter of consumption.

(4) Alcohol is a good gift of God to his creation which should be celebrated according to moderate use.

We have already seen this point made by Calvin in the above quote, but we can see it also in the study notes of the Geneva Bible on John 2:10. Here, we are told that we can even glorify God in our moderate drinking. “We drink well when we drink to the glory of God and when our drinking does not exceed the limits of moderation.”

Further in his commentary on Psalm 104:15, Calvin has this to say about the proper way to enjoy alcohol. “This mirth must however be tempered with sobriety, first, that men may not forget themselves, drown their senses, and destroy their strength, but rejoice before their God.”[7]

(5) Clean water was not generally preferred over a quality alcoholic beverage. Comparing water to beer, Luther notes, “No peasant is so stupid as to give a hundred bushels of grain for a scrap of paper, nor a burgher to give a hundred brews of beer for a drink of water.” As a beverage, water was not generally valued over beer.[8]

It is no wonder, then, that the YRR crowd regards the enjoyment of alcohol in moderation as something that should accompany their interest in the theology of the Reformers – it’s planted deep in the heritage of the Reformation. If MacArthur wishes to complain about this attitude, he has to go back much further than a twenty-first century movement. His complaint is ultimately with the Reformers themselves. Yet, if the Reformers themselves do not collectively get to speak about what is acceptable Reformed behavior, then no one does. MacArthur stands entirely outside the view of the Reformers on this one.

The Reformed community has largely maintained the same view as the Reformers down to today. It’s worth showing briefly that MacArthur’s opposition is really to the broader Reformed community and not to a splinter group like YRR.

Here are few interesting examples out of possible thousands.

Rousas J. Rushdoony remarked that he and Cornelius Van Til would often meet to discuss theology and philosophy over beer.[9]

R. C. Sproul often extols the virtues of alcohol. It is curious that MacArthur doesn’t break into finger-wagging at his friend and fellow conference-rounder. We have, on numerous occasions, heard Sproul defend the practice of moderate drinking for enjoyment, and criticize those who convey to unbelievers that Christians are teetotalers. He also makes the point in print: “Wine also is associated with joy, and for that reason people drank wine at wedding feasts and other celebrations. Drunkenness was forbidden, but it should be noted that wine was regarded as one of God’s great blessings.”[10]

Arguments for Alcohol in Biblical Culture

Far worse than standing outside of the Reformed tradition, though, MacArthur stands outside of the teaching of Scripture.

MacArthur argues that consumption of alcohol was necessary in “biblical times” because often the water was not potable and so wine was cut with it to reduce the amount of contagions. Then MacArthur moves from this point to the claim that Christians have no necessary reason to drink alcohol since we have an abundance of clean water and refrigeration.[11] While it is true that alcohol was consumed in the Ancient Near East in order to purify the water, it requires a chasmic leap to conclude that once this need is eliminated there is no other use for alcohol either in the lives of those in the Ancient Near East nor in the lives of 21^st-century Christians.

Strangely, Scripture never makes reference to the public-health use for alcohol that MacArthur mentions. Instead, the authors are more interested in the gladdening effects of wine and strong drink, and they speak of these effects approvingly. Two examples out of a number of others will suffice to demonstrate the point.

• And before the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the LORD your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the LORD your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the LORD your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire–oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household (Deuteronomy 14:23-26).

• You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart (Psalm 104:14-15).

The only point we want to draw here is that there is a place in the mind of the biblical authors for rejoicing with alcohol and for enjoying the effects of alcohol within moderate bounds.

Yet, we suspect that MacArthur already knows that consuming alcohol in moderation is not a sin since his criticism comes down to guilt by association. He writes:

“In fact, until fairly recently, no credible believer in the entire church age would ever have suggested that so many features evoking the ambiance of a pool hall or a casino could also be suitable insignia for the people of God.” [12]

As we noted above, comments like these demonstrate that MacArthur doesn’t know his church history very well. Yet, they also reveal that MacArthur doesn’t know public perception of alcohol very well. In whose mind is alcohol and cigars associated with pool halls and casinos? There’s no necessary association between these things and places.

From what we can tell, it’s MacArthur and his ilk that have to keep this association alive because the rest of us recognize that alcohol and tobacco is found in use across so many different cultures, classes, venues that it is absurd to make such a narrow association. Why should we when there’s hardly any other social behavior that is more pluralistic than alcohol and tobacco? Pool halls and casinos? This is a left-over association from Prohibition where the critics who drew the association were the very people who created the legislative conditions in which alcohol would only be found in the very places they criticized it for being found. But in a world where middle-class soccer-moms are sipping wine spritzers at an “Eat, Pray, Love” book club, it’s just as credible to associate water as it is alcohol with pool halls and casinos – which is just to say: it isn’t credible at all.

The Sociology of Abstinence

MacArthur warns us about what he thinks are the perceived consequences of alcohol usage. He writes:

It is puerile and irresponsible for any pastor to encourage the recreational use of intoxicants—especially in church-sponsored activities. The ravages of alcoholism and drug abuse in our culture are too well known, and no symbol of sin’s bondage is more seductive or more oppressive than booze. I have ministered to hundreds of people over the years who have been delivered from alcohol addiction. Many of them wage a daily battle with fleshly desires made a thousand times more potent because of that addiction. The last thing I would ever want to do is be the cause of stumbling for one of them.[13]

MacArthur is right to stress the dangers of alcohol abuse in our culture. Indeed, as pastors, we too have encountered parishioners who have struggled with alcohol in the past and who come from families where alcohol was largely abused. But does this mean, then, that alcohol is to be eliminated and banished from the Christian home, or more importantly, from the Christian Church? God forbid. MacArthur suffers from the same sociological problems as those in fundamentalist circles. Fundamentalists take examples of abuse and use them to make dogma. They take the abuse and declare that God has thus spoken. Others—more moderate evangelicals– while affirming that God nowhere prohibit partaking of alcohol, at the same prophesy of the cultural consequences and the dangers of losing Christian witness before the world.  Both approaches fail to discern the biblical rationale for alcohol usage, and because the Bible has not taken its central role in shaping the debate, they have come to unhealthy conclusions.

As we have discussed earlier, MacArthur is well outside the Reformed tradition in understanding the purpose of alcohol. He has to deal with the fact that the Reformers overwhelmingly—with the exception of small groups of pietistic reformers in the early 20^th century—enjoyed alcohol and treated it not as an evil to avoid, but as a gift to enjoy.

MacArthur has long championed the importance of sanctification in the Christian life. He has made profound and biblical pronouncements on the importance of the Lordship of Jesus over the life of the Christian. Yet, he fails to stress the importance of maturity when it comes to God’s gifts. For MacArthur, the end goal of the Christian life is to avoid worldliness. While we can affirm this goal, we do not—and dare not—affirm the avoidance of the world. Worldliness pertains to those matters that deny the law of God and the goodness of God. The world, on the other hand, pertains to everything God has created. Therefore, the danger of MacArthur’s pastoral counsel is that it places his parishioners in an outright rejection of the world of God and embracing a near form of Gnosticism. Under Gnostic presuppositions, Christians detach themselves from a world which Christ has come to redeem (John 3:17). When Yahweh declared all things very good He was not playing word games. He was actually declaring that creation and all therein is good.

The Use and Abuse of Alcohol

What are we then to do with those who struggle with former alcohol problems and with those who come from families where alcoholism is prevalent? The remedy is not simple, but glorious. We give them the Gospel. We believe that where the gospel is present, therein is victory. As pastors, we are to teach that in Christ they can overcome sin, and in Christ sin has been overcome. MacArthur fails to put the gospel into his agenda, because he fails to make proper biblical qualifications between abuse and moderate use. You do not remove a gift because it has been abused (sex, food, etc.), rather you treat the gift as it should be treated: with moderation and care. Removing those who struggle with alcohol from the very presence of alcohol is the surest way to cause a brother to stumble, but properly exposing those who struggle with the appropriate and godly way of using and enjoying certain gifts is the only way to overcome certain addictions. As Luther so ably put it:

…wine and women bring many a man to misery and make a fool of him [Ecclus. 19:2; 31:30]; so we kill all the women and pour out all the wine. Again, gold and silver cause much evil, so we condemn them. Indeed, if we want to drive away our worst enemy, the one who does us the most harm, we shall have to kill ourselves, for we have no greater enemy than our own heart, as the prophet, Jer. 17 [:9], says, “The heart of man is crooked,” or, as I take the meaning, “always twisting to one side.” And so on—what would we not do?[14]

Luther understood that the abuse of something is not an argument against its proper use. By making alcohol anathema, MacArthur offers another reason for the world to reject the Christian faith. In fact, we will go so far as to say that alcohol—whether beer or wine—is about the enjoyment of life, and thus accepting its common use in the Christian community is the necessary step to reclaiming a biblical view of God and world.

In part one of this post, I described how my loyalty to Evangelicalism led me on a long and difficult search for a church which both takes real Christianity seriously and would also accept people who are (as I am, I’m ashamed to say) flawed even to the point of being rather dislikeable.  In this part, I will try to explain a few of the problems that I find so troublesome and which have forced me to reconsider my loyalty to Evangelicalism.  I will then finish the story.

I want to be clear that I am not accusing any church when I describe these problems.  I do think that these problems are widespread, but I am sure that, for any given problem I describe, there exist some Evangelical churches which are exemplary.  I am not at all saying that every Evangelical church (or person) suffers from every problem I mention.  I am saying that, in my long search, I did not find a single church which was not dismally overcome by some of them.  I am also not saying that Christians should absolutely avoid any church which struggles with any of these problems.  As I said before, I think every church will struggle with them to some degree.  I only want to describe some of the problems which I, in my search, found to be epidemic among Evangelical churches.

Self Promotion by/Hero Worship of Leaders & the Tendency toward Personality Cults—This is one of the most troubling things for me, and I sometimes feel like a broken record because I am so often critiquing this tendency.  It is a great grief to me, for it applies to a number of leaders whom I very much respect (e.g. Piper, MacArthur, Mohler, Dever, Sproul, and others).  I’m aware that self-promotion is an unquestionable norm in our society—most people use twitter and facebook just for the opportunity to promote themselves.  Sure, I know the thinking…“I must promote myself to get further opportunity to promote Christ.”  The rationale is understandable, but it is also unscriptural.  Should not our attitude be “He must increase, but I must decrease”(Jn 3:30) rather than “I must increase that he might increase”?  Blame for this doesn’t belong only upon the leaders who promote themselves.  Like ancient Israel was with statues of cows and other strange things, Evangelicals seem hell-bent upon worshiping some personality or other.

Propensity for (Even Delight in) Abuse of Others—especially other believers.  The pecking order system (and all the cruel politics of establishing/maintaining such a system–like the struggle of individuals to increase their rank by decreasing the ranks of others) was rarely a minor issue in my experience.  Many Evangelicals seem to think that the command to “love one another” requires nothing more than that they maintain plausible deniability of motive in their treatment of others (i.e. “Any action is acceptable so long as I can plausibly deny that I intended harm by it”).  But the command is from Christ, before whom our hearts are not hidden, and his command obviously requires that our motive actually be love.  Sadly, I am not alone in finding that many of the unbelievers I come into contact with at work and other places tend to be kinder to each other and to me than the members of my church.  I know, I know…People often do take offense over actions which are not ill-intended; sometimes people even take offense at things that are  genuinely and wholly motivated by love.  Certainly, loving one another does require that we grant the benefit of the doubt when we feel that someone has wronged us.  But doubt concerning apparently evil motive erodes unless it is offset by at least some indicators of good intent.  Yes, of course, we must forgive those who trespass against us, even when we have no doubt that their motive is evil.  Nevertheless, I felt it would be foolish of me not to conclude that there is something wrong in a group which is so overwhelmingly characterized by cruel politics and piously-cloaked maliciousness.

Lack of Love—though I generally refused doggedly to believe that the Evangelicals in my circle were of the abusive sort, I could never quite deny the very pronounced lack of love among believers.  Though I spent countless hours trying to convince myself that it was all in my imagination, I kept being driven back to the conclusion that the people in my church did not care about me and my family.  I have long wondered if the appeal that heretical groups like the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses seem to have is that they present themselves as so loving and caring.  Though I have never been tempted toward such heresies (“There but for the grace of God…”), I can certainly understand how powerfully drawn people are if they believe that a person or a group of people really does care for them.

Shallow, Silly Theology—There are so many problems which fit under this heading; I don’t know where to start.  I’ll just make a sort of list—not in any particular order.

The Dogma of Mega-Church: Mega-mania has, for all I can tell, completely consumed Evangelicalism.  Even those churches which never have been, are not, and never will be ‘mega’ in head-count are still eager to follow virtually any silly, stupid, irreverent, vulgar, or even heretical trend set by the ‘megas’ in their utterly unreflective attempts to round up as many people as possible once a week.

Touchy-Feely Teaching: This is, of course, related to Mega-mania.  The gurus of the mega-church movement are very clear in their assertions that any Christian teaching which is thoughtful, complicated, or—by all means—condemning must go.  Many Christians seem to believe that scripture really has nothing of it’s own  to say; they seem to think of it rather as a list of topics for their teachers to consult when deciding what warm and fuzzy nonsense to spout in their next sermon or lesson.

Unconcern Regarding Genuine Discipleship: Discipleship, training, spiritual growth, etc. are prevalent buzzwords among Evangelicals, but it seems to me that the interest is not really in helping Christians grow spiritually.  I sometimes suspect that many pastors and other leaders think of discipleship as some sort of machine or process to which they can direct all those over-zealous folks in the congregation who keep pestering them for help in understanding the Bible.

Tendency to Trust in Government Rather Than God: Evangelicalism has a large contingent of people who seem to speak more about political activity than about Christ.  It often appears, for many Evangelicals, that death, hell, and the devil have been replaced by political liberalism and Christ has been replaced by the Republican Party.  I understand that we all want a good society to live in for this life, but Christianity is not about that.  Evangelicals, however, seem always to be consumed by their search for political messiahs.

Moralism Instead of Gospel Freedom:  Most Evangelicals would strenuously object to the charge that their group is dominated by legalism.  I grant that Evangelicals are fairly consistent in rejecting the bare idea of ‘salvation by works,’ and that is good, so far as it goes.  Of course legalism did not originate with Evangelicalism; our sin nature makes us prone to seek our righteousness on our own.  My concern is that very often membership in the church is made conditional upon conformity to a standard of behavior which is not commanded by scripture and about which there is no discussion allowed (See here and here, for example).  It is difficult to see how such requirements do not entail a “Faith in Chist AND ______” sort of gospel—which is a “different gospel” (Gal. 1:6)

Chronic Bent Against Serious Theological Reflection: I must be cautious in saying this.  Of course there are many Evangelical individuals who are models of serious reflection.  I am thankful for their efforts.  The concern I have is that Evangelical churches tend to have something of a ‘code of silence’ regarding anything but the approved set of mantras.  People are free to talk about “living one day at a time,” avoiding the tendency to “live by my own strength,” the “power of prayer,” the importance of one’s ‘quiet time,’ and so on.  But, if someone dares to stray from that safe little orbit of clichés, people tend to react with annoyance or even outrage.  If the poor fool dares to ask for clarification on or challenge one of the sacred clichés (e.g. “What do we mean when we say that prayer is powerful?” or “Is ‘quiet time’ taught in scripture?”), he or she will probably face blacklisting, marginalization, or even expulsion.  I think that Evangelicals tend to believe that critical thinking is dangerous and divisive.  The clichés are often viewed (perhaps subconsciously) as the substance and statement of orthodoxy.  So, they actually feel like they are ridding the church of heresy when they drive away a person who, for example, asserts that “scripture does not teach us to think of ourselves as powerful because we pray” (True story.  Yes, I was the poor fool involved).

Spiritual or Theological Elitism: While there does tend to be a resistance to theological reflection, there is also, in some parts of Evangelicalism, a rather shocking amount of elitism.  So far as I can tell, this seems to be closely tied to the hero worship that I mentioned above.  Sometimes those who seek to counter the bent against theological reflection are the most guilty of elitist tendencies.  The phrase “the life of the mind” (always unexplained—if anyone doesn’t already know, their mind is dead; they should be ignored out of existence) is very popular with these types.  This was, when I could manage to be tolerated, my preferred subculture within Evangelicalism; so it is quite possible that I myself have been guilty.  As with all of these critiques, my aim is not to pronounce harsh judgment, but to explain the problems which I find to be so predominate in Evangelicalism that they caused me (I think reasonably) to reconsider my loyalty to the group.

Decisionist Theology: Again, I am glad that some Evangelicals are providing thoughtful and persistent critique on this issue (Tim Challies, James Adams, and Brian Schwertley, to name a few).  But these critics themselves admit that this bit of very bad theology is a nearly universal dogma in Evangelicalism.  By decisionist theology I mean the notion that God’s work of salvation is entirely (or even mostly) at the mercy of the free will of the people whom God would save.  The tradition of long and emotionally charged ‘invitation’ times at the end of church services and other Evangelical gatherings (like evangelistic ‘crusades’) is one place where this theology is worked out.  It can also be seen in the tendency of Evangelicals to point to a ‘moment of decision’ for Christ for confidence before God (i.e., you walked the isle, prayed the prayer, made the decision, etc., thus you have salvation).

Blatant Slavery to Culture for Its Thought: It is very puzzling to me how incredibly devoted Evangelicals tend to be to the Romanticist notion that feeling is our best, most reliable, or—in some cases—only access to ultimate reality.  I understand that this is a deeply embedded part of American culture (think how many movies have some version of “follow your heart” as their major theme); what really puzzles me is how Evangelicals fail to see that Christianity is simply incompatible with Romanticist philosophy.  That is not the only example.  I have found that many Evangelicals—even some of the more thoughtful ones—are simply incapable of discussing commitment to one’s spouse or family in any terms other than the positive emotion one feels toward those people.  In other words the sentence, “I stay with my husband because I love him.” means “I stay with my husband because I feel positive emotions toward him.”  The problem with that is the corollary, “I forsake my husband because I no longer feel positive emotions toward him,” or the more common phrasing “I don’t love him any more.”  If a choice is justified only because of the prevalence of positive emotion, then it must be rejected if negative emotion prevails.  And Romanticism is only one example this slavery to cultural thought.

Inability to Effectively Critique Culture: I’m not talking about the fact that they couldn’t bring the culture to accept Christianity—that is a given.  What I mean is that Evangelicalism seems to have been impotent to biblically assess the trends of our culture.  For example, the Evangelical response to the cultural notion that homosexuality must be acceptable because “people are just born that way” has generally consisted of nothing more than the incensed retort “NO THEY’RE NOT!”  But, one need not know Christian theology very well to understand that we are all sinful by nature and that being “born that way” is no justification before God for our sin.

Prosperity Theology: Here again, I want to acknowledge that there are many Evangelicals who resist this trend; I applaud them.  Unfortunately, I have found Evangelical pastors and teachers commonly reject the ‘health and wealth gospel’ movement (good for them), but fail to reject the ideology.  They know that Joel Osteen is wrong, but often fail to see how some of the things they teach are not really any different.  For example, Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life is wildly popular with Evangelicals and received the 2001 Evangelical Christian Publishers Association Gold Medallion Award.

Zero Tolerance Policy Toward Any Who Point out Systemic Problems—Confrontation of individuals for their sin is occasionally acceptable (“Sister Jill, you should not have left your husband,” etc.)—at least in theory.  But if anyone ever dares to question the system (“Doesn’t hosting a board-breaking karate master for Sunday worship communicate an incorrect message about what the gospel is?’), that person gets blacklisted, marginalized, shunned, or even sent packing immediately (just try asking for a scriptural defense of the trend of ‘satellite’ churches)—and even that is better than how they treat the elderly members who dare to mention that they liked it better before the music was so loud.  Rather than thoughtful reflection on such questions, there is very commonly the execution of the questioner.

Tremendous muddling of the gospel of Christ—This is a powerful motivator for me.  It occurred to me that, if I stay in the Baptist denomination, my children are likely to get—from their time in church—a confused mishmash of ideas which bear very little resemblance to the true gospel.  I’ll quickly list just a few.  As you can see, there is quite a bit of overlap with my category of shallow theology.

• Faithism (trust in one’s own state of—or ability to conjure up—belief)
• Legalism (merit earned before God by means of keeping rules—or, by extension, anything else we do [self denial, charity, generosity, achievements of any sort])
• Groupism (our standing before god established by our being in the most superior group—closely linked with hero worship)
• Emotionalism (positive emotions are the substance of Christianity—or at least the most important part).  Think Max Lucado, etc.
• Intellectualism (confidence before God is derived from our intellectual status–or that of our group or group’s leader)
• Prosperity theology (discussed above)
• Liberation theology—in its various forms—is alive, well, and the entire gospel according to some Evangelicals.  This was not the dominant feature of any of the churches that I visited, but it was not usually clearly rejected.
• Environmentalism—as a culturally driven group, Evangelicalism tends to want to mimic the culture.  Environmentalism is, “all the rage” right now, and there are plenty of Evangelicals who appear more interested in being respected in the sight of the green crazed culture than in what scripture might teach on the subject.  Environmentalism is not so much a gospel as a prophecy of doom, but Evangelicals seem to be eating it up.

Where I Ended Up

These things were so prominent that I found myself thinking—as I discussed Christianity with an unbelieving friend—that the worst thing I could do, if I truly wanted him to become a Christian, would be to invite him to my church.  If my church would poison this friend against Christ, why should I expect my children to respond differently?  And, I was well aware that they could tell how perpetually dissatisfied I was with the churches we were going to.

I sincerely hope this post doesn’t come off as a rant.  I really intend it to be a lament.  I don’t even hope my words will cause others to follow me in my sorrowful walk of shame away from Evangelicalism.  I suppose I hope that, in some small way, these words will contribute to the good of calling the group to accountability.

I have at least hinted at where I have ended up.  Having been dragged kicking and screaming (John could well attest) to such basic theological reconsideration, I found the answers given by Lutherans to have some real weight.  Having come to grasp what is and is not being asserted by Lutherans in their talk about baptism and the lord’s supper (no small feat for someone who is accustomed to thinking in Baptist categories), I have accepted the Lutheran understanding of the sacraments.  As I stated in part one, that was the holdout issue for me.  Even four years ago I, with John, liked most everything else about Lutheranism (in it’s better expressions—I am told there are a few Lutheran churches which very much resemble Evangelical megachurhes) better than what I found in Evangelicalism.

I was recently confirmed as a member of a Missouri Synod Lutheran church (Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in La Grange, KY).  I admit that the problems I have described are not entirely absent from my new church.  But, so far as I can tell, they do not at this point in time predominate.  I hope and pray they never will.  I believe that my children will get a far clearer understanding of the gospel from their time there than they would at any of the Evangelical churches we attended.  Furthermore, I have good reason to think that my own shortcomings will not preclude me from membership and full participation there, and that patience and forgiveness (both of which I need in generous amounts) can be found there.

KWR

Nearly four years ago now, John published a post titled “Why I Became a Lutheran“. In that post John gave seven positive characteristics of Lutheranism as justification for his decision. My response at the time was that I mostly agreed with—and even applauded—every one of them with the exception of sacramental theology. I reasoned that the good things which he attributed to Lutheranism (with the one exception) were not excluded by Baptist theology, so a person would not necessarily have to turn to Lutheranism to find them. Sacramental theology was (and probably always will be) the issue of substantive disagreement between the two camps. I felt that John should state his rejection of the Baptist denomination in terms of things about Baptist theology with which he had bona fide disagreement.

Though I believe I was right about the central theological differences between Baptist and Lutheran theology, I have come, in the past four years to see that it was naive of me to insist that the discussion of differences be restricted to overtly stated theological principles. Looking back on it, I think that part of John’s point was that, however compatible the things he mentioned are with Baptist theology per se, they were—for all he could tell—completely absent from those churches, etc. which hold to Baptist doctrine (this would include the vast majority of Evangelical churches in this country). I think it would be fair to say that, for John, becoming convinced of sacramental theology sealed the deal; but he had already largely given up on Baptists/Evangelicals. That is where we differed; though I similarly lamented many of the problems in Evangelicalism, I was not then prepared to give up on it. Perhaps loyalty is a good thing in many ways, but I have a tendency to take it too far. Sometimes when wisdom would tell us to cut our losses, loyalty can make us refuse to listen. That, I believe, is often the case for me. I’ll very briefly describe what I mean.

After over a decade of schooling in preparation for a career as an Evangelical pastor/scholar, I decided (for reasons not entirely related to this discussion) that I should not continue on the path toward ministry as a profession. I still had a strong commitment to the gospel (and to my Baptist theology), so I went about the business of trying to find my place as a layman in a Baptist church. So began another seven years of painful, discouraging, heart-breaking, searching. I started in Southern Baptist churches because that is the denomination of which I had been a part for some years. They were shallow as ever. I moved on to trying other Baptist churches—ranging from the mid-left to the right of the Baptist wing of Evangelicalism. In utter loneliness and frustration, I started broadening the scope of my search a bit. I tried a Sovereign Grace church (Calvinist Charismatic), an Evangelical Free church, a Bible ‘Chapel,’ a PCA church, a MacArthurite (What else can you call them?) church, and some others. These churches varied a bit regarding which issue (or issues) they considered the most important; they also varied with regard to the egregiousness of their overall silliness (some mildly irreverent, others downright blasphemous). But the commitment to an authoritarian yet populist, silly yet aggressive, and thoroughly popularity-minded sort of Christianity (that is a vague description. Don’t take it too seriously for the moment; I’ll explain a little more later) was always there.

Forthright critique of problems (my default personality) failed abysmally (it turns out people don’t like to be told they are missing the mark), so I tried to fade into the background. This is not an easy thing for me to do, but I tried very hard—and succeeded in many respects. I was willing to stop proclaiming that I would not sell my soul, and I was even willing to refrain from critiquing their calls to do so. But I found that Evangelicals are not satisfied even with that. Silent dissent from them is not an option; they will tolerate nothing less than enthusiastic capitulation to their every fancy.

Of course I know that I have only scratched the surface of Evangelicalism. I could continue to cast my net farther and wider–clinging to the hope that there must be a church out there which is more concerned with the gospel than the impressiveness of the building, the pastor’s popularity factor, the number in attendance, the size of the take (i.e.offering), etc. AND which would put up with imperfect and even annoying people (like me).

The problem is that I have been searching for the better part of a decade for such a place, and I have yet to find a church that ranks well in either category (seriousness about the gospel or willingness to tolerate someone like me—whose ineptitude in social politics is legendary). During that time, my son has gone from being an infant to being 10 without ever having a solid church background because I have been continually searching, always clinging to the hope that somewhere out there in the Evangelical circus was a church that I could stomach and that would be willing to tolerate me.

My loyalty is officially broken. I have decided that it is time to give up on that utterly fruitless search. Way too much of my kids’ childhood has been consumed by this search, and I cannot any longer justify my insane refusal to give up hope. I felt that, though I might never find the right answer, I couldn’t do much worse for my kids than Evangelicalism. Perhaps the teachings of wherever I ended up would turn out to be wrong, but I doubted that it could get much worse than Evangelicalism. I wanted my kids to have the gospel and to know Christ. I had thought that Evangelicalism was the only place to find what I was looking for, but I have since been driven to conclude that Evangelicalism is a lousy place to pursue that goal.

Don’t misunderstand me; there is true gospel in Evangelicalism, but it is so often so mangled, muddled, mixed up, and overwhelmed by other junk that it’s a wonder that anyone ever finds the true gospel among all the false (that is, I think, also the condition of Roman Catholicism–the arch-enemy of much of Evangelicalism).

I could not write the kind of post that John did (i.e.”Why I Became a Lutheran”) in which he lists various doctrinal points for which he became more satisfied with the Lutheran answers than the Baptist answers. Truthfully, I was never really dissatisfied with Baptist doctrine (at least as I held it—I suppose I was a little atypical). But I was forced, by my heart-breaking effort to find a church home, to reconsider some things that I felt I had a really solid handle on. I could not see why baptism and the Lord’s supper should not be among them.

It was time for me to stop investing my life in Evangelicalism; to lay aside that insane hope that I had been clinging to for so long. Really, I was not leaving to go to something, rather I was just getting out. I was also not leaving because of a particular theological problem which I found insurmountable (there were some that were close—but, as we are all wont to do, I had convinced myself that those were petty peripheral issues); theoretically, at least, my theological positions were quite common within the group that goes by the name Evangelicalism. I was leaving because it seemed Evangelicalism had no room for me. I’m not saying that it should–perhaps it shouldn’t. But I came to the conclusion that I should not spend any more of my life and the lives of my family searching for a—perhaps mythical—Evangelical church out there which both takes real Christianity really seriously and also accepts people like me.

I am, of course, aware that my inability to find a Baptist church cannot properly be construed as as evidence against the veracity of Baptist theology. It would have been much easier for me to give up if I, like John, had been gripped by serious theological issues which put me clearly outside the group; I was not. But I had long been without any viable church options, and I could not continue to ignore that forever. There were, of course, problems not related to my defective personality. None of them by themselves—or even together—could make a conclusive case against the veracity of Baptist theology. But I think a predominance of these problems in a movement does give people good reason to question the theology promulgated by the movement. Even if I were a perfect person, the ubiquity of these problems should cause me to reconsider my loyalty to the group and the teachings on which the group is based. Note that I am not saying that every church I visited was rife with every one of these problems, but—in the entirety of my search—I never found one that was not clearly engulfed by some of them. I think it is fair to assume that any church will have every one of these problems to some degree, but certainly none of these things should dominate a church. In the next segment, I’ll try to describe them in a general way and finish the story I started here.

A young man, having asked a young lady on a date, was naturally nervous. He decided to consult his father concerning what he should do to fill those moments of awkward silence.

His father, ready with an answer, said: “Son, when it comes to conversation, all there is to talk about comes down to the three Fs: Food, Family, and Filosophy. Just remember the three Fs and you should have plenty to talk about.”

The night of the date came and so did the inevitable moment of awkward silence. Recalling his father’s advice, the young man decided to ask a question about food.
“Mary, do you like asparagus?”
“No,” she replied. “I don’t really care for it.”

With his question about food not having provided enough material for conversation, he turned to ask her a question about family.
“Mary, do you have a brother?”
“No,” she replied. “I don’t have a brother.”

Still determined to kick-start a conversation, he asked her another question.
“Mary, if you had a brother, would he like asparagus?”

And that, dear reader, is philosophy.

It seems (for whatever reason) that I’m into “nutshelling” things these days. Here’s my attempt to concisely sum up my greatest problem with Evangelicalism.

What bothers me most is that so many Evangelical leaders – and by extension their followers – are infinitely more concerned about leaving their mark on the world than Christ’s, all the while using the name of Christ to do it. In fact, being an Evangelical leader – now more than ever – means you have built your very own personal empire, and being an Evangelical member means taking pride in being a part of one.

Don’t think so? Try this…

Go tell an Evangelical pastor that a small or medium-sized church is fine, that Jesus hasn’t called him to gather the most number of people he can under one roof, and that his pursuit is idolatry. You’ll get one or several possible responses.

1) You’ll get a blank stare because he simply has no category for what you’re saying.

2) He’ll get angry and blather on with some crap about how you’re trying to put God in a box, or how you aren’t dreaming big enough, or maybe you’re just jealous. How dare you stand in the way of what God is doing.

3) He’ll deny that he’s party to any of the stuff you accused him of. In fact, he’ll probably tell you he’s not trying to build a big church, and that his methods just happen to be the same as Rick Warren’s.  He just really likes wearing Hawaiian shirts and listening to a “praise band” each week. It’s got nothing to do with building a personal empire. He never expected to build a big church. He just wanted to be faithful to God, and it sorted of happened that all of these people flocked there. No design of his, just a happy accident from his point of view.

He wasn’t trying to make an idol; he just threw in the gold and out came the calf.

What you won’t hear is an admission that Evangelicalism has a real idolatry problem, and that many of them are using Christ as a front to gain followers for themselves.

Lutheranism in a Nutshell

Because I am a convert to the Lutheran faith, I am often asked by evangelicals who don’t know much about it (which happens to be most of them) to explain what the Lutheran faith is, and what makes it different from, say, the baptist faith. I’ve found that people are easily confused about what they don’t already know. So I’ve found that I have to boil it down. It’s not easy to do. Take almost any subject and you’ll find that narrowing it down to the essentials while also communicating in an understandable way is exceedingly difficult. So in about the barest possible way, I want to state what the Lutheran faith is in a nutshell — a very, very tiny nutshell. The following five points are an adaptation of John Halton‘s excellent attempt to spell out the core of the Lutheran faith. 

1. Justification by faith alone
2. Baptismal regeneration
3. The real and substantial presence of Christ’s body and blood uniquely found in Holy Communion
4. The relative indifference of polity as defining the being of the church
5. Scripture as the only binding norm of faith and practice

There it is. Lutheranism in a nutshell.

I tried to work this out in a nifty acrostic like TULIP but all I came up with was FIBBS: 

Faith alone
Indifference of polity
Baptismal regeneration
Bodily presence
Scriptural authority 

FIBBS is no good for (what should be) one obvious reason: it implies that what’s being said is bullshit. That’s not going to do Lutheran doctrine any favors. Scratch FIBBS. It would be nice if ROSES could work somehow.

What makes this a particularly good statement is that it reveals the sense in which the Lutheran faith is both catholic (2 and 3) and evangelical (1, 4, and 5) while it also properly distinguishes Lutherans from other church groups. 

There is, of course, a lot more to Lutheran doctrine than this, but if someone makes it this far in understanding the Lutheran faith, you’ve understood more than most (and that includes Lutherans). 

If you have a question or comment about the Lutheran faith, please feel free to share in the comments.

That’s what needs to be said to secularists. But there’s also something that needs to be said to many in the Christian community as well. 

Christians are busy scrambling over questions of the relation between science and faith. While there are things worth saying about the relation of Christian faith and science, I think the discussion is set up wrongly from the beginning, and, consequently, the problem is made more difficult than it really needs to be. How so? The debate is not really between science and the Christian worldview. The reason is simple. Science isn’t a worldview. It’s not even really a “thing” itself. It is how we collectively refer to a diverse group of fields which each study some particular part of the natural order in order to understand its regularity and its processes. But the study of the regularity and processes of the natural order is not itself a particular worldview. There are, of course, worldviews that do conflict with the Christian worldview, but those worldviews aren’t entailed by science either. And if the Christian worldview has to explain its relation with science, so do the followers of these other worldviews. Simply put, worldviews are philosophies not sciences. So whatever challenge the Christian faith faces with respect to science, it is not a challenge from science itself but a challenge from alternative worldviews — many which think that science is somehow particularly on their side.

Now, of course, most atheists fit the description of those who think that science is on their side in particular and that science poses a threat to the Christian worldview. However, neither of these beliefs are things that science tells us. They’re just things that the atheists’ atheism tells us. The questions that Christianity addresses are not scientific questions. Even ‘who created the world?’ is not a question that science can answer. But Christians — even some really intelligent ones — have taken the atheistic bait and now scramble to answer how their faith is reconciled with science. But we can simply reject the way the question is setup. We don’t have to accept the premise of the question. My faith isn’t in conflict with science. It’s in conflict with your worldview, but your worldview isn’t provided by science.

But there are particular groups of Christians for whom the question of how to reconcile faith and science is more of a problem than the rest of us. If your faith is making alternative scientific claims, then, yes, you’ve got a lot to explain. You need to explain how your faith-based scientific claims square with the findings of the scientific communities (even if they are also based on a faith of a different kind). But this position you are in is one into which you put yourself. Science didn’t do it, and, I argue, the Christian faith didn’t do it. You’ve done this unnecessarily. You made the mistake of thinking the Christian faith makes certain scientific claims. In this case, you do have to tell us how your faith fits with science. Those who put themselves in this situation almost always have to get together a bunch of Christian scientists to provide an alternative picture of science from what the scientific community at large tells us. To sustain their faith, they need this group of scientists.

Now if you want to deny macro-evolution and a universe that’s billions of years old, that’s fine; go ahead. But do so on your reading of the science; not on the basis of your faith. Don’t do so because your faith has already told you how old the earth is and now you have to busy yourself and others with making the science fit. I probably won’t agree with your scientific judgments and the vast majority of scientists won’t agree with you either, but I will respect you for leaving the Christian faith out of it, and you won’t be put in the precarious position of trying to reconcile your faith with it.

I’m not saying that we don’t have to think about how to interpret the first chapters of Genesis, or whether Adam is a historical person. We certainly have to think about these questions (especially if you think that Holy Scripture is inerrant), but there are multiple legitimate readings of Genesis that are compatible with the current findings of science, and, in my opinion, these interpretations of Scripture are on safer exegetical ground than the denials of nearly-unanimous scientific claims are on scientific grounds.

Christians have already been down the road of emphatically sticking to a scientific claim on the basis of an interpretation of Scripture. It ended badly. When Copernicus, and later Galileo, (both of whom were dedicated Christians) claimed that Earth was not the center of the universe, a great many Christians rejected this claim as contrary to Scripture believing that it demanded a geocentric view of the universe. Once heliocentrism was beyond denial, lo and behold, (later) Christians found that the Scripture didn’t demand geocentrism afterall. This scene is being played out all over again with the claims of young-earth creationists. Just as many in the church tried to put Christians in the position of choosing between the clear evidence of science and their interpretation of Scripture five-hundred years ago, young-earth creationists are trying to do the same today.

Now if you want to claim that the support for biological macro-evolution is not as certain as the support for heliocentrism and hold a certain level of agnosticism about the science of it all, that’s fine. I understand that. It’s a fine position to hold. But if you insist that your interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis is so certain and accurate that you have to outright deny scientific discoveries and amass a group of alternative scientists around you to defend your view, then you are recreating the dilemma the church faced with the insistence of geocentrism. Expect the same results.

I’ll give you an example of the kind of thing I’m complaining about.

Last week, evangelical leader, Albert Mohler, delivered a lecture at the Ligonier Conference on why the universe looks so old. He ended up denying a lot of scientific claims that he simply isn’t qualified to deny. He refuses to accept much of modern biological, geological, and cosmological research. He would do better to be uncertain about the conclusions drawn by modern scientists and hold loosely to his interpretation of Genesis. He thinks that he’s holding to the clear teaching of Scripture and that those who don’t accept his interpretation are letting general revelation trump special revelation (a thing he thinks we should never do). I agree in principle that we shouldn’t let general revelation trump special revelation, but I’m not convinced that that’s what going on here. Many, such as myself, are letting general revelation have a say in our interpretation of Scripture. Mohler is unaware that he does the same thing himself. So, for example, Mohler accepts heliocentrism and reads Scripture accordingly. Why? Well it can’t be because Scripture teaches heliocentrism. It doesn’t. It’s because he’s let the findings of science direct his reading of the text. If he can do it here, why, in principle, can others not do it in other areas without him accusing them of denying special revelation? The fact is that God is the author of both nature and Scripture, and we must read them together, and in doing this the best approach is to make as few scientific claims about the universe on one’s reading of Scripture as possible.

I’ll give you an example of how I do this myself. I don’t believe that there is extraterrestrial intelligent life in the universe (‘aliens’ in popular parlance). I also think the Bible supports this belief. Scripture seems to present human life as unique and seems to present God’s relation to humanity as unique. Scripture seems to tell us that ultimately God’s plan for the universe is to unite with us here on a redeemed and recreated earth (Revelation 21-22). I believe that unbroken fellowship with humanity is God’s only plan for the universe. However, I hold loosely to the idea that Scripture supports my belief that the planet Earth houses the only intelligent life in the universe. Why? Because in the future it may turn out that there is incontrovertible proof that there is extraterrestrial intelligent life somewhere in the universe, and I will have to rethink my reading of the text. But if I’ve been busy insisting beyond doubt that it isn’t possible that there could be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe because of a particular interpretation of Scripture, then I would be forced to deny the incontrovertible evidence of alien life.

If Mohler and others want to say that they doubt that the certainty of macro-evolution and hold loosely to their young-earth reading of Genesis, then, as I have already said, I don’t have much of a problem with this. But they need to be prepared for the fact that it may not always be this way, and that macro-evolution may one day be as evident as heliocentrism. In this case, Mohler would need to adjust his interpretation of Genesis accordingly — just as the church has done with the statements in Scripture that were used to defend geocentrism. Otherwise, he’s truly created an unnecessary crisis between faith and science.

Lastly, I want to add the following caveat. Sometimes scientists will say things that do directly conflict with the Christian faith itself. A scientist claim that science tells us that a dead man cannot rise to life. However, the simple fact is that genuine science does not and cannot tell us this. Science studies the natural order, and so no scientific research could possibly address whether or not God can raise a dead person back to life. Perhaps the most one could say on the grounds of science is that the natural order itself does not provide a means of bringing a dead person back to life. Fine. Christians aren’t claiming that Christ was raised to life naturally anyway. No problem there. In the case of something like Christ’s resurrection, we don’t have to hold loosely to our claim that Christ rose bodily from the dead. So should a scientist claim that science tells us that Christ can’t rise from the dead, we need only respond that the scientist has stopped doing science at this point and is now spouting his philosophy. But when it comes to the findings of genuine science, we don’t need to fear that the Christian worldview is at stake.

What I’m calling for ultimately is that when it comes to the teachings of Scripture that generally deal with the same issues as scientific research we should be careful to recognize that our interpretation of what Scripture teaches may be defeasible by the findings of science. In the meantime, we should hold loosely to these interpretations, be prepared to modify them, and enjoy knowing that the Christian faith itself doesn’t face a conflict with science.

Martin Luther

There are several reasons why this argument won’t work, but I’ll point out one of the most straightforward. Its claims about the Reformation just aren’t true. The Protestant Reformers (even the most radical of them, such as Muntzer) were concerned to get back to the doctrines and practices of New Testament apostolic tradition. They were not attempting to disagree with what the apostles wrote. They were trying to follow it. On the other hand, those who openly and admittedly regard Scripture to be in unintentional error in a variety of ways are not pushing for the church to return to its authority. Quite the contrary, they want the church to see the errors they see. The motivation of those in the Reformation was the authority of the original tradition. They believed that the Roman Catholic church had departed from it. Thus, the point of disagreement was not over whether to follow tradition or not to follow it. Rather, it was a disagreement about what the tradition was. If I’m convinced that the original tradition of the apostles says one thing and that a thousand years of Catholic teaching and practice contradicts it, which tradition am I to follow? Now my point here is not to assess what a Reformer should do in this case. I’m only pointing out that aligning with the tradition of Jesus and the apostles was the concern of all Reformers. The same is not true for those who are pointing out what they think are the errors of the apostolic tradition.

Luther and Calvin may have intended to return to the tradition of the apostles, but in doing so they faced another challenge: if this is what the apostles said, then haven’t the subsequent generations of the church read the apostles as you do all these years? Both were regularly met with the criticism of thinking that their interpretation was right and everyone else for 1,500 years was wrong. How could they be so arrogant as to think that? Did everyone really miss justification by faith alone for 1,500 years?

John Calvin

Neither Luther nor Calvin took this charge lightly. Unlike most who cite Luther and Calvin in order to defend their own novelty, both of them thought that teaching contrary to a unified doctrine of church tradition was a problem. They flatly rejected the charge that their interpretations were novel. Luther frequently cited Augustine and theologians in the Eastern church to support many of his interpretations. And Calvin, being the more knowledgable of the two about church history, continuously cited many theologians from the patristic era. They concluded that their interpretation of Scripture was a return not only to the New Testament apostolic tradition but also to the teachings of the church fathers. With this idea, they turned the tables on their accusers. As they saw it, they had not departed from church tradition; the Roman Catholic church had. Now, even if you think their conclusion was wrong, at the very least, you have to acknowledge that what they weren’t saying was: “Orthodoxy be damned! Full steam ahead! Look how heroic we are! This is just like when people called Jesus a heretic.”

Read carefully this quote from John Calvin in his response to Sadoleto’s challenge that he was denying what the church had always taught. You won’t find Calvin talking about those brave men before him who nobly rejected orthodoxy. Instead you find Calvin as the one who brands the Catholic church as the one who has — in spite of what it claims — abandoned orthodoxy.

Will you obtrude upon me, for the [Roman Catholic] Church, a body which furiously persecutes everything sanctioned by our religion, both as delivered by the oracles of God, and embodied in the writings of the holy Fathers, and approved by ancient Councils? Where, pray, exist among you any vestiges of that true and holy discipline which the ancient bishops exercised in the Church? Have you not scorned all their institutions? Have you not trampled all the canons under foot (A Reformation Debate: John Calvin and Jacopo Sadoleto, ed. John C. Olin [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1966], 63).

Perhaps I’ve gone a little overboard in making this point when what I mostly want to say is that I’m thankful that Kenton Sparks doesn’t take this common approach. He seems genuinely concerned about the question of whether his claims that Scripture contains unintentional errors stands in continuity with what great figures of church history have said about Scripture. In other words, he’s concerned with whether he’s really the one who’s out of sync with historic orthodoxy. Sparks views his work as only an extension of the methods of many great theologians in history. He argues that inerrancy hasn’t been a widespread historical teaching of the church. Numerous great and admired theologians of the past have claimed that the Scripture erred in what it said. Sparks believes that while he goes farther than those of the past, he is continuing their work. He writes,

The accommodation theology of the Church Fathers and Calvin holds that Scripture is God’s word expressed by human beings and that, where errors exist, these are not God’s but rather his accommodation or condescension to the finite, fallen human condition. If we then set to one side these instances of accommodation, we can embrace the rest of Scripture as truth that leads to a coherent understanding of God and God’s voice.

He repeatedly cites John Calvin’s commentary on Genesis in an attempt to show that his view of Scripture is historical. Under the heading “The Tensions Between Scripture and Observation”, Sparks writes,

A long-known example appears in Genesis ch. 1, where God is said to create a “firmament” or “expanse” in the sky to hold back the waters above it (see Gen 1:6-8). As the great Christian exegete John Calvin said long ago, “it seems impossible and opposed to common sense that there are waters above the heavens.” Calvin admitted, nevertheless, that this is what the text says. He further concluded that this was not correct and probably reflected how ancient, uneducated Israelites understood the structure of the cosmos. His surmise has turned out to be right, since ancient texts and pictures discovered by modern scholars confirm that all of Israel’s neighbors—even the advanced societies of Egypt and Mesopotamia—believed that there were waters above the heavens … The sky is blue because there is water up there. [Bold emphasis mine]

In support of his claims about Calvin’s views on the firmament, Sparks cites Calvin’s commentary on Genesis 1:6-8. As I read Sparks claim that Calvin “concluded that this [Genesis' teaching on the firmament] was not correct”, I had to see for myself. Below is the entire section of Calvin which Sparks cites. Read if you like. Otherwise, you can take my word for it in what follows.

The work of the second day is to provide an empty space around the circumference of the earth, that heaven and earth may not be mixed together. For since the proverb, ‘to mingle heaven and earth,’ denotes the extreme of disorder, this distinction ought to be regarded as of great importance. Moreover, the word rakia comprehends not only the whole region of the air, but whatever is open above us: as the word heaven is sometimes understood by the Latins. Thus the arrangement, as well of the heavens as of the lower atmosphere, is called rakia without discrimination between them, but sometimes the word signifies both together sometimes one part only, as will appear more plainly in our progress. I know not why the Greeks have chosen to render the word stereooma, which the Latins have imitated in the term, firmamentum; for literally it means expanse. And to this David alludes when he says that ‘the heavens are stretched out by God like a curtain,’ (Psalm 104:2.) If any one should inquire whether this vacuity did not previously exist, I answer, however true it may be that all parts of the earth were not overflowed by the waters; yet now, for the first time, a separation was ordained, whereas a confused admixture had previously existed. Moses describes the special use of this expanse, to divide the waters from the waters from which word arises a great difficulty. For it appears opposed to common sense, and quite incredible, that there should be waters above the heaven. Hence some resort to allegory, and philosophize concerning angels; but quite beside the purpose. For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. Here the Spirit of God would teach all men without exception; and therefore what Gregory declares falsely and in vain respecting statues and pictures is truly applicable to the history of the creation, namely, that it is the book of the unlearned. The things, therefore, which he relates, serve as the garniture of that theater which he places before our eyes. Whence I conclude, that the waters here meant are such as the rude and unlearned may perceive. The assertion of some, that they embrace by faith what they have read concerning the waters above the heavens, notwithstanding their ignorance respecting them, is not in accordance with the design of Moses. And truly a longer inquiry into a matter open and manifest is superfluous. We see that the clouds suspended in the air, which threaten to fall upon our heads, yet leave us space to breathe. They who deny that this is effected by the wonderful providence of God, are vainly inflated with the folly of their own minds. We know, indeed that the rain is naturally produced; but the deluge sufficiently shows how speedily we might be overwhelmed by the bursting of the clouds, unless the cataracts of heaven were closed by the hand of God. Nor does David rashly recount this among His miracles, that God layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters, (Psalm 104:31 and he elsewhere calls upon the celestial waters to praise God, (Psalm 148:4.) Since, therefore, God has created the clouds, and assigned them a region above us, it ought not to be forgotten that they are restrained by the power of God, lest, gushing forth with sudden violence, they should swallow us up: and especially since no other barrier is opposed to them than the liquid and yielding, air, which would easily give way unless this word prevailed, ‘Let there be an expanse between the waters.’ Yet Moses has not affixed to the work of this day the note that God saw that it was good: perhaps because there was no advantage from it till the terrestrial waters were gathered into their proper place, which was done on the next day, and therefore it is there twice repeated (Commentary on Genesis, Volume 1; Chapters 1-23, edited and translated by John King. [ Banner of Truth Trust: reprinted 1975]).

I’ve read this numerous times and keep coming to the same conclusion: Calvin simply doesn’t say that the teaching of Scripture is incorrect. It just isn’t there. To assert, on the basis of this statement, that Calvin believed that the Scripture made false claims is nothing short of sloppy historical reporting. It is a blatant misappropriation of sources to favor his viewpoint. Unfortunately, this is not the only misuse of church historical figures in Sparks, though it is perhaps the most egregious.

Sparks rightly notes that Calvin considers the passages on the firmament to be accommodative language. But there’s nothing about accommodative language that implies or entails error. The very nature of divine speech in human words is accommodation, but that doesn’t mean that it therefore errs in what it says. If you’ve ever spoken to a child you know something about accommodation. You know that there’s a way to accommodate to children that involves speaking falsehood, but there’s also a way to be entirely truthful while still accommodating to their level of intelligence and language skill. When a child asks where babies come from, you can accommodate with a lie by telling them that a stork brings the baby to the parents, or you can accommodate by telling them the simple-but-ultimately-unsatisfying truth that babies grow in a mommy’s tummy. This latter statement is accessible to most children who would ask the question, and yet, it is entirely true. In the above quote, it is clear enough that Calvin’s claim is that Scripture is accommodating in the latter sense, but Sparks thinks Calvin holds that Scripture accommodates in the former sense — accommodation with error.

Toward the end of our quotation, Calvin makes it clear that he thinks Moses is simply talking about the water that forms in the cloud. Calvin acknowledges, of course, that Moses doesn’t use scientific speech to describe it, but the statements he makes are nevertheless true. As he states, “Since, therefore, God has created the clouds, and assigned them a region above us, it ought not to be forgotten that they are restrained by the power of God, lest, gushing forth with sudden violence, they should swallow us up: and especially since no other barrier is opposed to them than the liquid and yielding, air, which would easily give way unless this word prevailed, ‘Let there be an expanse between the waters.’” Here Calvin agrees with the statement in Genesis. Contrary to what Sparks claims, he does not say that this view is incorrect.

There are other examples from church historical figures that Sparks uses in hopes of showing that his view is continuous with the past. However, like the Calvin example, they simply do not work. For example, he tells us that “[John] Wesley admitted the possibility that the two genealogies of Jesus—in Luke and Matthew—were contradictory because the biblical authors consulted errant Jewish genealogies. Many other uses of ‘accommodation’ appear in the biblical interpretation of the early Fathers of the Church.” Given his clear mishandling of Calvin, I won’t just assume that he accurately presents Wesley here. Unfortunately, I can’t follow up on this statement, since Sparks fails to cite a source for his use of Wesley. Nevertheless, supposing that Wesley said what Sparks says he did, it’s not very consequential for his project of showing that church history is on his side. It would hardly serve to support the kind of thorough continuity that Sparks thinks he has with the past. So you’ve got Wesley. Fine. Now what?

Sparks is right to think that a lack of historical sources to support his view point is a problem. However, he ultimately can’t escape this problem, and in his vain attempt to do so, he mishandles several important parts of the history of the church.

I recently read an article in The Guardian  by Terry Sanderson who claimed:

I look at it this way. If science disappeared from human memory, we would soon be living in caves again. If theology disappeared from human memory, no one would notice. Theology is a completely and utterly useless pursuit. It is self-indulgence of the first order.

This kind of assertion is, no doubt, convincing to many. It’s easy to see the benefits of science: modern medicine, improvements in transportation and communication. The list could go on. Theology, on the other hand, seems far less consequential to modern life, if not outright irrelevant. I suspect that if you were to survey westerners, the percentage of people who would choose science over theology would be in the high nineties. The numbers would likely be quite similar among Christians as well. But this survey wouldn’t reveal that science is better for society than theology. It would only reveal an ignorant perception about science that is popular in western culture. This perception, however, betrays a misunderstanding of both science and theology. The dichotomy created by Sanderson is a false one. The choice between science or theology isn’t a real choice. We wouldn’t have science without theology, and we won’t continue to have the benefits of science long without it.

According to Sanderson, without science we’d end up living in caves, and without theology, society would move along unchanged. But, there are several ways for us to all end up in caves: the way Sanderson mentioned, by forgetting science; and by using science. It’s interesting that in every film in which all of human society collapses, it’s never because society forgot science. It’s always because of we used science to destory ourselves. It’s always because of science, not the lack of it. Humans do not merely appreciate what science has done for them, they also fear what science can do to them. And rightly so. Science can neither guarantee its own progress nor its positive use. Whether science is used for good or for evil, and whether it progresses or regresses cannot be determined by any scientific study. Science is no more inclined to work toward human benefit than it is toward human destruction. Sanderson thinks the thing that he values is pure science, but he’s confused. What he really values is the good things for which scientific study has been used. However, were science to be used to bring about things he didn’t like (and it certainly can be), he’d curse it and wish for its demise as much as he does theology.

He naïvely believes that science would continue to be used for good in the absence of theology, but he’s only mistaken science with the good things for which science has been used. Science itself can’t guarantee that it will be used for good things. The only thing that can do this is a particular world view context which encourages both good uses for science and scientific development. Whether he knows it or not, what Sanderson actually values is the world view and not the science, since science has no inherent value. It is a world view that has delivered the good uses for science rather than the evil ones and not science itself. And what world view is it that does this? It’s the same world view that delivered science in the first place: the Judeo-Christian world view in general, and the Christian worldview in particular. Science is almost entirely the product of western culture, and the part of western culture is largely the product of Christianity. My claim is that Christian theology is more than just compatible with science. It is the primary system of belief which has motivated scientific study and made it possible both historically and ideologically, and thus one isn’t allowed to choose to let go of theology from social memory while still holding onto science.

 The great achievements and discoveries in science were not the product of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or secular cultures. Secularism likes to co-opt science as it’s accomplishment, but the history of science just doesn’t support this agenda. We owe the existence of science largely to a host of Jewish and Christian scientists. Science grew out of the belief that God created an orderly and understandable world, that he gave us kingly dominion over the world in order that we may serve it, care for it, and develop it. It was made for God’s glory and as we learn about the wonders of God’s world we can praise him for what he has done. Before this world view came on the scene, humankind was busy thinking of the parts of nature as either gods, or the whimsical behavior of the gods. They worshiped it in an attempt to appease the gods rather than studied it as the handiwork of a creator who exists outside of his creation.

The modern scientific view of nature seems so obvious to us now, but what is obvious to us wasn’t at all obvious before. It came about through careful thought, and careful experimentation. It developed gradually, with various people filling in the picture little by little over centuries. Sanderson is ignorant of how science got to the point where he appreciates it. He starts the story in the present, where we already have science that delivers us modern medicine and iPods. He seems to think of contemporary science as an inevitable part of our destiny. It was not inevitable. There are still civilizations of millions of people who have existed for thousands of years and they’re still busy worshiping the Sun, thinking that thunder is the anger of a god or gods, and they dance to get it to rain. Science hasn’t occurred to them and it didn’t have to occur to us. In fact, from what I can tell, if his world view of Chaos and Old Night had had its way, science would have never existed. Without Christian theology in which it grew, there’s a fairly good chance he’d view of nature as the ancients did.

A man (Sanderson, in this case) living in the twenty-first century telling us that we don’t need Christian theology when we’ve got science is like an arrogant teenager telling us that he never needed his parents since he already exists and can provide for himself. And just how does he think he got here, and how did he come to be able to provide for himself? Actually Sanderson’s statement is worse. It may well be true that the teenager has reached a point of idependence from his parents, but science hasn’t reached this kind of independence from theology.

In the twentieth century, we were only given a glimpse of the evil for which science can be used to perpetrate on the human race (Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, to name a few). Outside of the theological context which motivated science in the first place to pursue the things which Sanderson likes, science can become the bain of human existence, an embarrassing example of the danger we pose to ourselves when we think that we can despense with theology. The same goes for scientific advancement. The kind of advancement we’ve seen is parasitic on a culture that values aggressive academic study, curiosity, creativity, and self-motivation. Right now scientific practice and research enjoys living in the afterglow of belief in orthodox Christian theology which proved that it could deliver on what is necessary for scientific progresss. But everyone of these qualities is on the decline in western culture that increasingly despises Christian theology, and the progress we assume will continue could easily screech to hault in future generations. Furthermore, aggressive scientific study is depenedent upon economic strength, and economic strength is dependent upon personal responsibility and trust of one’s neighbor. Once again, western culture has thrived economically under the values of Christian theology, but where these decline, so will scientific progress.

Ultimately, we can’t chose between science and theology because we can’t have science in the way we appreciate without theology. And where we have a rich theological tradition, it yields a fruitful science that benefits humankind…even those like Sanderson who want to despense with the the very theology which science needs.

INTRODUCTION

Is God guilty of lying if He is responsible for the production of the Scriptures and the Scriptures contain errors? This seems to be the major question that arises when I discuss inerrancy with many Evangelicals. In those discussions it is assumed, almost without question, that God would be guilty of lying if the Scriptures contained errors. This claim rests on an assumption about the nature and extent of inspiration (i.e. it assumes verbal plenary inspiration or something like it). I want to explore the conditions under which there could be errors in Scripture and God’s perfect moral character remain in tact.

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

Before proceeding, I should note a few things that I take for granted and don’t plan on defending.

1. The Scriptures are not explicitly clear about the nature and extent of inspiration. That is, we are told that the authors of Scripture were “moved along by the Holy Spirit”, etc. (2 Peter 1:21) but it isn’t clear that that means anything more than God is responsible for the production of the Scriptures. We aren’t told that God intended for every word found in the Bible (including the authographa) to be there.
2. I understand inspiration to extend to the biblical authors insofar as it was necessary to preserve the communication of God’s will to the world.

MOTIVATING INERRANCY

There are 3 major concerns which motivate many Evangelicals to affirm inerrancy. They are as follows:

1.) Many are concerned to protect the orthodox doctrine of God (e.g. God can’t be a liar, lack omniscience, omnipotence, etc).

2.)Many claim that if we don’t have an inerrant text then we can’t have certainty about what God wants for His people.

3.)Many are concerned that denying inerrancy necessarily leads to theological liberalism.

I will only deal with concern #1 in this post. I hope to post on concerns #2 and #3 in a later post.

PROTECTING GOD’S CHARACTER

In order to illustrate how God can be responsible for the production of errant Scriptures while not being open to the charge of moral imperfection, consider the following scenario. Imagine that George gives Joel the task of writing a report about a group of people in Room A on Sunday. George is interested that Joel communicates in his report that the number of people in Room A on Sunday is greater than the number of people in that room on Saturday—we’ll call George’s intent/meaning (m). The report must include (m). However, George doesn’t specify just how Joel must communicate (m). Imagine further that George influences Joel in such a way that Joel won’t communicate anything that contradicts (m). In this situation it is plausible that Joel successfully communicates (m) even if he makes a mistake about the number of people in Room A on Sunday.

For example, Joel might communicate in his report that there were 25 people in Room A on Sunday when in fact there were 20 people in the room. However, if there were only 15 people in Room A on Saturday then Joel has successfully communicated the meaning/intent that George wanted him to communicate. That is, has Joel has communicated that the number of people in Room A on Sunday is greater than the number of people in Room A on Saturday.

There is reason to doubt that George has necessarily done something morally wrong simply because Joel makes a mistake in his report. Even if Joel intended to give an accurate/exact account of the number of people in Room A it doesn’t follow that he was lying if he fails. There is an obvious difference between being mistaken about something and lying about that thing. Also, Joel can fail with respect to his own intention but not fail with respect to George’s intention. George only influenced Joel in such a way that he would communicate (m) and not communicate anything which contradicts (m)—he didn’t specify the way in which Joel must communicate (m). It is hard to imagine that George has done anything morally wrong simply because Joel makes an error. After all, Joel made no error with respect to (m). He only made an error in some accident of his report which he used to communicate (m). What George wanted accomplished was accomplished. By limiting George’s influence (inspiration) on Joel’s report, we also limit certain responsibilities he might have with respect to that report. This seems to be a desirable outcome given the fact that the Scriptures have both a divine and human authors. It isn’t clear to me that we should charge George with a moral offense.

Let’s imagine that George goes around telling people that Joel’s report is reliable. Would he be guilty of lying if he did such a thing? The answer will depend on what George means by reliable. If all he means is that Joel’s report successfully communicates (m)—that is, it communicates that the number of people in Room A on Sunday exceeds the number of people in Room A on Saturday—then George isn’t guilty of lying. If one doesn’t presuppose that George means that Joel’s report is reliable in every way that a report could be reliable then there is no reason to suspect George is lying or suffering from some sort of intellectual malfunction. Likewise, if one doesn’t presuppose verbal plenary inspiration then one doesn’t run into the problem of implicating God’s perfect moral character (or making Him out to be intellectually deficient) if certain errors turn up in Scripture.

One major concern we end up facing is this: Do errors reduce the historical reliability of the Scriptures? I think we must answer “yes”. However, they need only affect the historical reliability of those parts/events of Scripture in which or about which the errors occur. For example, we have in Acts 1 and Matthew 27 two different accounts of Judas’ death. In this situation it seems that we don’t have a clear understanding of exactly how Judas died. Accepting that the Scriptures aren’t historically reliable in certain places doesn’t mean that they aren’t, on the whole, reliable. The bible has (probably) been scrutinized more than any other book in history and the general consensus amongst scholars isn’t that it is mostly unreliable.

(I can’t give a principled account of how many errors should be allowed before the Scriptures as a whole are considered historically unreliable.)

I am often asked how we can determine which parts are historically reliable and which parts are those in which the historical facts present in the text just are the message being communicated. I suggest that we stick with sound reasoning, good exegesis, and historical research. This is how we mine out the meanings that are in Scripture regardless of its inerrancy. What other option do we have?

CONCLUSION

As stated earlier, I do not think the Scriptures are explicitly clear on the nature or extent of inspiration. So, I feel free to adopt an understanding of inspiration that escapes some of the difficulties of the verbal plenary approach.

This is just the first of three posts I have planned on this topic. I am aware that there are more philosophical issues at stake than I have addressed. I am happy to try to address some of those issues in the comments.