Category Archives: Evangelicalism

Tolle Lege! Sign Up and Read! (or something like that)

By John D. Chitty on | 2 Comments

With apologies to St. Augustine . . .
I got a letter in the mail today informing me of Modern Reformation’s new and improved website. There is a member side of the website for which you may register and enjoy more than you can as a nonmember. One of those perks is the entirety of every article in every issue of Modern Reformation magazine for the past several years.
A few weeks ago I blogged on the issue of Solo Scriptura. In that post, I included some excerpts of an article from the March/April 2007 issue, entitled, “Solo Scriptura: The Difference a Vowel Makes.” Back when I posted, I really wished that I could share with you the entire article without violating any copyright laws, and now I can! If you are interested in learning more about the historical devolution of the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, then do yourself a favor and sign up for free and read, read, read!
Posted in: Current Evangelical Trends, Theological Issues, Thinking About Church History

Hanegraaff’s Handy Headknowledge Helpers

By John D. Chitty on | 3 Comments

I’m currently reading through Hank Hanegraaff’s new book, The Apocalypse Code (2007, Thomas Nelson Publishers). Now I already knew that Hanegraaff is a huge proponent of the use of mnemonic devices, specializing in acronyms and alliterations, but as I was reading through chapter three, “Illumination Principle,” the rate of alliteration had become so high that I began to feel like I was reading a book by Gail Riplinger. First, though, take a look at his table of contents, in case you’ve never had any real exposure to his writing.

Introduction
Resurrection of Antichrist
Racial Discrimination
Real Estate

Exegetical Eschatology (e2): Method vs. Model
Literal Principle
Illumination Principle
Grammatical Principle
Historical Principle
Typology Principle
Scriptural Synergy

Literal Principle: Reading the Bible as Literature
Form
Figurative Language
Fantasy Imagery

Illumination Principle: Faithful Illumination vs. Fertile Imagination
Two Distinct People
Two Distinct Plans
Two Distinct Phases

Grammatical Principle: “It depends on the meaning of the word is”
This Generation
The Pronoun You
The Adverb Soon

Historical Principle: Historical Realities vs. Historical Revisionism
Location
Essence
Genre
Author
Context
Years

Typology Principle: The Golden Key
The Holy Land
The Holy City
The Holy Temple

Scriptural Synergy: The Code Breaker
Supreme Rule
Substance or Shadow
Sacrificing Traditions

Riplinger, the author of such enduring KJV-Only classics as New Age Bible Versions and In Awe of Thy Word: Understanding the King James Bible/Its Mystery & History Letter By Letter, making a case for the greater mnemonic benefit derived from translating in the inspired King’s English, generally attempts to emulate the KJV’s memorability by resorting not only to alliteration, but also to clever turns of phrase and at times resorts to rhymes (sorry, just couldn’t help myself). Here’s a sample from New Age Bible Versions . . .

“The fiery dragon, first emblazoned on the Gate of Ishtar in ancient Babylon, was to journey round the girth of God’s earth. He soon parched a path in the orient whose aftermath scorched souls from pole to pole. His fiery breath still speaks death, yet in today’s New Age, he’s all the rage” (NABV, 1993 AV Publications, p. 74).

Now compare this with the way Hanegraaff almost alliterates an entire paragraph on page 53 of The Apocalypse Code:

“As God had promised Abraham real estate, he had also promised him a royal seed. Joshua led the children of Israel into the regions of Palestine; Jesus will one day lead his children into the restoration of Paradise. There they will forever experience rest. From Adam’s rebellion to Abraham’s Royal Seed, the Scriptures chronicle God’s one unfolding plan for the redemption of humanity. Far from a postponement in God’s plans because the Jews crucified Jesus, Scripture reveals the fulfillment of God’s plans in the crucifixion. For only through faith in Christ’s death and his subsequent resurrection can God’s one covenant community find rest from their wanderings (Hebrews 4:1-11). In Christ—“the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45)—God’s promises find ultimate fulfillment. As Paul so elegantly put it, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29). [emphasis mine]

Now, I agree that it is indeed helpful to receive a memorable outline, and alliteration can help the reader associate parallel concepts. For this I do not fault Hanegraaff. It was simply the rate of such devices, especially in chapter three (so far) that got me giggling about his how his writing was reminiscent of Riplinger (there I go again!).

The Apocalypse Code, overall, is a very good book, but it seems to desperately try to tick off Dispensationalists, especially by associating Dispensationalism, Darby’s quaint nineteenth century theory from the British isles, with evolution, Darwin’s quaint nineteenth century theory from the British isles which lead to the fallacious science of eugenics and culminated in the twentieth century holocaust. Hanegraaff likewise charges that Dispensationalism may create its own self-fulfillment of their literal interpretation of the Battle of Armageddon, resulting in a future holocaust of the Jews they so mean to bless (Gen. 12:3). While the two seem to parallel effectively, Hanegraaff may deserve whatever charges of sensationalism he may receive.

Buy the book and read it. It will aid in communicating the heterodoxy of Dispensationalism to its victims, and will help lead many of them toward more orthodox eschatology. And enjoy the entertainment value eminently evidenced in Hank’s exposition of “exegetical eschatology.”

Posted in: Current Evangelical Trends, King James Version, Theological Issues

Heartknowledge vs. Headknowledge and Youth Ministry

By John D. Chitty on | 5 Comments

The White Horse Inn dealt with the topic of “Biblical Ignorance” on Sunday, April 1, 2007. Michael Horton brought up the well-worn cliché about “heartknowledge,” and the hosts had a little back and forth about it, ending with Dad Rod’s d’ruthers about Youth Ministry.

Horton: One of the justifications for laziness is often to say, “I want heart knowledge, not head knowledge.” “Oh, I don’t want to know about Jesus, I want to know Jesus.” Why is that a cop out?

Riddlebarger: Well, it’s a cop out because Jesus reveals himself to us in his Word, which requires understanding subjects, verbs and objects. It requires reading and studying. And this whole experiential thing is just a Gnostic shortcut to truth and information.

Jones: And I think it’s a false dichotomy. When we talk about the gospel message, we talk about the whole person. Redemption is the redemption of our total being. It includes emotions, but the problem is, our emotions are not just free to go hither and thither, they are governed by the Word of God. I love what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10: “ . . . bringing every thought into captivity, and casting down every high thing and vain thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity and into the obedience to Christ.” And so, therefore, even my emotions are governed by the Spirit, and that’s part of Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians, you can’t just go your own way and label that “the Spirit,” because he’s the Spirit of order as well.

Horton: I can’t say, “I have this wonderful emotional experience with my wife but I’ve studiously avoided knowing anything about her. If you claim to have a personal relationship with someone, about whom you don’t invest time to learn, then you can’t really pass off to many people in the room your interest in that person.

Jones: Isn’t that what Jesus illustrates in the parable of the talents? The servant that had so many talents, he says, “Knowing that you were this, that or the other, I did nothing with the talents.” But the master comes back and says, “If you had known me, you would have put my talents to use.” So, you thought you knew Me. And when Jesus comes back and many will say, “We did this in your name,” and Jesus will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” Or the Samaritan woman, “You worship what you do not know.”

Riddlebarger: Mike, you may remember this category, we had it growing up in fundamentalism, where we would kind of belittle the mainliners because they would go to church to become better people. So when you asked them questions about Christianity, their default setting was always, “Well, it’ll make me a better person.” Or, “I’ll learn to get along with others better.” The kind of answer that kid gave us is a modern version of that same thing: “I just go to experience God—I’m not beholden to anybody, I don’t have to do anything, it’s that cop out answer that basically lets him off the hook and doesn’t say a darn thing.

Rosenblatt: I think there are a lot of youth leaders that desperately need firing. Now, I know the parents aren’t doing their part behind it, but I’d start by firing the youth leaders. In other words, you want somebody who’s going to, because of his talents, he can do some of this, to instill the content of the Faith, slowly, methodically, however he does it, into the kids during the time he has them. I don’t mean that it turns into a monestary, I mean that’s part of what he himself sees as part of his calling. I remember when Francis Schaeffer was almost an unknown, there was a youth leaders thing at Mission Bay, and I went, and if I remember nothing else from that conference, I remember Schaeffer looking out over all these youth leaders from all over America, and saying, “I plead with you, I plead with you, when you present the gospel, present it first of all as true, not as helpful.”

My own church has been going through a bit of a transition over the past couple of months with regard to our own youth ministry. Some things that have developed I find have potential. We were told by the previous youth minister who asked local seminaries to help them find a student who is hireable by a medium-sized to small, traditional Southern Baptist Church. He was told by the man to whom he spoke that if the church is traditional, it’s going to have a hard time hiring from the current crop of seminary students, because they all want to be involved in the big, contemporary, mega-church type of youth ministry. He said we’d be better off finding someone in the congregation with a real desire to commit to working with the youth.
This is what we did. The parents met and discussed and planned and volunteered and we finally decided to have the volunteer who would lead the youth to serve primarily as Sunday School teacher, while the parents would remain closely involved in much of the activities, both teaching and social. I think this is a positive sign. Since nowadays it’s so difficult to lead a congregation to regularly spend time with their kids and teens at home as a family, reading the Bible, being instructed in the doctrines of the faith, worshiping and praying, having this kind of close parental involvement in not only helping to run the kids around from paint ball game to Christian rock concert, but actively involved on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights actually teaching the kids ourselves. Together everyone accomplishes more, especially when their teens know their parents are interested and involved.
The bottom line is to make sure that when we teach our teens, let’s teach them the content of the faith, center it all explicitly on the gospel of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then after all of that ground work is laid, then and only then, apply it to them so that they learn how to live for the Lord of the Bible, rather than the Lord of their feeble imagination borne of biblical ignorance. Remember, Christianity should never be about knowing versus knowing about, it’s not feeling versus studying, it’s not living versus learning, it’s learning Christ-centered doctrine as the basis for a life that truly glorifies God.
Posted in: Baptist, Current Evangelical Trends, Toward a Modern Reformation

Remain Stedfast and Unmoveable Even When Others Don’t

By John D. Chitty on | 11 Comments

In case you haven’t noticed yet, one of the things I like about the “Today in Christian History” enewsletter that I receive, is all the quotes that it provides from heroes of the faith. For example, the one I received yesterday quotes Francis Schaeffer on a topic that hits home with me. Here’s the quote: “‘You must not lose confidence in God because you lost confidence in your pastor. If our confidence in God had to depend upon our confidence in any human person, we would be on shifting sand.” This hits home because of an experience my father had many years ago. My father doesn’t go to church. But he is among the many who certainly do watch plenty of “Christian television.” When I was a kid I remember watching Oral Roberts and Jimmy Swaggart with my dad on Sunday mornings before Mom took my sister and I to church. My mother’s opinion then was that it seemed to work, for a while, to soften my dad to the idea of going to church. But then it happened. Swaggart was arrested for doing you know what with you know who. And it was back to square one for my dad.

In the aftermath of the Swaggart scandal, as well as Bakker’s, I heard lots of talk from the pulpit along the lines of Schaeffer’s quote of the day. It helped me steel my resolve that the behavior of Christians was not going to affect my faithfulness to God. It comes in handy nowadays when faves of mine like Hank Hannegraaff are accused of less than honorable behavior regarding his ministry’s money and R. C. Sproul’s recent problems swirling around his son (whatever those problems are–I haven’t followed it very closely for obvious reasons). Both of these men have been tremendous influences in my life, but fortunately for them and me, I’m not God, so for now, I judge them for the benefit to me they’ve been over the years and don’t throw it all away because they’re less than entirely sanctified. They may be sinners–it only takes one, but hey, so am I.

Now, I’m not a Pollyanna, but, you know, if they robbed a bank or something extreme, maybe I’d start looking for greener pastures or pray that their ministries are led by men with better testimonies, but I’ll always owe a debt of gratitude to those men and others like them for the contribution they’ve made to my theological and spiritual development over the years.

Posted in: Captain Headknowledge: The Early Years, Current Evangelical Trends

“The Baptist Version of Sola Scriptura” Revisited

By John D. Chitty on | 8 Comments

A few months ago, I blogged on “The Baptist Version of Sola Scriptura,” in which I tried to show that the Baptist tradition in general seems to embrace an anti-tradition, individualistic version of the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scriptura. I called it “The Baptist Version,” back then, because at that time I had forgotten that there was already an established nickname for the tendency, of which Baptists are among the more more moderate practitioners. To call it “The Baptist Version of Sola Scriptura” definitely overstates the matter, for those who truly embrace the full-fledged doctrine of “Solo Scriptura,” I believe, had a subtle, yet very identifiable influence on the development of the Baptist tradition. The Anabaptists were the home of full-fledged “Solo Scriptura,” in my view, and I think Mathison demonstrates this well in his article, “Sola Scriptura/Solo Scriptura: The Difference a Vowel Makes”, in the March/April 2007 issue of Modern Reformation Magazine.

Following are a few excerpts which will give you an idea of Mathison’s treatment of the subject of Solo Scriptura:

“The twentieth century could, with some accuracy, be called a century of theological anarchy. Liberals and sectarians have long rejected outright many of the fundmanetal tenets of Christian orthodoxy. But more recently professing evangelical scholars have advocated revisionary versions of numerous doctrines. A revisionary doctrine of God has been advocated by proponents of “openness theology.” A revisionary doctrine of eschatology has been advocated by proponents of full-preterism. Revisionary doctrines of justification sola fide have been advocated by proponents of various “new perspectives” on Paul. Often the revisionists will claim to be restating a more classical view. Critics, however, have usually been quick to point out that the revisions are actually distortions.

Ironically, a similarly revisionist doctrine of sola Scriptura has arisen within Protestantism, but unlike the revisionist doctrine of sola fide, the revisionist doctrine of sola Scriptura has caused very little controversy among the heirs of the Reformation. One of the reasons there has been much less controversy over the revisionist doctrine of sola Scriptura is that this doctrine has been gradually supplanting the Reformation doctrine for centuries. In fact, in many segments of the evangelical world, the revisionist doctrine is by far the predominant view now. Many claim that this revisionist doctrine is the Reformation doctrine. However, like the revisionist doctrines of sola fide, the revisionist doctrine of sola Scriptura is actually a distortion of the Reformation doctrine.”

“Part of the difficulty in understanding the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura is due to the fact that the historical debate is often framed simplistically in terms of “Scripture versus tradition.” Protestants are said to teach “Scripture alone,” while Roman Catholics are said to teach “Scripture plus tradition.” This, however, is not an accurate picture of the historical reality. The debate should actually be understood in terms of competing concepts of the relationship between Scripture and tradition, and there are more than two such concepts in the history of the church. In order to understand the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura we must understand the historical context more accurately.”

Here Mathison begins to summarize three views on the relationship between Scripture and tradition, borrowing clever labels from Heiko Oberman:

Tradition 1: “In the first three to four centuries of the church, the church fathers had taught a fairly consistent view of authority. The sole source of divine revelation and the authoritative doctrinal norm was understood to be the Old Testmanet together with the Apostolic doctrine, which itself had been put into writing in the New Testament. The Scripture was to be interpreted in and by the church within the context of the regula fidei (“rule of faith”), yet neighter the church nor the regula fidei were considered second supplementary sources of revelation. The church was the interpreter of the divine revelation in Scripture, and the regula fidei was the hermeneutical context, but only Scripture was the Word of God.”

Tradition 2: “The first hints of a two-source concept of tradition, a concept in which tradition is understood to be a second source of revelation that supplements biblical revelation, appeared in the fourth century in the writings of Basil and Augustine. . . It is not absolutely certain that either Basil or Augustine actually taught the two-source view, but the fact that it is hinted at in their writings ensured that it would eventually find a foothold in the Middle Ages. This would take time, however, for throughout most of the Middle Ages, the dominant view was Tradition1, the position of the early church. The beginnings of a strong movement toward Tradition 2 did not begin in earnest until the twelfth century.” Willaim of Ockham was one of the first medieval theologians to officially adopt this two-source view of revelation in the fourteenth century.

Mathison shows how the Reformation, in part, was a move back to “Tradition 1,” the view that Scripture was the sole source of divine revelation, to be interpreted by the church within the context of the regula fidei, the hermeneutical tradition, if you will.

“To summarize the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura, or the Reformation doctrine of the relation between Scripture and tradition, we may say that Scripture is to be understood as the sole source of divine revelation; it is the only inspired, infallible, final and authoritative norm of faith and practice. It is to be interpreted in and by the church; and it is to be interpreted within the hermeneutical context of the rule of faith.”

I, myself, wrote on the Reformation of Tradition 2 once.

Now here’s where the trouble starts in relation to misunderstanding the idea of Sola Scriptura:

Tradition 0?: “At the same time the magisterial reformers were advocating a return to Tradition 1 (sola Scriptura), several radical reformers were calling for the rejection of both Tradition 1 and Tradition 2 and the adoption of a completely new understanding of Scripture and tradition. They argued that Scripture was not merely the only infallible authority but that it was the only authority altogether. The true but subordinate authority of the church and the regula fidei were rejected altogether. According to this view, there is no real sense in which tradition has any authority. Instead, the individual believer requires nothing more than the Holy Spirit and the Bible.”

Is this beginning to sound familiar? I thought so.

Now, back to my own opinion, and application of these historical matters. It was the 1644 edition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith that complains that their movement is “commonly (though falsely) called Anabaptists.” Having adopted fully Reformed theology, including the doctrine of paedobaptism, when I compare how the Baptist tradition from its very inception, so completely embraced Reformed theology with the full scope of understanding of these doctrines in accord with “Tradition 1,” the ancient view that Scripture alone is divine revelation, to be interpreted within the traditional hermeneutic of the regula fidei. But then, when one examines the teaching of these otherwise Reformed Christians on baptism, hints of tendency toward “Tradition 0,” the Anabaptist view of the relationship between Scripture and tradition, begin to emerge.

This is what I meant by “The Baptist Version of Sola Scriptura.” I don’t “falsely” claim that Baptists are Anabaptists, I just think they took baby steps away from Reformation and toward Anabaptism on baptism (and maybe congregationalism?). That’s all. But rank and file Baptists, like many otherwise evangelical paedobaptists, have moved with the spirit of the age to embrace the modern revisionist tendency toward “Solo Scriptura.” And I think that’s a problem. Work must be, and is being, done to correct this problem here and there. That’s why I like to publicize the Cambridge Declaration of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Posted in: Baptist, Current Evangelical Trends, Theological Issues, Thinking About Church History, Toward a Modern Reformation

Dear Bloggers, You’ve Got a “Llove” Letter!

By John D. Chitty on | Leave a comment

Check out my pastor’s new website! www.lloveletters.com. Notice that he’s got a book for sale, too!

Blogging under the identity of “Christian West,” my pastor will be regularly attempting to encourage believers who read his blog to “excercise the Disciplines of Llove.” Click here to read his first post on his blog. . .Failure Is Underrated.

Posted in: Baptist, Books, Current Evangelical Trends, Personal, Practical Application

From Rasict Ruckmanism to Reformed Theology

By John D. Chitty on | 9 Comments

 

I just saw a great Day of Discovery program on television. The month of February is Black History Month. This month was selected because it contains the birthdays of both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. I’ve been noticing that Day of Discovery has been observing this by airing several of their programs which feature the contributions of great Christian African-Americans in American history, many of which I’ve seen in the past. This weekend, however, they kicked off a three-part series called Africa & the Bible. I got really excited about the first one, The Myth of a Cursed Race (at this link, you can watch the video online!). Part of the introduction of this video on the Radio Bible Class website reads, “Are all races created equal in God’s eyes? Down through the ages, some people have viewed those with darker skin as somehow less human—using skin color as an excuse to enslave and marginalize people.”
The reason I found this program so exciting was the fact that, in the past, during my sojourn in the worldview of “Ruckmanism,” I was taught this view that is among the historic blemishes that tarnishes the reputation of Christianity, along with such low points as the Crusades, Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials. The view espoused by Europeans and Americans to justify the forced slavery of generations of Africans did not originate in the turmoil which led to the American Civil War, but is centuries old, and is ingrained in the thinking of many in some form or other, to this day.
There are three books by Peter Ruckman in which he perpetuates this harmful interpretation of Genesis 9:20-28, which has been used to subjugate and generally look down on the African race. Their titles are, Segregation or Integration, Discrimination: The Key to Sanity, and Genesis: The Bible Believer’s Commentary Series. Not that I recommend your buying these books, but for your information, these titles may be found at Peter Ruckman’s PDF bookstore catalog.
Segregation or Integration is found on page 15 of the 16 page PDF file; Discrimination: The Key to Sanity is listed on page 9; and Genesis: The Bible Believer’s Commentary Series is on page 1. These writings by Peter Ruckman persuade many of his readers to adopt a racist worldview in relation to the African race. I was persuaded to believe it for a while. I was persuaded to believe it, not because I have any animosity toward black people from my own experience, I was persuaded to believe it because I wanted to believe that Peter Ruckman was a great Bible teacher. Many of his readers adopt this racist view out of a similar motivation. They’re not bad people. They are misled people.
I am thankful that before I adopted the extreme views of Ruckman, I had had enough exposure to the greater evangelical world and its way of thinking that as I forced myself to subscribe to Ruckman’s bankrupt views, I was always aware of the evangelical views, or at least attitudes, which highlighted to various degrees, the holes in his teachings. Luther once wrote that “reason is a whore,” being able to serve whatever purpose you want. For a period of a few long years, I prostituted my mind to this tragic worldview called “Ruckmanism.”
But my mind had a prior commitment to learning the truth. In my late teen years, back when I was considering the claims of charismatic theology, I determined that before I run off willy-nilly from the Independent, Fundamental Baptist tradition in which I was raised, I would first learn exactly what it is that the IFB tradition teaches, and only if they are in error, will I ever leave the tradition in which God had me raised. As I read and thought, I came to the conclusion that the strain of teaching I need to follow is whatever is the most conservative Baptist teaching that I can find. So as I began my journey toward the “right,” eventually I found myself dangling by my fingernails from the lunatic fringe clutching the writings of Peter Ruckman under my other arm. Because I considered Ruckman one of the most “conservative” writers I’d ever read, I figured his were the views I needed to adopt. So, I began the process of assimilation.
I sincerely thought I was learning the truth. I sincerely wanted to believe that I was learning the truth. But even though I wanted to believe the views of this “most conservative” of Baptist teachers, the much more reasonable views of the greater evangelical world always haunted me–the kind that respected the King James Version, but had more confidence in the modern, critical, eclectic text of Scripture; the kind who confessed (whether in a creedal, or non-creedal way) “one holy catholic (universal) church,” as opposed to my “local church only” theology; the kind who thought Martin Luther King, Jr., was a genuine American hero, rather than merely an adulterous, communist-sympathizer who wanted to unleash a dangerous “jungle culture” on this Christian nation.
By God’s grace, as time progressed, and I continued to search for the truth, the holes in Ruckman’s teachings grew and grew, until one day I had to admit to myself, “You know, if I were honest, I’d half to admit that I simply don’t believe this stuff anymore.” In fact, I can tell you the exact spot where I stood when I was finally willing to have this thought. I was mixing ink at the Reformation Station (my nickname for the print shop at which I used to work with my friend, Gage Browning, but this was before he was hired), listening to R. C. Sproul on my Walkman teaching about the inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. This was the moment when enough light had pierced the dark views of Ruckmanism that I began the process of genuine Reformation.
This is the reason I found Day of Discovery’s program, Africa & the Bible, part one: The Myth of A Cursed Race such an exciting and enlightening program. I highly recommend it. In fact, I’m about to go back to RBC’s website and offer my “gift of any amount” to their ministry, so that they can thank me for my support of their ministry with the gift of this three part series. I’m sure someday in the future I will be able to share it with others in my future teaching ministry at church. And then at or around February 23, I’m going to the theater to view Amazing Grace, the film about William Wilberforce’s successful efforts to abolish slavery in England two hundred years ago.
Posted in: Captain Headknowledge: The Early Years, Church History, Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism, King James Version, Peter Ruckman, Reformed Theology, Theological Issues

When Bad Church Government is Combined with Bad Church Leaders

By John D. Chitty on | 12 Comments

My friend, Gage Browning, frequently repeats to me what he heard from an experienced man of God, whose name currently slips my mind. If I were to guess, it was probably a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary under whom his father, Dr. Thomas R. Browning, studied. But that’s just a guess. The quote goes something like this: “Bad church government run by good people is better than good church government run by bad people.”

Anyway, I tell you this to introduce to you what happens when bad government is combined with bad people. It can cause some serious damage. Take a look at Dr. Kim Ribblebarger’s weblog, The Riddleblog to find out the gory details, and the prescription for Reform.

Posted in: Current Evangelical Trends, Theological Issues

Dager’s Critique of the TULIP

By John D. Chitty on | 2 Comments

click illustration at right to read the fine print

Media Spotlight editor, Al Dager, in his report, “Eternal Security: What Hath Calvin Wrought?” attempts to criticize the five points of Calvinism, but generally does a pretty bad job of it.
Dager first attempts to correct the definition of the doctrine of Total Depravity by writing, ” . . . This doctrine posits that man is so depraved that he doesn’t even have the ability to believe truth except that God first regenerate his spirit and then infuse the truth into him. This, Calvin got from Augustine, the most revered theologian of Romanism. But what does Scripture say?In his parable of the sower, Jesus alluded to the possiblility that some men may have good hearts:But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. (Luke 8:15)
This verse does not deny the Spirit’s sovereign work of sanctifying the heart (1 Peter 1:2), enabling it to hear and keep the word, bearing fruit with patience. Notice how clearly the element of perseverance is featured, though, in the reference to “with patience.”
Dager continues:
It is true that all men are born in sin. But that does not mean that man created in the image of God, does not retain a sense of right and wrong. Certainly there are Scriptures that allude to the evilness of man. But there are some that apeal to man’s conscience. And there are none which state categorically that fallen men cannot choose right when convicted by the Holy Spirit.

Firstly, Total Depravity does not deny man’s conscience, or sense of right and wrong; Total Depravity teaches that all that fallen man does is sin before God, regardless of its relative benefit or harm done to others, which condition extends to his unwillingness and inablility (Romans 8:7) to respond favorably to Christ freely offered in the gospel. Secondly, it is convenient to demand a proof text that “states categorically” that which he refuses to acknowledge on the basis of valid inference and the analogy of Scripture. But compare Hebrews 12:17, which, although it refers to the Old Testament narrative in which Esau, having been denied the patriarchal blessing and inheritance, weeps bitterly and fails to persuade his father, Isaac, to change his mind and grant it to him after all, the author of Hebrews, when one considers the context, seems by means of a play on words or some clever turn of phrase, to apply the reference to Esau’s inability to repent of his own previous rejection of the patriarchal inheritance, in accordance with his preordained reprobation (Romans 9:12-13). Such tears of Esau reflect Paul’s reference to the “worldly grief which produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:9). So, we see, Esau’s conscience was intact, utilizing his God-given sense of right and wrong, yet he fell short of the ability to actually repent in his totally depraved condition, in which God, in his wisdom, purposed not to graciously intervene.

Turning to Unconditional Election, Dager “categorically” asserts, “This is a term not found in Scripture, but coined as a means to explain Calvinism’s belief that no man can choose God . . . ” Does Dager deny the Trinity? The word “Trinity” isn’t found in Scripture either. But the doctrine is. In the same way, though the term “unconditional election” was not written in the Greek New Testament autographa, nor has it been coined to dynamically translate any parallel words, the concept is clearly revealed in the most detailed passage which teaches us about God’s sovereign, unconditional election. The reference is Romans 9:11. “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad (unconditional)–in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works (again, unconditional) but because of his call–” Paul in this verse, sandwiches the word election with two parallel phrases emphasizing the unconditional nature of his election.

Though Calvinists certainly limit the numerical extent of the atoning death of Christ, Arminians like Al Dager unwittingly limit the effect of it. Calvinistic theology affirms that Christ’s death actually saved sinners, going beyond merely making men savable. Al Dager holds up the typical proof text that he thinks denies the doctrine of Limited Atonement.
Limited Atonement This tenet posits that Jesus’ shed blood is efficacious only for those whom God has chosen; it was not shed for the sins of the whole world. This is contrary to 1 John 2:2: “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” The Calvinist says this means only the whole world of believers. I will deal with this also later. Suffice it to say that John distinguishes between “us” (including himself) and “the whole world.”

Since Biblically, Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice actually turned God’s wrath away from those for whom Christ died, if the words “whole world” mean every individual ever born, then this text teaches universal salvation. Neither Dager nor myself would affirm this doctrine. But this is the interpretation of this text if “whole world” really refers to every individual in the history of the world. Rather than limit the efficacy of Christ’s propitiation for us, it is more theologically sound to look for a less erroneous sense for the term, “the whole world.” May we allow Paul’s words to shed light on this? In Romans 9:24, the Apostle to “the whole world,” the Gentiles, writes, “even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles.” This wording demonstrates that it is not erroneous to see Scripture as repeatedly distinguishing between Jews and Gentiles in terms such as are written in 1 John 2:2.

The way Al Dager deals with irresistable grace is kind of funny. It seems to me that it would fit better as a challenge to Perseverance of the Saints. He swiftly passes by the activity actually described by irresistable grace to deal with what comes after one receives God’s irresistable grace. I’ll cite the entire short passage:

Again, Augustine’s influence is seen in this aspect of Calvin’s TULIP. It posits that God’s grace is irresistible to those who are the elect. They cannot refuse to believe (here’s the only description of the doctrine in this paragraph!) and to act with purity of motive and practice. But if this were absolutely true, then it would be impossible for the elect to sin. This, Calvinists will not go so far to say, but they will say that it is impossible for the elect to continue in sin. God’s grace won’t allow it. Yet if God won’t allow His elect to continue in sin, why would He allow us to sin at all? The Calvinist concept of God’s sovereignty negates man’s will, thus making God the author of sin.

You see? After giving a brief, incomplete, yet typically cynical presentation of the definition of irresistible grace, he moves on to talk about the fact that Calvinists believe that God’s sovereignty ensures that those he saves will not “continue in sin.” He then accuses God of being the author of sin because, even though he has the power of keeping the elect from continuing in sin, he stops short of sovereignly preventing sin in the first place. But Scripture teaches at one and the same time that while he that sins is a slave to sin, God does not tempt sinners to sin. Calvinism affirms with Scripture that sinners are enslaved by sin, and also denies with Scripture that God is the author of sin. This is the art and science of biblical hermeneutics. Being able to include two seemingly opposing concepts without philosophizing an explanation for it, or for denying one concept in favor of the other. They are concurrently true, although all the details remain unrevealed to us. This is how Calvinism understands Scripture correctly , and how non-Calvinist systems, get off track.
Posted in: Captain Headknowledge: The Early Years, Current Evangelical Trends, Doctrines of Grace, Theological Issues

Al Dager’s Opinion of the TULIP

By John D. Chitty on | 2 Comments

One of the recent Arminian efforts to counteract the resurgence of Reformed theology among fundamentalists and evangelicals comes on the heels of Dave Hunt’s feeble efforts, by Albert James Dager, of Media Spotlight, a fundamentalist, Pentecostal, Arminian “discernment” ministry newsletter on which I cut my theological teeth. I’ve come a long way, Baby! I was amused to discover yesterday that my beloved Brother Dager has dealt at length with the doctrine nowadays labelled, “Eternal Security.” What amused me about it was that, now that I’m a Calvinist, I get to see how Al Dager deals with the fact that John Calvin once walked the face of the earth. While I was amused, at the same time I was interested by the fact that his reason for dealing with Calvin was because he at least recognizes that eternal security is a modern version of the Calvinist doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. I was fascinated as I was reforming to notice how that the Independent Baptist Articles of Faith to which I had subscribed over the years, all contained an article under the title “Perseverance of the Saints.” I had always experienced Baptists teaching “once saved, always saved,” which seems to stray from their formal doctrinal standard in that what they preached more often resembled the easy-believism of Zane Hodges and the so-called “Free Grace” theologians, which contends that a professing believer can even fall away from the faith and work against Christianity to his grave and yet go to heaven anyway. Realizing that all modern Baptists (probably even the Free Willers) used to be Calvinists, it struck me just how little the Baptists, at least that I associated with, were regulated by their formal doctrinal standards.

I’m in the process of going through Al Dager’s Media Spotlight report, “Eternal Security: What Hath Calvin Wrought?” and I’ll try to post on an issue raised for some of my next several posts. To kick things off, let’s examine how he treats the idea of describing the doctrines of grace by the acronym, TULIP:

Calvinism’s doctrines related to Grace have been conveniently categorized into the English acronym, TULIP. These letters stand for the pillars of
Calvinism’s theology of man’s relation to God. Total Depravity of Man It would be more correct to head the acronym with a “D” since “depravity” is the primary noun, and “total” is an adjective that describes the noun. This applies to almost all the elements of this acronym which would be more accurately stated as DEAGP. But religious men, being what they are, like to make things neat for us so that we unlearned can more easily understand, and thus embrace, their theological systems.

It’s caustic comments like this last sentence that motivated me to call myself, “Captain Headknowledge.” They so despise sound scholarship when it comes to spiritual things, that they have to hold up those of us who respect it as whipping boys and spit at us like we think we’re better than they are. But it’s commitment to sound scholarship that does a better job of preserving orthodoxy than does glamorizing “Spirit-led” ignorance.

But as for his opinion of TULIP, I submit that it is “more accurately” labeled by the adjectives because the adjectives describe the distinctively Pauline, Augustinian, Calvinistic nature of each doctrine.

Everyone knows man is depraved, but Calvinists differ with others on the extent of man’s depravity; Calvinism confesses that the Bible teaches that man is so depraved that he not only will not be subject to God’s law, but cannot be (Romans 8:7).

Everyone agrees that God elects certain people to be saved, but Calvinism confesses that Scripture reveals the unconditional nature of his election of sinners (Romans 9:11).

Everyone agrees that Christ atoned for sin, but Calvinists confess the Scriptural extent (Ephesians 5:25) and effectuality (Hebrews 9:12) of his atonement.

Everyone agrees that the Holy Spirit is at work when a sinner is converted, but Calvinists confess the biblical doctrine that the sovereign Spirit’s calling (Romans 8:30) irresistably, or effectually, converts the sinner.

Since Dager agrues with eternal security, and doesn’t dispute the placement of the letter P, I will leave it untreated. Although, it is a fact that not everyone agrees on the Perseverance of the Saints, for Arminians and Pelagians teach that saints retain their salvation by their perseverance, while Calvinists confess the biblical doctrine that saints work out and give evidence of their salvation by their perseverance, relying on God alone to eternally preserve them in the faith.
Posted in: Captain Headknowledge: The Early Years, Current Evangelical Trends, Doctrines of Grace, Theological Issues

Wheeling In the Kingdom of God

By John D. Chitty on | 1 Comment

Fellowship Church goes for the world record . . .

My friend Gage usually covers the Fellowship Church beat, but he’s on vacation until Tuesday. I figured he might have had something to say about this ambitious effort to channel the energy of thousands of young people in a positive direction.

Is this what Scripture has in mind when it talks about fellowship? Perhaps some of these young Christians will redeem the time by witnessing to their unchurched friends who accompanied them to this spectacle. I’m sure that’s what the youth ministers who came up with this opportunity to “fellowship” had in mind, don’t you?As long as there’s life, there’s hope, I guess. But something tells me, it’ll more effectively serve the purpose of making a larger name for a church whose name is already awfully sizable.

Playing Marbles With Diamonds
Steve Camp

Waking up to a very different world
We’ve got mud on our flag before it’s even been unfurled
Our heroes have fallen and a leader is hard to find
The clock is running out, we’re casting our pearls before swine

There’s a whole lot more than preaching to the choir
Kneeling at the altar or paying our tithe
We’ve been treating God like He’s happiness for hire
We’ve been playing marbles with diamonds

Isn’t it a shame how His Name gets thrown around
We pat God on the back like a buddy from out of town
We thank the Man upstairs for the things people praise us for
We give God the glory but we’re happy to take the award

There’s a whole lot more than raising lots of money
Building our churches and spreading our fame
Faith is just the dice that you roll to get lucky
We’ve been playing marbles with diamonds

There are precious things of God and we must guard them with our life
Like an unborn baby’s dreams, like a husband loves a wife
May the hope of His returning, may it purify our faith
As we hold on to His holy Word may the chaff be blown away

Can we ever live up to the things that we say we believe?
Cause the world is watching, looking for some honesty
Have we been riding down a freeway instead of on a narrow road
We’ve turned a passion for the lost into a business of saving souls

There’s a whole lot more than preaching to the choir
Kneeling at the altar or paying our tithe
We’ve been treating God like He’s happiness for hire
We’ve been playing marbles with diamonds

There’s a whole lot more than raising lots of money
Building our churches and spreading our fame
Faith is just the dice that you roll to get lucky
We’ve been playing marbles with diamonds

Posted in: Current Evangelical Trends

The KJV Code Revisited

By John D. Chitty on | 3 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged on the way that KJV onlyists seek to bind their followers to exclusive trust and use of the King James Version of the Bible, just as the Roman Catholic Church for centuries enforced exclusive use of the Latin Vulgate.
In this effort, one of the goals of KJV onlyism has always been to bind everyone’s conscience to a static KJV text, making any revision unnecessary at best and wrong at worst. In Gail Riplinger’s recent attempt to do so, In Awe of Thy Word, she resorts to the use of computers, namely, the modern discipline of computational linguistics, in order to convince us that the KJV text must remain static on the basis of the results of computer analysis. This is why I associate it with fads like the Bible Code.
The modus operandi of both efforts is to put computers to work on Scripture on a sort of “microscopic” or mathematical/linguistic level in order to persuade the contemporay, technologically sophisticated generation of the validity of their respective points of view. In the case of the Bible Code, there are better ways to explain the inspiration of the Bible, so this fad is only embarrasing and counterproductive; in the case of the “KJV Code,” it’s an attempt to sow seeds of doubt in conventional textual criticism and translation practice in order to motivate contentment with the KJV status quo, and counteract any desire or demand for revision.
What precedent is there in Scripture, history or the disciplines of textual criticism or translation theory/practice for demanding a static translated text? There is none. There are anecdotal cases to which KJV onlyists could appeal, like the superstitious exaltation of the Septuagint, but these are erroneous and would prove utterly ineffective to persuade the bulk of orthodox scholarship to adapt everything to this invalid line of reasoning. Besides, radical KJV onlyists deny the validity of the Septuagint, and wouldn’t want to go there. This leaves them all alone with their novel theory.
The fact is, there is no basis in textual criticism or translation for arguing for the absolute authority of particular textual readings on the basis of the findings of computational linguistics, which examines the connotations of the sum total of the individual translation choices of the KJV committee. This point is irrelevant to the accuracy of the translation. It is nothing more than an invalid argument rushing into an academic void.
The end game of radical KJV onlyism remains the same: bind the conscience to the current text of the KJV for the mere sake of maintaining needless tradition.This is where fundamentalism fails to learn the lesson of history and repeats the mistake of medieval Roman Catholicism in adding unwarranted tradition into church practic and creates a communcation gap between the Word of God and the people of God.
Posted in: Baptist, Church History, Evangelicalism, King James Version, Theological Issues

New Dimensions in "Evangelical" Liberalism

By John D. Chitty on | 2 Comments

Charismatic preaching that uses an excessive number of exclamation points is geard to appeal to emotion. This tendency entered the Baptist world through revivalism before that. The goal is to provoke the hearers to respond in an uproar of “praise,” rather than to proclaim truth to which the people of God may respond in proper repentance, faith and adoration.

Many Baptist preachers wish their congregations would get excited and shout about the truth (much of which they continue to preach), but fear they are dulled to it, while, if my Baptist preacher friends would notice, much of the “shouting” going on in the congregations of other churches isn’t always in response to “the truth.” At best, it’s often a response to peripheral issues which have little to do with the truth. Pessimistically, I’d say much of it is in response to errors ranging from minor to major. On the extreme, there is rank heresy being foisted on Christian congregations by those who make a living knocking traditional Christianity. Most of the time, those who habitually “knock traditional Christianity” do so by belittling the foibles and failures of traditional Christians. They knock our unbiblical traditions. Fair enough. However, sometimes they take things way too far and begin rewriting Christian theology.

Case in point, Carlton Pearson.

For the sake of this cause, Carlton Pearson has sacrificed two very important doctrines: the existence of hell, and the exclusivity of Christ, not to mention the sufficiency of Scripture, considering the source of his information is the “conversation” Pearson had with “God” while waiting to be seated in a restaurant.

Read the following passage from Media Spotlight by Pentecostal Fundamentalist, Albert James Dager. Al Dager is one of those early influences which sparked an interest in me to begin searching for the truth behind Christian movements and activities in the world outside my fundamental Baptist enclave. While I have great nostalgia for him and his ministry and it’s influence on my theological thought process, and would certainly recommend some of his articles, naturally, nowadays I have quite a few theological differences with him, and would definitely not recommend all of them. Dager would probably fall well into the same category in which a Dave Hunt would be found.

Recently, I looked up his website and noticed an article he wrote back in 2005 when Joel Osteen began sending shockwaves through the Christian community by famously attempting to avoid declaring the exclusivity of Christ–the fact that one can only come to God the Father by salvation through Jesus Christ. Dager reprinted much of the transcript of Osteen’s interview by Larry King. But he didn’t stop there, he pointed out a few other “Christian leaders” who’ve been toying with the truth in their own ways in the media. These include Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Billy Graham and Joyce Meyers. But Carlton Pearson blew my mind. This guy at least used to claim to be an evangelical. But if I heard someone else preaching what Pearson preached once on TBN, I’d call him theologically liberal. Well, it looks to me like many evangelicals are no longer on what Spurgeon called the “downgrade.” It looks like they’ve already landed at rock bottom and are subsequently preaching a false gospel.

In “Joel Osteen: Another Victim of Larry King,” Dager writes about Carlton Pearson:

Then there are those who preach a new kind of universalism—called “inclusion”— which says every one is already saved; they just need to be told so. One example is self-proclaimed “bishop” Carlton Pearson, who appeared on a Trinity Broadcasting Network “revival” meeting in which he claimed God told him there is no hell. He told of going into a restaurant and declining the offer to sit in the bar while waiting for a table.

The Spirit of God spoke to me and said, “I’m over there.” He said, “Look at them drinking. The ones that are drinking themselves—you know why they’re drinking?”
I said, “No.” My quick answer: “Well, because they’re just sinners on their way to hell, glory to God!”
He said, “They’re drinking because you have not convinced them that I like them. Go over there and tell them. They’re trying to drink their guilt away. “I’m talking about the Church.You have not convinced them that we love them. You have judged them, and criticized them, and put them down, and sent them to hell. You don’t have no hell to send them to!

“They’re just—tell them my blood! They’re already bought; they just don’t know. I paid for their sins! They’re justified! They’re accepted! Tell them that I love them!… “You have convinced them—[you] in the religious world—that I don’t have good will toward them; that I’m angry, and I’m a judge, and I’m going to send them to hell! Tell them I have good will; I’m pleasantly disposed toward them!”

…I’m sitting in front of my television, eating my dinner with my new baby girl—she’s about three months old or some thing, Majesty—watching the news. The Tutsies and Hutus are returning from Zaire to Rwanda, and they’re dropping by the thou sands on the road—flies caked in the corners of their eyes, and of their mouths, and sores all over their bodies, and they’re gaunt and drawn and starving to death. And I sat there with a plate full of food, and my baby in my arms, and I said—and I’ll be honest with you, I was angry—I said, “God, how can You call Yourself God, and let those people fall like that and just suck them right into hell?”

He said, “Oh, that’s what you think I’m doing?”

Now this is in my mind, God is speaking. I said, “Well, that’s what I’ve been taught.”…


He said, “Oh, you think I’m pulling them right into hell.” He said, “Do you believe that my Son died for them?”


I said, “Yes.”

“Do you believe that His blood can cover their sins?”

I said, “Yes.” “Well, if you think they’re all going to hell, if you go over there and tell them, do you think that that would save them?”


I said, “Yes.”

He said, “Well how come you’re not on the first thing smokin’ to get over there?”

And I got mad. I said, “God, don’t put that guilt trip on me.”

I said it. I said, “Don’t put—don’t do it; I cannot save every body.”

He said, “Ex actly. I am the Savior.”

He said, “I’m not sucking them right into hell! They’re already in hell; can’t you see it? I’ve prepared a place for them.”

I said, “Wait a minute; wait a minute! They didn’t hear my message and respond to my ‘Just as I am’ song and altar appeal.”


He said, “My blood covers. While they were yet sinners I died for them. I was wounded for their transgressions; I was bruised for their”—we have not preached the full Gospel!

We don’t understand the finished work of Christ. We think they gotta all come in our way—our church, our altar call, our four spiritual laws. I don’t believe that any more. Now maybe you all don’t want me to come back, but I believe that Jesus covers sins. We are to tell them, “You’re justified! You’re forgiven! You just don’t know it! He owns you; He bought you!”


The devil has convinced you; he said “All of your righteousness is as filthy rags.”

… [God said], “Stop tell ing them to get saved, and start telling them they are saved.”


Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute now, wait a minute; they couldn’t be saved.


“What do you think I died for? You have n’t been preaching the Gospel right. You’ve been preaching your gospel, not Mine. Tell them that while they were yet sinners I died for them.”

… I said, “Wait, wait, wait, Lord, you’ve got to send somebody to hell! You know, we’ll have another Jerusalem council to try to—wait a minute Lord, some of these people gotta go to hell! You’ve gotta find a way for some of them!”

We would argue. If you found out that everybody was going to Heaven you’d lose your religion.

“Somebody gotta go to hell, God, please!”
Now that’s not the love of God in our hearts.


Speaking of sinners who consider themselves unworthy to be in a church, Pearson tells them to forgive themselves:
First of all, accept God’s love. I’m not going to tell you to stop sinning first, because you don’t know how to do that by yourself. Accept God’s love; accept His deliverance. Stop judging yourself. You see, you can’t expect God’s forgiveness if you don’t forgive yourself.5

Notice that Pearson attributes God’s Word to Satan: “The devil has convinced you; he said, ‘All of your righteousness is as filthy rags.’”


How ungodly is that? To take a biblical truth, spoken by one of God’s greatest prophets under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and attribute it to Satan. That in itself should convince us that Pearson was not hearing from God. And if not from God, then what demon gave him this “gospel”?


Pearson’s doctrine of “inclusion” states simply that we do not need to tell people to get saved; we need to tell them that they are already saved. If this were true, that would have been the apostle Paul’s response to his jailer: Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house.” (Acts 16:29-31) Why did Paul and Silas not simply say, “Don’t worry, you’re already saved”? Paul further states that God desires that all men would come to salvation. Nowhere does he, or any one else in Scripture, say that every one is already saved, and all that is needed is for them to be told about it.


I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men—for kings, and for all that are in authority—so that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowl edge of the truth. (1 Tim o thy 2:1-4)
Why is it necessary to pray for anyone to be saved if all are al ready saved? I don’t write these things in order to feel superior to these men. God knows I must guard my self from fall ing into error. Don’t we all wish that everyone would be saved? Who among the saints wouldn’t want to believe in universal salvation? But that is our humanity speaking. It is not the Spirit of God.
We do the lost no favor by suggesting to them that they are already saved, or that they can believe whatever they want, and live how ever they choose, with out suffering the consequences deemed appropriate by the holy God who created them.

Read more about the heresy of Carlton Pearson straight from the horse’s mouth–or, rather, the heretic’s own website.
Posted in: Captain Headknowledge: The Early Years, Current Evangelical Trends, Theological Issues

"And God saw that the light was good."

By John D. Chitty on | 6 Comments

 

Post Tenebras Lux Logo
Perhaps you’ve noticed over the past several weeks on my sidebar a link to a website that was in the works. This morning I checked the link and noticed they’re getting a lot closer. We’re not yet able to download anything, but we are given a glimpse of the good things to come. Just like the image at left, the light is slowly beginning to trickle in. We need a restrained, incremental approach of so much great material, because we may just be blinded by the light, otherwise.
Okay, enough of the imagery. I’ve been eagerly awaiting my opportunity to introduce you to the teaching ministry of my friend, Dr. Thomas Rufus Browning (I hope he doesn’t mind his middle name getting publicity). Dr. Browning is the father of my other friend, Gage Browning, who had heretofore been operating the blog, “Experimental Calvinism.”
Now what I’m about to say is not my merely borrowing some Madison Avenue marketing slogan, it was not focus-group tested, it’s the unvarnished truth . . .
The ministry of
Dr. Tom Browning changed my life!
But it was more indirect than it was direct. A few years ago, I had lots of contact with several members of his old church, who had the distinct privilege of being used by God to perform brain surgery on my four-point Arminian, dispensational-premillennial, King James Only, Independent Fundamental Baptist convictions.
I had looked into Calvinism on my own off and on for years before running into these guys. Michael Horton of Modern Reformation Magazine and The White Horse Inn Radio Show, was the first actual Calvinist I’d ever heard explain in detail what the Bible teaches about the doctrines of grace and their positive effect on the believer’s evangelism, but that was before MR or WHI, Horton was running his old group called CURE (Christians United for Reformation). I ordered CURE’s newsletter, and read it as much as I could, but, being a teenager at the time, the material was a little over my head. I knew this was really cool stuff, but my attention was eventually diverted back to other things. But the seeds were planted.
Years after that, I had a Presbyterian friend in the army with whom I formed quite a bond, and he worked on me non-stop, like a good Calvinist should. I gained a lot of respect for Calvinists at that time, though I was at that time resisting what I was learning. But I knew Calvinist lay people knew their Bibles and they knew theology, which was more than I’d ever seen in my IFB environment, except among the preachers to a greater or lesser degree. But the seeds were watered.
Then a few years after that, God opened the door to work with a print shop full of Calvinist bull dogs who went to Tom Browning’s church! I would walk in at 7:30 (okay, more like 8:00 or 8:30 on most days) and those bulldogs would latch onto my ankle and mercilessly not let go until the end of the work day. It was okay, because they already knew arguing theology was my favorite sport. But of course, being good bosses, they didn’t latch onto my ankle until I walked up to them and stuck it out to them, pulled up my pant leg and whistled, if you will! One of my bosses had a veritable library of White Horse Inn tapes and he generously loaned them to me all the while prophesying, “Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated!” Late in the process, Gage joined the staff and entered the group brain surgery being performed on me. After a few years of employment at what I call “The Reformation Station,” I was at long last assimilated! God gave the increase. To him alone be the glory!
My life has not been the same, since the light of the Reformation began to pierce my darkness. God is at work in my family and church, God’s truth is marching on!
Dear readers, my advice to you is to get yourself over to “Post Tenebras Lux,” partake of the teaching ministry of Dr. Tom Browning and you’ll see what adventures (not Mis-adventures) a real Captain Headknowledge can take you on!
is about to take the blogosphere by storm!
(this was an unsolicited, shameless plug for Post Tenebras Lux. Absolutely no money changed hands–however, greater faith in the sovereignty of God did change hands, and this is my way of passing it on to you!)
Posted in: Captain Headknowledge: The Early Years, Christocentricity, Current Evangelical Trends, Martin Luther, Thinking About Church History

The Cambridge Declaration of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

By John D. Chitty on | 14 Comments

Speaking of the Solas, there are a few bloggers out there wondering, “Who devised the ‘Five Solas of the Reformation’ in the first place?” I’ll direct you to one post, and you can follow the trail of links if you are so inclined.

Furthermore, since I’ve finally put in writing how the historic evangelical distinctive of Sola Scriptura has devolved in the life of many evangelicals, I would now like to not merely “curse the darkness” (if you will–Baptist readers, try not to take this reference too personally or literally) but “light a light.” I affirm the following declaration and believe the essence of its theses is vital to a genuine reformation of contemporary evangelical traditions of every variety.

John D. Chitty



April 20, 1996

Evangelical churches today are increasingly dominated by the spirit of this age rather than by the Spirit of Christ. As evangelicals, we call ourselves to repent of this sin and to recover the historic Christian faith.


In the course of history words change. In our day this has happened to the word “evangelical.” In the past it served as a bond of unity between Christians from a wide diversity of church traditions. Historic evangelicalism was confessional. It embraced the essential truths of Christianity as those were defined by the great ecumenical councils of the church. In addition, evangelicals also shared a common heritage in the “solas” of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation.

Today the light of the Reformation has been significantly dimmed. The consequence is that the word “evangelical” has become so inclusive as to have lost its meaning. We face the peril of losing the unity it has taken centuries to achieve. Because of this crisis and because of our love of Christ, his gospel and his church, we endeavor to assert anew our commitment to the central truths of the Reformation and of historic evangelicalism. These truths we affirm not because of their role in our traditions, but because we believe that they are central to the Bible.

Sola Scriptura: The Erosion of Authority
Scripture alone is the inerrant rule of the church’s life, but the evangelical church today has separated Scripture from its authoritative function. In practice, the church is guided, far too often, by the culture. Therapeutic technique, marketing strategies, and the beat of the entertainment world often have far more to say about what the church wants, how it functions and what it offers, than does the Word of God. Pastors have neglected their rightful oversight of worship, including the doctrinal content of the music. As biblical authority has been abandoned in practice, as its truths have faded from Christian consciousness, and as its doctrines have lost their saliency, the church has been increasingly emptied of its integrity, moral authority and direction.

Rather than adapting Christian faith to satisfy the felt needs of consumers, we must proclaim the law as the only measure of true righteousness and the gospel as the only announcement of saving truth. Biblical truth is indispensable to the church’s understanding, nurture and discipline.

Scripture must take us beyond our perceived needs to our real needs and liberate us from seeing ourselves through the seductive images, cliches, promises and priorities of mass culture. It is only in the light of God’s truth that we understand ourselves aright and see God’s provision for our need. The Bible, therefore, must be taught and preached in the church. Sermons must be expositions of the Bible and its teachings, not expressions of the preacher’s opinions or the ideas of the age. We must settle for nothing less than what God has given.

The work of the Holy Spirit in personal experience cannot be disengaged from Scripture. The Spirit does not speak in ways that are independent of Scripture. Apart from Scripture we would never have known of God’s grace in Christ. The biblical Word, rather than spiritual experience, is the test of truth.

Thesis One: Sola Scriptura

We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation,which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.

We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christian’s conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.

Solus Christus: The Erosion of Christ-Centered Faith
As evangelical faith becomes secularized, its interests have been blurred with those of the culture. The result is a loss of absolute values, permissive individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness, recovery for repentance, intuition for truth, feeling for belief, chance for providence, and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Christ and his cross have moved from the center of our vision.

Thesis Two: Solus Christus

We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.

We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ’s substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.

Sola Gratia: The Erosion of The Gospel
Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of our churches.

God’s grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.

Thesis Three: Sola Gratia
We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.

We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.

Sola Fide: The Erosion of The Chief Article
Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. This is the article by which the church stands or falls. Today this article is often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders, scholars and pastors who claim to be evangelical. Although fallen human nature has always recoiled from recognizing its need for Christ’s imputed righteousness, modernity greatly fuels the fires of this discontent with the biblical Gospel. We have allowed this discontent to dictate the nature of our ministry and what it is we are preaching.

Many in the church growth movement believe that sociological understanding of those in the pew is as important to the success of the gospel as is the biblical truth which is proclaimed. As a result, theological convictions are frequently divorced from the work of the ministry. The marketing orientation in many churches takes this even further, erasing the distinction between the biblical Word and the world, robbing Christ’s cross of its offense, and reducing Christian faith to the principles and methods which bring success to secular corporations.

While the theology of the cross may be believed, these movements are actually emptying it of its meaning. There is no gospel except that of Christ’s substitution in our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk in his grace as those who are forever pardoned, accepted and adopted as God’s children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God except in Christ’s saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly devotion or moral decency. The gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ. It is not about what we can do to reach him.

Thesis Four: Sola Fide
We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice.

We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.

Soli Deo Gloria: The Erosion of God-Centered Worship
Wherever in the church biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been displaced, the gospel has been distorted, or faith has been perverted, it has always been for one reason: our interests have displaced God’s and we are doing his work in our way. The loss of God’s centrality in the life of today’s church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible have come to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.

God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private spiritual interests. We must focus on God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God is sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God’s kingdom, not our own empires, popularity or success.

Thesis Five: Soli Deo Gloria
We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God’s glory and that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God and for his glory alone.

We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.

A Call To Repentance & Reformation
The faithfulness of the evangelical church in the past contrasts sharply with its unfaithfulness in the present. Earlier in this century, evangelical churches sustained a remarkable missionary endeavor, and built many religious institutions to serve the cause of biblical truth and Christ’s kingdom. That was a time when Christian behavior and expectations were markedly different from those in the culture. Today they often are not. The evangelical world today is losing its biblical fidelity, moral compass and missionary zeal.

We repent of our worldliness. We have been influenced by the “gospels” of our secular culture, which are no gospels. We have weakened the church by our own lack of serious repentance, our blindness to the sins in ourselves which we see so clearly in others, and our inexcusable failure to adequately tell others about God’s saving work in Jesus Christ.

We also earnestly call back erring professing evangelicals who have deviated from God’s Word in the matters discussed in this Declaration. This includes those who declare that there is hope of eternal life apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ, who claim that those who reject Christ in this life will be annihilated rather than endure the just judgment of God through eternal suffering, or who claim that evangelicals and Roman Catholics are one in Jesus Christ even where the biblical doctrine of justification is not believed.

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals asks all Christians to give consideration to implementing this Declaration in the church’s worship, ministry, policies, life and evangelism.
For Christ’s sake.
Amen.

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals Executive Council (1996)
Dr. John Armstrong
The Rev. Alistair Begg
Dr. James M. Boice
Dr. W. Robert Godfrey
Dr. John D. Hannah
Dr. Michael S. Horton
Mrs. Rosemary Jensen
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Dr. Robert M. Norris
Dr. R.C. Sproul
Dr. Gene Edward Veith
Dr. David Wells
Dr. Luder Whitlock
Dr. J.A.O. Preus, III

FOR FURTHER READING, SEE ALSO:
Highlights From The Cambridge Summit Meeting
An Introduction to The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, by James M. Boice
This declaration may be reproduced without permission. Please credit the source by citing the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Posted in: Baptist, Christocentricity, Church History, Evangelicalism, Theological Issues