Jack Chick Earns the Respect of the Underground Comics Industry
Rare photo of the reclusive and elusive Jack Chick
I should probably save this for another time when I’ve got more time to write all that I have to say about Jack Chick and his world famous “Chick tracts,” (see his site, Chick Publications) but I can’t wait to at least show you the trailer for a documentary about Jack Chick and his comic books and comic book-style tracts. As it relates to me, Jack Chick is one of the instrumental causes of my dropping out of Bible College. I didn’t do my homework because I was too busy devouring his comics purchased from a nearby Christian bookstore.
Anyway, the following trailer features mostly the ways Chick’s views are poked fun of in the film, but if you ever get a chance to watch the documentary itself, as I did on the Documentary Channel a few days ago, you would see how much the filmmakers and even some of the non-Christian interviewees have for his comics as works of art. They say his work is even featured in galleries across the country and I think they said it even has a presence at comic book conventions and other such forums in which such material is auctioned. Jack Chick is collectible. All you fundies out there better hold onto at least a few copies of his tracts in case you need to cash them in once the economy completely collapses!
The picture to the right was found on the site of Catholic lay apologist Jimmy Akin’s website. He found it on the church website of an Independent Fundamental Baptist church whose pastor (right) has a testimony similar to that of the “Bad Bob” featured in the Chick tract of the same name held by the author (aka, Jack Chick himself, left). If you want to read about this picture and the hand-drawn portrait of Jack Chick at the Catholic apologist’s website, click here, here, and here. They make for fascinating reading, and serve as a little background info to some things I may share in a future post when I’ve got more time.
Below is the trailer to God’s Cartoonist: The Comic Crusade of Jack T. Chick.
Oh yeah, there are a few bios you will want to read on Jack Chick and his associates at Wikipedia in conjunction with this video:
Fundamentally Reformed Radio
Bob Hayton, of the Fundamentally Reformed blog, which is featured in my blogroll, was interviewed yesterday on the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show regarding the theme of his blog, “Reforming Fundamentalism through Reformed theology.” Bod discusses the issues he has with the Independent, Fundamental Baptist movement in general, his experiences within it and as he and his brother were leaving it, and explains the key ingredient that makes Reformed theology such a draw: the gospel of Jesus Christ, not only preached to unbelievers for their justification, but also applied on a consistent basis to believers for their sanctification. The life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is the one thing that will free a believer, not only from the guilt of sin, not only the ongoing power of sin, as the believer is built up in the message of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, but also from the need for legalistic standards and divisive forms of “separatism.”
Also, ten minutes from the end of the show, you’ll be treated to my call-in question, and Bob’s insightful answer. Click on the link below to listen. Don’t be deterred by the Spanish language programming at the beginning of the podcast–Iron Sharpens Iron will begin directly…
\20100308–“Reforming Fundamentalism Through Reformed Theology\”
A Question of Chicken and Egg from John’s First Epistle
First John 5:1 reads “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.” Most contemporary fundamentalist and evangelical Christians miss the implication of the apostle John’s wording “has been born of God” as it relates to those who believe. Does this text imply that those who believe were first born of God? Does it therefore imply that regeneration precedes faith? Or must we deny this implication based on our preconceived notion that regeneration is not possible until after we make the right decision to choose to believe?
Reformed Baptist apologist, Dr. James White, has posted a short video explaining this passage in the light of the apostle John’s repeated use of the language “everyone who _____ has been born of God.” He explains that all agree that in the case of two other texts from the same epistle, 1 John 2:29 and 4:7, the apostle’s clear implication is that the action of the believer is the result, and therefore logically follows, the fact of his having been born of God. In these two passages, the actions are “practicing righteousness” (2:29), and “loving” (4:7). In other words, it’s easy to accept the idea that “everyone who practices righteousness has been born of God” at face value, and it is easy to agree that everyone who loves God and his neighbor is one who has been born of God. No one’s tradition teaches the contrary. However, when it comes to the exact same grammatical structure in the first verse of chapter five, we are told by many that we must not make the same inference that being born of God is the prerequisite of saving faith. Dr. White attempts to make the case that this is no more than reading one’s tradition into the text, rather than basing one’s interpretation of the verse on what the text demonstrably means. I agree with him. Watch the following video, and see if you, too, can agree with the apostle John that “everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.”
“Prescriptive Retrospective”: Finding Your Way Forward By Looking Back
“And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” 2 Timothy 2:2.
History lovers have to appreciate a book that charts the evangelical future by looking back on the life and legacy of a great theologian. Of course, such a strategy of turning back to find your way forward perfectly suits J. I. Packer. As an accomplished historian and theologian, Packer finds cures for what ails contemporary evangelicalism by exploring the contributions of spiritual giants such as the Puritans. So we expect nothing less than prescriptive retrospective from J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of His Life and Thought, a new book edited by Timothy George.
Christian History Blog: J. I. Packer, Man of God’s Word
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This opening paragraph of a post on the Christian History Blog is the kind of thing I’m all about. I’ve always said, “You can’t know where you are going until you learn where you’ve come from.” The state of the church can always benefit when her members learn that the name of the game is taking what was left them by previous generations and building on it–not in ways that will radically change and leave behind the sacred deposit of the truth of God’s Word (hello, theological liberalism and some emerging churches and other wayward brethren), but in ways that teach us to preserve the essentials of the faith on which we all stand (“catholicity”), while gaining deeper insight into the issues that divide us, that we might at least come to understand each other better, if not come to a place of outward confessional unity around agreement on the non-essentials of the faith.
Respect the faithfulness of past generations by allowing yourself to be guided by their light. Yes, that includes the ever-present call to be “Bereans,” always searching the Scriptures to see whether the things they taught are so.
Jesus Christ: Sinless Man/Eternal God
Get this on a t-shirt from reformationshirts.com!
Here’s a follow-up on my series of posts on “Compromising the Full Humanity of Christ” which dealt with the “heavenly flesh of Christ” heresy. In my reading through Calvin’s Institutes in commemoration of his quincentenary, I recently got to a passage in which he deals with this very issue, which he indicates that it predates Anabaptism, tying it to Manichaeism. Let’s read Calvin himself on this . . .
Indeed, the genuineness of his human nature was impugned long ago by both the Manichees and the Marcionites. The Marcionites fancied Christ’s body a mere appearance, while the Manichees dreamed that he was endowed with heavenly flesh. But many strong testimonies of Scripture stand against both (Book 2, chapter 13, section 1)…Marcion imagines that Christ put on a phantasm instead of a body because Paul elsewhere says that Christ was “made in the likeness of man . . . . being found in fashion as a man” (Phil. 2:7-8)…Mani forged him a body of air, because Christ is called “the Second Adam of heaven, heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:47) (Book 2, chapter 13, section 2).
You can read summaries of both of these sections at “Blogging the Institutes” from Reformation21.org, just follow the links in the two parenthetical references in the excerpt above.
Finally, in section 4, Calvin concludes his defense of the biblically orthodox view of Christ’s full humanity (which accords with the Definition of Chalcedon), explaining how it is that Christ’s human nature could be identical to our human nature without original sin–for Calvin, it’s simple, the Holy Spirit sanctified his human nature:
The absurdities with which they wish to weigh us down are stuffed with childish calumnies. They consider it shameful and dishonorable to Christ if he were to derive his origin from men, for he could not be exempted from the common rule, which includes under sin all of Adam’s offspring without exception. But the comparison that we read in Paul readily disposes of this difficulty: “As sin came in . . . through one man, and death through sin . . . so through the righteousness of one man grace abounded” (Rom. 5:12, 18). Another comparison of Paul’s agrees with this: “The first Adam was of the earth, and earthly and natural man, the Second of the heaven, heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:47). The apostle teaches the same thing in another passage, that Christ was sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh” to satisfy the law (Rom. 8:3-4). Thus, so skillfully does he distinguish Christ from the common lot that he is true man but without fault and corruption. But they babble childishly: if Christ is free from all spot, and through the secret working of the Spirit was begotten of the seed of Mary, then woman’s seed is not unclean, but only man’s (you can hear that from many independent Baptist fundamentalists in the 21st century–I heard it all my life.) For we make Christ free of all stain not just because he was begotten of his mother without copulation with man, but because he was sanctified by the Spirit that the generation might be pure and undefiled as would have been true before Adam’s fall. And this remains for us an established fact: whenever Scripture calls our attention to the purity of Christ, it is to be understood of his true human nature, for it would have been superfluous to say that God is pure. Also, the sanctification of which John, ch. 17, speaks would have no place in divine nature (John 17:19). Nor do we imagine that Adam’s seed is twofold, even though no infection came to Christ. For the generation of man is not unclean and vicious of itself, but is so as an accidental quality arising from the Fall. No wonder, then, that Christ, through whom integrity was to be restored, was exempted from common corruption! They thrust upon us as something absurd the fact that if the Word of God became flesh, then he was confined within the narrow prison of an earthly body. This is mere impudence! For even if the Word in his immeasurable essence united with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was confined therein. Here is something marvelous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning!
That Christ’s human nature is equally sinless and at the same time the product of Mary’s reproductive system is easily seen in Scripture. The Spirit illumined this to my understanding by a simple reading of Luke 1:35 once I came to realize the modern fundamentalist heavenly flesh view with which I was raised had to be wrong:
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”
See the word “therefore” in this verse? The former activity is the reason for the latter condition; the Holy Spirit’s overshadowing Mary in Jesus’ conception is the reason for his holiness. It’s as simple as that! Long ago, I got a grasp of the fact that names in Scripture usually reflect something of the nature or behavior of the people who bear them. In this case, the Spirit’s name is “Holy Spirit.” In short, he’s the Spirit who makes people holy. The human nature of Jesus was holy because of his conception via the Holy Spirit. And believers today are being sanctified (being made holy) by the Holy Spirit through the ordinary means of the preaching of Law and Gospel, signified and sealed to them in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
If it’s good enough for Moses . . .
Just kidding. This video was linked to on the Facebook King James Bible fan page, and I’m a big fan of Chuck’s (we even share a birthday–Oct. 4!), so I just wanted to post this. Most of what he says are the right reasons to love the Authorized King James Version. There are, unfortunately, a lot of wrong reasons to love it going around. Listen to Moses . . .
YouTube Fundy vs. Calvinism
Steven L. Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Pheonix, AZ, has a very full YouTube page of videos featuring his preaching and teaching ministry. Some of the arguments made in some of the videos, it must be said, range from the average, to the illogical, to the hilariously absurd. StuffFundiesLike featured one of the more amusing ones (view it here), but Fundamentally Reformed once posted on one I’ve yet to see topped (view it here)! Compared to these two, the one I’m posting and commenting on today is rather ho-hum.
In this video, Pastor Anderson presents a few arguments from John 6 and John 15 against the doctrines of God’s foreordination of all things (Ephesians 1:11), predestination to salvation (Ephesians 1:5; Romans 9:23) and reprobation to condemnation (2 Peter 2; Romans 9:22).
Watch the video and interact with his arguments. I’m going to be out of town over the weekend and probably have little access to the internet. If you’re not familiar with the doctrines of Calvinism regarding the sovereignty of God over all things, even the salvation of sinners, feel free to ask questions. They’ll be welcomed and answered with gentleness and respect when I return, unless one of my Calvinist commenters is pleased to interact with you over the weekend (you know who you are–this is your cue!).
Here are the passages Pastor Anderson dealt with. View them for yourself and prayerfully examine their contexts and see the sovereign hand of a God who is not merely a one-dimensional “God of love” who is passive in the face of your sovereign self-determination, but “is love” and just at the same time.
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16)
“Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him” (John 6:70-71; cf. Acts 1:16–indicating what Judas was actually chosen for).
“On” or “After”? Defending the Friday Crucifixion
Shrine in Church of the Holy Sepulchre
In case you didn’t perceive it in the light of my series on St. Patrick (which is still ongoing–stay tuned, true believer!), one of my pet peeves about the anti-traditional wing of Christianity is that they will deny the established, sound views on things seemingly for the sole reason of not being in agreement with Roman Catholicism. It may just be me, but that’s the way things look to me. One example of this is the two competing sites in Israel for which the claim is made that it is the genuine site of Calvary and Christ’s tomb. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has the vote of all the ancient churches, be they Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, what have you. Then there’s the Garden Tomb (formerly Gordon’s tomb), for which the claim was not made until a nineteenth century Protestant made it against the prevailing established evidence which overwhelmingly supports the validity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Speaking generally, many Protestants tend to prefer the Garden tomb because it doesn’t have a big, old medieval or Crusader-era church built on top of it, ruining the view.
In the realm of traditional biblical claims, the question of on which day of the week Christ died is divided between those who aren’t uncomfortable with historic, established, orthodox traditional views and those who are. I was reading the Wikipedia article on Good Friday yesterday (here’s the link), in which the Good Friday customs of various groups are outlined. After the ancient Eastern and Western groups are treated, naturally the historic Protestant customs are described, followed by a section entitled, “Other Protestant Traditions.” The second paragraph of this section reflects the tendency I’m addressing:
Some Baptist, Pentecostal and many Sabbatarian and non-denominational churches oppose the observance of Good Friday, instead observing the Crucifixion on Wednesday to coincide with the Jewish sacrifice of the Passover Lamb (which Christians believe is an Old Testament pointer to Jesus Christ). A Wednesday Crucifixion of Jesus Christ allows for Christ to be in the tomb (heart of the earth) for three days and three nights as he told the Pharisees he would be (Matthew 12:40), rather than two nights and a day if he died on Friday.
I think this paragraph does a good job of highlighting part of the reason for the debate: wooden literalism. Firstly, the desire is to make sure the crucifixion of the Lamb of God takes place at the precise moment the copies and shadows of the heavenly things are offered, as if it just couldn’t happen at any other moment. Secondly, just because Jesus used the language in this one exchange that in modern English vernacular corresponds literally to a seventy-two hour period, the rest of the Gospel references to when Christ rose must be interpreted in the light of this verse understood this particular way. Anything else is unacceptable to such interpreters. Again, the fear being agreement with Rome on something. The net result becomes that Jesus couldn’t have died on Friday because it wasn’t a “literal” three days and three nights. Only Catholics and those other denominations that retain more Roman Catholic like practices than we do would be so gullible as to agree with the Friday view of the crucifixion.
One of the most popular denials the anti-traditional interpreters make is the traditional appeal to the fact that in the first century Jewish idiom a “day” can refer to either part of a day, or the entire day. I’ve yet to hear a persuasive argument against this linguistic phenomenon out of those who hold the Wednesday view, I just hear the unbroken mantra of “three days and three nights.” In other words, it seems to me those who hold this view simply don’t want to be confused by facts because they’ve got their proof text and they’re sticking with it.
All I’d like to do is focus on the other Gospel passages that refer to when Christ would rise from the dead. They tend to fall into two categories: those that have Christ rising “on the third day,” and those that have Christ rising “after three days.”
If the Wednesday crucifixion were true, and Christ did lie in the tomb for a literal seventy-two hour period, then perhaps the “after three days” verses are preferable. These passages are Matthew 27:63; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34. Here’s the first of Mark’s references, Mark 8:31–
“And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (emphasis mine).
On the other hand, if Christ did die on Friday, spend Saturday in the tomb and rise before sunrise on Sunday morning, then this scenario is more easily reflected by the “on the third day” verses. These passages are Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; 27:64; Luke 9:22; 18:33; 24:7, 21, 46. Let’s use Luke’s final verse as an example, Luke 24:46–
“and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead . . . . ‘”
If life were simple and we could resort to a majority vote, the traditional view wins. But I know it’s not that easy. However, it is worthy of note that the time frame references that don’t explicitly reveal a seventy-two hour period outnumber the ones more favorable to the Wednesday crucifixion view. No wonder when the early church compiled the New Testament teachings of the apostles into creedal form, they used the language that favors the Friday crucifixion view:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
Love or Apostasy?
"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!"
Today’s headlines from the Daily Evangel, in the Evangelical News & Views section, includes Christianity Today’s interview with Rick Warren in which he clarifies some of the comments he made during his interview with Larry King on CNN Monday night (click on “Q & A: Rick Warren” in the sidebar). In my last post, I introduced the topic with the statement that “a couple of pastor Warren’s comments troubled me,” then I only blogged on one of them. The second thing was his announcement, as an example of what he calls “interfaith projects” (which he finds far superior to “interfaith dialogue”), that he would attend a Jewish Passover seder hosted by a rabbi friend of his, Elie Spitz. Spitz’s congregation is hosting a “community seder” (see this advertisement).
Larry King had sought a comment from Warren about President Obama’s recent comments regarding Islam in Turkey. Here’s the exchange:
KING: Obama has traveled to Turkey, first president to visit a Muslim country. He had this to say about the United States and Islam in a speech to Turkish parliament. Watch. I’d like you to comment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical, not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject, but also to strengthen opportunity for all people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: What do you think of that?
WARREN: You know, I think that’s the exact right tone, Larry. There are 600,000 Buddhists in the world. There are 800,000 Hindus in the world. There are a billion Muslims in the world. There are 2.3 billion Christians in the world. You have to get along together. That’s why I speak with Jewish groups. I speak to Muslim groups.
We’re all human beings. We have to work on issues we don’t always agree on. I’m not really into what I call inter-faith dialogue. I think that’s a lot of wasted time. I’m interested in what I call inter-faith projects. In other words, I’m not going to convince a lot of people who have other beliefs to change their beliefs and vice versa. But we can work together on issues like poverty, disease, illiteracy and things that — problems common to all humanity.
This week, for instance, tomorrow night, I’m going to a Seder dinner with my dear friend Elie Spitz (ph), who is a local rabbi. We’ll celebrate Passover together. And then later in the work [week? jdc], I’ll do Easter, which is — they’re both all about redemption. My next door neighbor is Muslim. I traveled with him to the Middle East. We’re dear, dear friends. And there’s no reason — what people don’t seem to understand is that you don’t have to agree with everybody in order to love them.
In the CT interview, Warren elaborates on these remarks:
People see me out there — I speak to Muslim groups and Jewish groups, I’m actually having a Passover Seder tomorrow night. People never need to doubt why I do what I do, even when associating with people gets me in all kinds of hot water. Jesus got into hot water for the people he associated with. Fundamentalist groups say Warren hangs out with Jews and Muslims and gays and on and on. The point is, I’m not allowed to not love anybody.
With these words, Warren blurs the lines between loving people regardless of religion or lack thereof, which is of course appropriate, and worshiping with them. It’s not hard to distinguish between the two, yet Warren seems to see no distinction. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 13:10, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” However, in the book of Hebrews, the author of that letter warns Christians against engaging in the worship of unbelieving Jews (Hebrews 5:11-6:8). To do so, according to the author of Hebrews, is tantamount to apostasy. The elements of the Passover seder, like the Old Testament temple worship, are a “copy” and “shadow of the heavenly things” (Hebrews 8:5).
I submit that it is not unloving to refrain from worshiping with those who reject the gospel, while still living a life that does no harm to them. At the same time, I find that this announcement of participating in the copies and shadows of things fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ, in the context and company of those who deny his fulfillment of them, is just the logical conclusion of the kind of fuzzy thinking Warren engages in when he calls Roman Catholics and others who distort the gospel, “brothers and sisters in God’s family” (see my previous post).
Dearly beloved, this type of activity on the part of Protestant (yes, I said “Protestant”) leaders is indicative of the spiritual decline in Christianity that I believe is linked to the kind of sociological decline reported on by Newsweek magazine. What American Christianity needs is a revival and a Reformation. It needs to regain the courage to be Protestant. I would ask you to consider the words of the Cambridge Declaration, a recent statement and call to reformation and revival prepared by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. This statement is found on my “Creeds, Confessions, Catechisms and Statements” page, but here’s the link for your convenience.
The introduction to the Cambridge Declaration describes well the state of affairs and the need of the hour. Please consider them seriously:
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.
If not a Protestant, then what?
Last night, Saddleback Church pastor, Rick Warren, was interviewed on CNN’s Larry King Live. A couple of pastor Warren’s comments troubled me. Here’s one them.
KING: OK. Do you think Christianity is slipping in America? That’s the front cover of “Newsweek,” out today. Quite a loss occurring in the Christian community. There you see the headline.
WARREN: Well, I would say it’s the best of times and the worst of times. First place, I don’t think that all of the questions that are asked in surveys are always as objective as they could be. For instance, if you ask people, are you a Protestant — and the number of Protestants has gone down dramatically in the last 30 years. I don’t even call myself a Protestant. (emphasis mine) (read the transcript here)
Rick Warren is not a Protestant? What in the world is he? I didn’t think he was the sort that claimed to be “post-evangelical” like the Internet Monk, or a proponent of the “emerging church.” Even though I spent over twenty years in Baptist fundamentalism which denied being Protestants (even though they really are) because of their commitment to a view of Baptist history called “Landmarkism” or Baptist Successionism, I seriously doubt this is the case with Rick Warren.
I searched around the web looking for an answer and the only real lead I could find was found at Apprising Ministries, a discernment ministry blog. One post carries the title, “Southern Baptist Pastor Rick Warren Corrects Martin Luther.” In this post, Warren is quoted as saying:
“Now I don’t agree with everything in everybody’s denomination, including my own. I don’t agree with everything that Catholics do or Pentecostals do, but what binds us together is so much stronger than what divides us,” he said. “I really do feel that these people are brothers and sisters in God’s family. I am looking to build bridges with the Orthodox Church, looking to build bridges with the Catholic Church,….”
It appears he’s willing to seek common ground with other segments of “Christendom” which deny the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone, because of Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone–the gospel of the Protestant Reformation. I’m sure Warren affirms this gospel personally, I’m sure he’s aware the Roman Catholic Church anathematized this very gospel at the Council of Trent and has never rescinded such a blasphemous stance. I wonder, however, if Pastor Warren cares. Here’s the link to Apprising Ministries’ category of posts on Rick Warren, if you desire to read more about his activity regarding the relationship between Protestantism and Catholicism.
Do any of my readers know any more about Rick Warren’s stance on Protestant identity? Has anyone ever heard him deny that he’s a Protestant before? I’m interested to learn more about how he categorizes himself.
Puritan Theology
The progress (or perhaps, regress) of my theological views from independent Baptist
fundamentalism to confessional Reformed theology results from my desire to get to the true roots of the Baptist tradition. Sort of a “back to the basics” quest. Essential in the post-Reformation development of Reformed theology, and even the development of the original Baptist movement, is Puritan theology. As Baptist historian, Leon McBeth, writes at the Baptist History and Heritage Society website, “Our best historical evidence says that Baptists came into existence in England in the early seventeenth century. They apparently emerged out of the Puritan-Separatist movement in the Church of England.” Several notable Puritans, like the great John Owen, renounced their paedobaptistic distinctives in favor of the emerging Baptistic alternatives, which I still contend are due to Anabaptistic, rather than Reformed, influence. But I digress (for more on the ongoing debate about an Anabaptist/Baptist connection, read this article from the Baptist Standard).
One of the Reformed podcasts I follow weekly, “Christ the Center,” by the Reformed Forum, features an interview of Rev. James O’Brien, pastor of Reedy River PCA on the Christ-centered, and piety-enriching benefits of reading the Puritans (listen to the episode here). Puritan literature is available, not only from Banner of Truth Trust, and other Reformed publishers who reprint their works, but a world of Puritan literature is also available at Archive.org, and Google Books. But to get an easy start, you or some Christian you know probably has a copy of Matthew Henry’s commentary. Pull it off the shelf and peruse it. I bet you won’t regret it.
Why Saint Patrick was NOT a Baptist, part 2: Visions vs. Sola Scriptura
On pages 24 and 25 of his book, Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History, Dr. James E. McGoldrick demonstrates that on the subject of revelation, and the teaching that would, during the Reformation, become known as Sola Scriptura, St. Patrick was not a Baptist:
Although details are lacking, Patrick’s time in slavery seems to have been the occasion for a growing devotion to God and the development of a powerful desire to evangelize the pagan Irish. The conviction that he should embrace the life of a missionary came, Patrick believed, in the form of a vision which included a voice from heaven.
I saw one night a vision, a man coming as it were from Ireland (his name was Victoricus), with countless letters, and I read the heading of the letter, “The Voice of the Irish,” and as I read . . . at that moment I heard voices of those who dwelt beside the wood of the Focluth, which is by the western sea; and thus they cried, as if with one mouth: “We beseech thee, holy youth, to come and work once more among us.” [See St. Patrick: His Writings and Muirchu’s Life, ed. And tr. A. B. E. Hood (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1978), 45-46].
This account of his call to the ministry reflects Patrick’s belief in continuing and direct revelations from God apart from scripture. He reported many such experiences and claimed that some of his converts received such revelations as well [Ibid., 50] [Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History, James Edward McGoldrick (Scarecrow Press, 2000)].
In these three paragraphs, Dr. McGoldrick demonstrates that for St. Patrick to attribute to a supernatural vision his call to return to Ireland as a missionary, and to claim “many such experiences” in his writings, he sets himself at variance with the historic Baptist view of Sola Scriptura it had originally received from the magisterial reformation.
Although in the present day, there are a myriad of emphases among a broad range of movements and denominations which claim the name “Baptist,” including charismatic emphases that would claim unity with St. Patrick on supernatural revelations given directly by the Holy Spirit apart from the written Word of God, this is not the view of the historic Baptist tradition. The teaching of the Calvinistic wing of the historic Baptist tradition is contained in the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, which reads in its chapter, “Of the Holy Scriptures”:
Therefore it pleased the Lord at different times, and in various manners to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His church (Heb 1:1); and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased (Pr 22:19-21; Rom 15:4; 2 Pet 1:19,20) (emphasis mine).
These sentences from the Baptist Confession affirm that while God’s revelation of himself used to come in various supernatural manifestations like visions, among others, the Baptist tradition believes that Holy Scripture alone is the source of God’s revelation of himself to his church, precluding, since the completion of the canon, “continuing and direct revelations from God apart from scripture” of the sort St. Patrick claimed for himself and his followers. This is just one way in which St. Patrick was not a Baptist.
Why Saint Patrick was NOT a Baptist, part 1
To most people, this is almost a pointless distinction to make. “Everyone knows that Saint Patrick was a Roman Catholic priest, right?” Not so.
There are some wishful thinkers out there in the realm of Baptist fundamentalism who attempt to annex this 4th to 5th century missionary to Ireland into their pantheon of ancient prototypical “Baptists.” Granted, this is a minority view among Baptists, however, it is the view with which I was raised. This view of Baptist history is called by scholars “Baptist Successionism,” but among its adherents it’s usually known as “Landmarkism.”
As you know St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone two days ago. March 17th is officially recognized by Roman Catholics as the feast day of St. Patrick, commemorating the date of his death. Like most years, about a day before this holiday arrives, I think to myself, I ought to do a little homework to combat this notion that St. Patrick is a Baptist, but I usually run out of time before I can make any headway. So I drop it until about March 16th of the following year. Well, this year, I happened to read a St. Patrick’s Day devotional post by Bob Hayton at Fundamentally Reformed. I commented that I’d intended to post a view contrary to the successionist view of St. Patrick, and missed my “deadline,” but Bob encouraged me to go ahead and do it anyway, so here goes. Looks like this might turn into a series.
I’m by no means a historical scholar, just a Christian who cares to learn the truth about Baptist history, having been burned by so much bad history in the name of promoting the Baptist tradition. A few years ago, I read a book review in the Founders Journal of a book called Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History, by Dr. James Edward McGoldrick, a professor of church history at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. I was encouraged by the review, ordered the book, and found that it does a very good job of examining the claims of Baptist Successionism in the light of academic 
historical scholarship. Chapter 4 of this book, “St. Patrick: A Baptist?” will serve as the basis of this series.
The only concession one can make about the beliefs and practices of Saint Patrick is the undocumented and therefore uncertain nature of them. This is where Baptist successionists find the wiggle room to make the claims that they make. McGoldrick writes on page 24:
All who have undertaken serious research on the life and thought of Saint Patrick have discovered early that the materials available for the reconstruction of his career are few, and some that have been employed are of dubious reliability. Scholars, both within and without the Roman Catholic Church, have recognized this problem, and, consequently, they have had to admit that their findings are tentative. Only two brief, nontheological writings of Patrick are extant, so interpreters are not in a position to make dogmatic judgments about his doctrinal position. Collateral evidence from the period of Patrick’s life is very scant and does not enlarge our knowledge of his beliefs very much. Moreover, legends abound about practically every phase of Patrick’s life, and separating fact from fiction may, at points, be impossible. The saint’s own works, The Confession and the Letter to Coroticus, are the only unimpeachable sources of information about his views. These, and Muirchu’s monograph on Patrick composed in the seventh century, provide little more than a biographical sketch [see St. Patrick: His Writings and Muirchu’s Life, ed. and tr. A. B. E. Hood (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1978)].
So a little biographical material is all we can trust. His theological views, his views on the sacraments (ordinances, for my Baptist readers), his views on church government and ministry, if they are to be known at all, will have to be read carefully between the lines within the context of Patrick’s day and age. By the time this series is finished, I think Dr. McGoldrick will have helped us realize that the Baptist Successionist view is little more than wishful thinking.
Part two will examine Saint Patrick’s probable, or possible, views on revelation, and compare it with the Protestant, Reformed, Evangelical and Baptist view historically known as Sola Scriptura.
update: Dr. Russel Moore at his “Moore to the Point” blog directs us to a more constructive way to benefit from the legacy of St. Patrick (read blog here). He recommends Dr. Philip Freeman’s biography, St. Patrick of Ireland. You can also view a short television interview with Dr. Freeman about St. Patrick (view segment here).
James White on Faithful Scholarship
Here’s the video of Dr. White’s call for “believing Biblical Studies.” In case you had any trouble following my transcription of his monologue in the previous post, now you can watch it and hear it as well. Using as many senses as possible will always help your comprehension. If there were some way we could touch, taste and smell it, I’d post that, too, but for now the technology remains limited. Of course, if you really want to touch your monitor screen be my guest, just don’t press too hard if you’ve got one of those gel screen type set ups.
Also worthy of note is how Dr. White is sporting the sharp “Sola Conference” shirt that he mentioned in the previous video of him I posted. Like the Bible says, “You have not because you ask not.” If you like to see more videos by Dr. James White, Reformed Baptist apologist extraordinaire, you can view his YouTube page here.
The Misadventures of Captain Headknowledge 
Because the American Church is Losing Its Mind…
According to Jesus, the words of Scripture simply are identical with the word of God. The apostle Paul said that, “the Scriptures are breathed out by God,” and Peter said that, “no prophecy ever came from human initiative, but men spoke from God.” For its first sixteen centuries the Christian church enjoyed unanimous consensus concerning the nature of Scripture. This view came to be known as “verbal-plenary inspiration.” This means that the Bible is breathed out by God not only in its intended meaning but in its very words. In spite of all the other differences the Protestant Reformers and Rome agreed on this essential point. But this consensus was challenged by radical Protestant movements. The Protestant Reformers themselves faced the challenge of the radical Anabaptists who valued a supposedly “inner word” in their hearts, a direct immediate, and private revelation over the external word conveyed through Scripture and preaching. The Reformers called this “enthusiasm” meaning literally, “God withinism.” Like Adam after the fall our natural tendency is to want to bring ultimate authority inside our own hearts and minds under our control, instead of hearing an external word of command and promise from our covenant Lord.
By the time of the Enlightenment a full assault on the reliability, authority, and inspiration of Scripture penetrated theological academies and churches. Sometimes it came in the form of denials of any need for special revelation since general revelation and reason were thought to be sufficient. But in the Romantic era, through liberal theologians like Friedrich Schleiermacher, challenges came in the form of making anything and everything a medium of inspired utterance. Every impulse from the inner voice of the pious soul could be regarded as inspired. In Protestant Liberalism, then, we meet the convergence of radical Protestant enthusiasm and rationalistic criticism of God’s miraculous intervention. As a result the Bible came increasingly not as a written treasure of God’s communication to us, but as a record of our attempts to express in words that universal religious experience that is common to everyone. In this perspective inspiration doesn’t come to us from outside of ourselves as a characteristic of the Biblical texts, but from within individuals and communities and their spiritual experience.
Historically Evangelicals were known for defending a high view of Scripture against these challenges. The giants of old Princeton: Charles Hodge, A.A. Hodge, B.B. Warfield, helped to shape a new generation of conservative Protestants as mainline Protestantism became racked with debates over inspiration. Led by Carl Henry, John Stott, F.F. Bruce, and many other theologians and Biblical scholars, Evangelicalism provided a sustained defense of Scripture with two generations of fruitful successors. But today the old arguments against the classic Christian view of Scripture are being retro-fitted with new lingo and updated arguments. Even within Evangelical circles there is a growing tendency to treat the Bible more as a record of the evolving religious experience of the community rather than as a revelation from heaven through human agents. In this program we will unpack the meaning of Biblical inspiration and take a look at some of the challenges that we face today.
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