Ever since being officially described as “Reformed” (with the adverb “dangerously” unofficially attached) a year ago, I’ve tried to figure out what that means.
So when I was researching the term a year ago, I stumbled across the corrective “post-reformed.” If Reformed means to give the Sovereign the final benefit of the doubt, “Post-Reformed” further foregrounds that humility. Here’s one list of post-Reformed tenets:
- Being PostReformed means laying aside a dogmatic application of a particular reading of the Reformed Confessions that keeps one from appreciating and fellowshipping with brethren from other traditions outside of Reformedom.
- Being PostReformed enables one to see the Bible as God’s grand story of the ages and not to view it as a repository of propositions and factoids. It’s not a Tommy-gun that we load up with pet proof texts…to blast other Christians with. It sometimes gets mysterious and messy but the PostReformed man is comfortable with that and doesn’t feel the necessity to correct God via better formulations and propositions.
- Being PostReformed allows one to ask, “who can I work with” rather than “who can I not work with” in ministry opportunities outside of one’s immediate church, denomination, or tradition. This puts things in positive rather than negative terms and frees one to find allies instead of drawing an ever more exclusive circle of “orthodoxy.”
- Being PostReformed means that when one arrives at a roadblock in one’s tradition, a roadblock created by traditions that attempt to interpret tradition, one is free jump into another road altogether. The PostReformed are not afraid to borrow from another tradition’s formulation of an issue, or to leave a particular point to ambiguity. He is able to clearly see he is bound by God’s Word and that tradition must serve it. He is a man in full.
- Being PostReformed means that you are sometimes not persuaded when the majority of current scholarship in your tradition agrees on something. They may be blind to the fact that they have arrived in a self-referential cul-de-sac. Jumping out of the cul-de-sac to see what another tradition says or to access earlier formulations from your own tradition isn’t something to be afraid of.
- Being PostReformed means you regard Arminians, Emerging Churchmen, and Roman Catholics as Christians…and treat them as such. You work vigorously to build unity, without compromising truth, to demonstrate the visible unity of the Body of Christ, wherever you can, to the watching world. The PostReformed man takes the Beatitudes seriously with great longing in his heart: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God.”
- Being PostReformed means having enough confidence in your Reformed theological convictions that you can interact substantively with Christians in other traditions without fear. The fear that often masquerades as dogmatism is replaced by a love for the truth and your brethren.
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36 thoughts on “Reformed and Post-Reformed”
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I’m not seeing the need for the “post” here. But you know I’m coming out of a different Reformed circle. To me this simply demonstrates the fullness of our Reformed cry: Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei. The Church reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God. Such a claim demands humility and precludes dogmatism, the very things our beloved Reformers were demanding (humility) and denouncing (dogmatism). For me, it’s not post-Reformed, it’s Re-Reformed.
Now see . . . that’s a very interesting perspective. Hmmmm, I think that you may be right that it’s the angle you’re viewing the whole thing.
I would like to step over to your side and see that for awhile. 😀
awesome! sign me up. 😉
though i still think “dangerously reformed” sounds cooler.
cklewis Says:
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:06 am
Now see . . . that’s a very interesting perspective. Hmmmm, I think that you may be right that it’s the angle you’re viewing the whole thing.
I would like to step over to your side and see that for awhile. 😀
_______
Then you would be *truly* “dangerously Reformed.” 😛
Camille, come to the Dark Side . . .
I agree with rylee95. What’s the point? Why do we need a new label? To me that’s just normal Reformed.
IMO, “reformata semper reformanda” has always been part of Reformed tradition. (i’ve actually never heard the label “post-Reformed”)
I say label yourself anything you want. I get your new Christian world view. I remember coming to similar conclusions after I left fundamentalism. I especially like treating all professing Christians as Christians without looking at their music and a narrow view of holiness. Keep thinking. Keep reforming.
Wow. Talk about a blast from the past! I happened to be looking something up today and stumbled across your blog! Way back in the day, you knew me as Susan Baker and I hung around the Speech Bldg waaaay too much for a French major. 🙂 I’ve been glued to your blog for the last couple of hours now and just wanted to add my support and prayers for your journey. And I still have a copy of your Master’s Performance on early feminism. 🙂
Just how does one build unity with Roman Catholics, for example, without compromising the truth? If being post-reformed (whatever that is) means treating apostates as Christian brothers, that is not humility, but rather direct disobedience to the clear teaching of Scripture (Gal. 1; 2 John).
A Roman Catholic = an apostate?
Well, what do they believe about the Gospel?
This sounds like the Evangelicals and Catholics Together from back in the 90s. Am I missing something?
According to a PCA pastor here in Greenville, “there’s only a hair’s breadth of difference between fundamentalism and Roman Catholicism.”
Either way, that doesn’t make them “apostate.” “Apostasy” is reserved for those who have turned their back on God. If a particular individual is saying that Christ is no longer God, then yes, they are “apostate.”
Catholicism is in error. Gross error, I would argue. Even heresy. Are individual Catholics “apostates”? There’s no way you can say that universally. There are apostate Catholics just like there are apostate fundamentalists, apostate Evangelicals, etc.
Probably. ::shrug::
I think these responses are revealing something interesting.
Those of you who see no need for the ‘post-‘ part are Evangelicals and mainliners.
Those who are balking are fundamentalists.
I’m not a fundamentalist anymore. So basically that’s what the “post” means.
That’s not what I asked. What does Roman Catholicism teach about the Gospel?
“Apostasy” does not merely refer to “those who have turned their back on God” or “[say] that Christ is no longer God.” An apostate is one who claims to be a Christian while denying the Gospel.
If ‘ The Catholic Church denied the Gospel’, why would they bother ‘reading it’, from one of the four Gospels, at every Mass, every day of the week ,around the world in ‘every Catholic Church? How could the Catholic Ahurch ‘deny’ anything that they wrote? The Early Church ‘wrote’ the New Testament and the Four Gospels. The New Testament and the four Gospels ‘didn’t write themselves! The Church wrote them! Constantine didn’t invent or start the Catholic Church. The word ‘catholic’ appeared in Early Church writings as early as 110 A.D. And The Church was there ‘before’ any of the New Testament was even written! There wasn’t any Bible ( complete collection of OT and NT books ) until the early 300’s!The Catechism of the Catholic Church, that came off the presses in 1994, explains well what the Catholic church teaches about the Gospel. It can be accessed ‘on line’, or purchased. It’s a large green soft covered volume,thick, and an amazing read. It is considered to be the best Catechism since the Church took its own reform seriously at the Council of Trent. And it’s ‘not about opinions.’ It’s the Historic Christian truth on ‘doctrine in faith and morals’.Canon Law of the Catholic Church teaches that, priests ‘must’ explain the Gospel reading in their sermons to the people. From the time of Jesus until the reformation period and long after, 90 % of society ‘was illiterate.’ The main way illiterate people could learn about the Gospel,was ‘to have the Word of God read to them, in the Mass. And that always included readings from the Gospels. By the way, Constantine also do not invent the Holy Mass. Jack Chic’s nightmare world of ‘comic book theology’ uses his propoganda to spread that one.
I don’t see that definition anywhere, Lyn. An apostate has “turned away.”
A Catholic who can affirm the Nicene Creed is a Christian. God saves. Not any church.
Does their church teach ongoing justification? Yes, it does. And I, like all good Protestants, believe that is in terrible error. But their life of works for justification is no different than the life (of sanctification through works and not grace) I left behind a year ago.
Legalism/Moralism is wrong. Can God save in spite of it? Thankfully, YES!
I remember Dr. Panosian in History of Civ saying that one could be a Christian and RC…and this was while he was on faculty at BJU. He also went on to say how the RC added extra-Biblical things to the gospel message. Just a few months later, I discovered how BJU added extra-Biblical things to the gospel message. Mmmm.
Camille, would you dismiss John MacArthur as a fundamentalist?
I have been amazed at the similarities between RC and fundamentalism I’ve been discovering through you, Camille.
My RC experience is very real and very close to home. My take on the RC has always been Can you be a Christian in the RC church? Yes. But they make it really difficult for you.
I don’t see a call for disassociation in Gal. Anathema, sure. But not “run away”. And 1Jn seems more about deceivers “who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.” For all their faults, the RC church does indeed confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.
The RC church, to me, is a bunch of brothers and sisters in the faith who have gone horribly awry in their understandings. Who have added to the Gospel extraneous, sometimes idolatrous, and certainly dangerous stumbling blocks of all sorts. But when you peel all that away you arrive at Jesus Christ, Son of God, God incarnate, providing the atoning sacrifice for our sins. The Gospel.
The RC was THE church of the West for centuries. If they were apostate, Luther would have had nothing to work with. He wouldn’t have known where to turn. And his was a declaration of reformation, not apostacy. An invitation to sit down/stand up/whatever and hash this out.
At the end of the day, I just don’t see how we’re going to further the Gospel by totally disassociating from . . . well, anyone, but especially a fellowship of people claiming to be Christians. How else will they hear the bare bones of the Gospel? How else will they be released from their bondage?
Don’t you weep for the newly widowed woman who knows who Jesus is–Son of God sacrificed for her sins–but who is overwhelmed with guilt because she’s finding it difficult to attend daily mass in the wake of her husband’s sudden, tragic death? Who has been misled by broken believers into believing she must attend Mass weekly/daily to remain right with God? She does indeed believe she is saved by her faith in Christ, but more has been added to it. She doesn’t think she’s going to hell because she misses mass, but she does believe she is falling far short of where she should be. (Perhaps how a fundamentalist might feel when he sneaks a peak at the wrong movie? Listens to the wrong song? Wears pants?!) How will she ever be released from this if we write her off? I don’t get it.
Do you know what has come from RC associations with protestants of all stripes? Well, the RC church of today is not the church of the 16th century. And it’s not even the church of 1960. Vatican II brought radical changes. Their subsequent greater openness to us has brought still more. Protestant hymns, including Amazing Grace, pepper their missals. Books by protestant authors may even be studied there. They’ve got a long way to go. But I simply cannot see how writing them off as apostate and having nothing to do with them will further the Gospel. And I find it to be extreme hubris to say they have nothing to teach us. They whose church history includes 1500 years of our own.
Sorry for taking up so much space, Camille. Nerve struck.
But, I know a lot of Protestants who still believe they need to “earn” salvation. I think a lot of it depends on how one views sacraments/ordinaces – are they visible signs of God’s grace or simple remembrances of Christ’s sacrifice (or both)?
I’m not dismissing anyone, Brent. But definitely yes, MacArthur is a fundamentalist.
I like those points. I like them a lot.
I needed some time to look up and consider some points. A comment does not permit a complete treatment of these issues—if I want that, I suppose I should put it on my blog :-)—so I will limit this to a few basic ideas.
Camille, I find it curious that you label John MacArthur a fundamentalist when he does not consider himself a fundamentalist and has been rejected by so many fundamentalists. Anyway, I asked because he has researched these issues and addressed them in a thoughtful, thorough way in his 1994 book [I]Reckless Faith[/I]. It is worth thoughtfully considering his analysis.
I agree that there are individuals within the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) who have been saved by the grace of God through faith alone. But the original statement is a general statement, not one about discrete individuals. It is logically fallacious to suggest that, because (some individual) Roman Catholics are Christians, Roman Catholics (generally) are Christians.
Jesus teaches that not everyone who uses His name is known to Him. From this and other truths, it is evident that calling oneself a Christian is not enough to be one. As a corollary, being a part of Christendom is not enough to be a Christian.
Affirmance of the Nicene Creed is not sufficient either. First, creeds generally focused on distinguishing and refuting certain error(s) prominent at the time and were not intended as complete statements of the faith, so not all fundamental doctrines are listed. For example, the Nicene Creed does not include the doctrines of the sufficiency of Scripture ([I]sola scriptura[/I]) or of justification by faith alone ([I]sola fide[/I]), the formal and material principles of the Reformation. Second, some listed doctrines are interpreted differently, so two persons giving assent may mean different things. Third, saving faith is more than intellectual assent (“the devils also believe, and tremble” James 2:19). My instinct is that Satan himself could give assent to the original Nicene Creed but for the reference to “us men,” he not being human.
As to whether the RCC teaches the Gospel, we need only recognize that it denies the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Thus, either justification by faith alone is not part of the Gospel, or the RCC is teaching another gospel. Of course, there are other significant differences, also, just one of which is the notion that salvation flows from baptism.
Camille, you state that the RCC teaching on a “life of works for justification is no different than the life (of sanctification through works and not grace) I left behind a year ago.” I do not see how you can assert this unless your fundamentalist circle was teaching that a lack of “sanctification through works” could result in the loss of salvation. Your fundamentalist circle may have had an inaccurate view of progressive sanctification, but I doubt it merged it with salvation.
In sum, were the thrust of the PostReformed list basically true, I do not see the point of the Reformation: it would seem that the Reformers brought unnecessary schism to the Body of Christ (which, as I understand it, is the precise position of many RCC leaders). However, from what I have read of the Reformers, I think that they would view the original list here as defining, not “PostReformed,” but “Non-Reformed.” I do not mean to be unkind, but I genuinely think that they would view it as a repudiation of what they stood for and sought to accomplish.
Whether or not MacArthur calls himself a fundamentalist is irrelevant. His ideas are really no different than any fundamentalist: he’s a Calvinish Baptist, he’s a dispensationalist, he believes in ecclesiastical separation, he’s a charismatic patriarch of a large commodified ministry, and he teaches a rigid, punitive family life. The ease with which people move from fundamentalism into MacArthur circles is revealing.
Granted, part of the nature of fundamentalism is a splintering so that one can define fundamentalism more narrowly based on his argumentative needs. I’m defining it more broadly than that.
You can disagree with centuries of believers who have made the *affirmation* of the Nicene Creed a foundation for the Christian faith. That would make you very clearly a fundamentalist. 😀
I have made it clear that I am quite critical of those who teach a progressive justification of faith (RCC). Is it “another Gospel”? Yeah, it is. I agree with that. Are Catholics, then, not believers? Like Lisa said, it’s extremely hard for them to see Christ with all that error in the way.
But Catholics are not “apostates.” That is how this was originally introduced — a necessary argumentative step in order to “separate” from the people — and it’s just simply not the case. *THAT* isn’t “logical.”
As to whether BJU teaches a similarly “other” Gospel, yes, it does. Go listen to their words. I understand that it’s an incredibly difficult pill to swallow that the bastion of fundamentalism would be so clearly in error. It took me awhile to swallow it too.
If you don’t like the list of Post-Reformed stuff, that’s okay! I’m not sure I like it either as my never-been-fundy friends have pointed out. We’re just talking.
But I want to say this here at the end so that it gets heard — if I love my fellow fundamentalists and pray for them and consider them brothers and sisters in Christ even though they are under “another Gospel,” I don’t see how I can’t extend the same grace to those in the Roman Catholic Church.
With the definitions of the key terms Christian, gospel, apostate, and fundamentalist still unclear and disputed, I do not think that we will resolve these issues here. Consequently, I am going to let this go with one brief clarification.
I never disputed the importance of the Nicene Creed or its component doctrines, nor was that even at issue as I understand the discussion. Instead, I was disputing the proposition that one who can affirm the Nicene Creed is a Christian. As important as that creed is, especially for its focus on the Trinity, it is not a sufficient statement of the faith to serve that function.
It depends on your definition of “affirm.” 🙂 Seriously. . . . And I understand the fundamentalist distrust of the ancient traditional texts. But I’d hardly call the Nicene creed “insufficient.”
THAT’s where we disagree, Brent — in historical scope. Stepping outside the rather brief history of fundamentalism is revealing.
Now, Camille, you seem to be making multiple assumptions about my views. Where have you gotten the idea that I distrust “ancient traditional texts” (by which I think you mean the early creeds) or that I am narrowly focused on the “brief history of fundamentalism”? And by what definition am I a fundamentalist? I am really curious.
Do we disagree in historical scope? I do not know, for I do not know what your view is. (Nor do I see how you could know mine.) In any event, that is not the focus of our disagreement.
The crux of the disagreement has to do with the usage of the Nicene Creed (we agree that it is true and important) and the inferences that one can properly draw from a person’s affirming it. More generally, our positions suggest that we disagree on the definitions of some key terms.
I admit I’m painting with a broad brush. Here’s my definition of fundamentalism.
You may not perceive the fundamental idioms you’re using, but it’s pretty obvious — like wearing a suit and tie to a restaurant on Sunday at noon makes it pretty obvious what kind of church you go to. 😉 You’re insistence on separating from “apostates” who are Catholic is a dead-give-away. *No one* in Evangelicalism at large would say that. And you’re parsing out the Nicene Creed as “insufficient” is distinctly separatist.
Again, you may not see it or even want it to be that way. You may have left a certain stripe of fundamentalism for another more Evangelical sort. But the rhetorical idioms are there.
Let’s try it this way — why is the Nicene Creed an “insufficient statement of faith”?
just to get us on a common page, here’s a modern Anglican version of the Nicene Creed. not sure which version we want to look at; apparently there are a lot of them–check out Wikipedia.
Book of Common Prayer version (1662)
I believe in one God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
And of all things visible and invisible:
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
Begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
Very God of very God,
Begotten, not made,
Being of one substance with the Father,
By whom all things were made;
Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven,
And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,
And was made man,
And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered and was buried,
And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures,
And ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of the Father.
And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead:
Whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost,
The Lord and giver of life,
Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,
Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified,
Who spake by the Prophets.
And I believe one Catholick and Apostolick Church.
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins.
And I look for the Resurrection of the dead,
And the life of the world to come.
Amen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_versions_of_the_Nicene_Creed_in_current_use
Thanks for the link, Anne; I had not noticed the page you identified. I had been using Wikipedia’s main page on the Nicene Creed, as well as reformed.org’s page.
Camille, I want to look at your fundamentalism page again and think on it further, but my initial impression is that it is much more a description of things you see in some fundamentalists than a definition of fundamentalism. There may be some overlap, but the two are distinct. The other issue is that it strikes me as too tied to BJU.
Moving back to the Nicene Creed, I did not say that the Nicene Creed is an “insufficient statement of faith” but rather that “it is not a sufficient statement of the faith to serve [the] function” you identified, i.e., that one who can affirm the Nicene Creed is a Christian. The difference is important. My contention was founded on the following presuppositions:
1. A Christian is a disciple of Jesus Christ whom Christ Himself would identify as part of His body.
2. A person who rejects justification by faith alone, who relies (in whole or in part) on justification by works, and who believes in baptismal regeneration has rejected the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is not part of His body.
If you accept these two points, then the inadequacy of the Nicene Creed for your stated purpose seems evident, for a person can affirm that creed while at the same time rejecting justification by faith alone, relying (in whole or in part) on justification by works, and believing in baptismal regeneration. The Nicene Creed does not address soteriology sufficiently to rule out those notions. It was focused on something else: addressing Arianism.
I understand that the doctrinal statements of the Nicene Creed originally ended after the words “We believe in the Holy Spirit.” I find this noteworthy, for it fits the historical context of the creed: the Arian heresy. The predominant issue was the nature of Jesus Christ. Thus, you see His nature—and, more generally, the Trinity—affirmed.
Brent —
1) My definition/description of fundamentalism comes out of my Ph.D. work (in Rhetoric and Religion at IU). It’s practically lifted out of Martin Marty, Sydney Ahlstrom, George Marsden, and the like. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. It’s pretty standard stuff, informed, of course, by my life in the movement.
2) For centuries, the definition of Christian has been the affirmation of the Nicene Creed. For centuries. That’s why a Catholic is considered a Christian and a JW or a Mormon or a Unitarian is not. That’s *basic* stuff. Definitional stuff. If you believe Jesus = God, you are a Christian.
3) There’s a certain stripe in conservative Evangelicalism that tries to intuit who is in and who is out. Who is really real about their faith. By having all your doctrinal ducks in a row, you’re in.
Those sorts of boundary markers are really no different than having your hair parted correctly or your skirts long enough or your music appropriately classical (but not too classical, of course).
I don’t buy that because it’s all too man-centered. God is sovereign. God saves. He draws us to Him. And it’s up to Him to decide what’s real and what’s not.
What we’re really talking about here has nothing to do with Catholics or the Nicene Creed. We’re talking about the difference between the visible and invisible church. I’ll let a former BJU student and debater and now Dean of Faculty at Covenant Seminary, Sean Michael Lucas explain (On Being Presbyterian, 75-76):
I’m trying to exercise that charitable judgment in all this. It is a different view than is typical in a certain stripe of conservative Evangelicalism which I would call, as a result of my academic study and my personal experience, fundamentalism. But, I would argue, it’s a more gracious, more historically grounded, more logical, more humble, and more biblical view
The Wesleyan model is the image of a house. Prevenient grace has God standing on the porch knocking on the door. In Justification, God is now in the front door. In the Sanctification process, God is sitting at our kitchen table while we get to know Him more.
Jesus gave us several stories that have God separating the believers from the non-believers, i.e. wheat and chaff, etc. I believe it’s God’s job to decide who’s in and who’s out. Jesus also had strong words for people who try to usurp God’s jobs.
As a United Methodist (I’ve also been Episcopalian), I believe the creeds are sufficient for defining the faith. (Which is where I part with my Reformed and Lutheran friends.) However, I don’t call my Reformed and Lutheran friends unbelievers because they have Confessions of Faith. Neither would I call someone a non-believer if they come to church in jeans or listen to rock music.
The only visible signs of an inner and spiritual grace I hold to are the Sacraments. Everything else is superfluous.
If we return to Galatians, which was mentioned earlier . . . it seems we are talking about something similar here. Gospel-plus. (Not that there is any other Gospel . . . ) So where does the “plus” begin and end? I think by appealing to the Nicene creed, we’re trying to get to the bare-bones Gospel. The point at which one adds anything else is to enter into “Gospel-plus” territory. That’s not to say there isn’t more to be said about the Gospel than what is included in the Nicene creed, but is any more saving knowledge *necessary*? The Church universal for a very, very long time—far longer than the fundamentalists or American evangelicals or America itself, for that matter have been around—has said No. In fact, the Apostles’ creed was pieced together out of the early Church’s baptismal formulae. Questions and answers that were affirmed as a profession of faith before Baptism.
It was good enough for the early church—within decades of the New Testament writings—so I think it should be good enough for me. Can you affirm it and not be a true Christian? Sure. But for all the reasons Camille mentioned, and more, that’s not ours to determine. I can wear all the right clothes and affirm all your fundamentals and not be a Christian, but because I’m not Catholic, you’d be able to hang out with me and call me sister? That doesn’t make sense to me. That, to me, is “Gospel-plus”. That is going beyond the scope of the core of the Gospel as much as the RCC is, perhaps even more dangerously. The RCC is up-front with its additions. To have additions that are subtle and simply “understood” is insidious.
I guess that’s a big part of what’s at the core of this debate: What is the bare-bones of the Gospel? For . . . well, nearly forever, the Church has said the Apostles’ Creed or the Apostles’ and Nicene together, if you’d like. Regardless, that is what is at stake. At what point does a body cross into “Gospel-plus”? And if that body has crossed into “Gospel-plus” (as the RCC undoubtedly has, but, I would argue, is far but alone in that, conservative evangelicals included), are they therefore unequivocally lost? Or are they in need of brotherly correction, helping them to strip down their understanding of the Gospel. Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia grieved and furious. They had bought into the “Gospel-plus” the Teachers were bringing. Paul did not say, “See-Ya! You added to the Gospel, I can no longer associate with you lest I sully my fine reputation with God.” No, he gave them what-for, wept for them, and encouraged them to get rid of the extra junk that had them in bondage. Because they were his brothers and sisters. The Church moves at the speed of mud. The 500 years since Luther did his thing is the blink of an eye to God, and only a quarter of the Church’s history. I believe it’s never too late for us to work diligently toward bringing us all in line with the Gospel. And in the end, it is God who will sort it all out for us. All we can do in the meantime is love one another.
Can I add….
Being PostReformed means you don’t have to show off the Latin phrases (all 7 of them) which aren’t found in the Bible? Even worse, the acronyms as if only TRUE Christians know what they stand for?
SDG,
David
Hey Camille! This is a great thread! It’s pretty incredible how your amazingly provocative blog posts get people thinking and talking. Imagine trying to talk like this in the BJU Gulag! You guys would be ‘run out of town before sundown’on the rails. Isn’t it fun being free, human and learning from each other! Has anybody ever heard the phrase, “Second Hand Information” ? What this means, is, people hear something, accept it as ‘fact’ and then repeat it, believing it to be the truth. And most people don’t even know where it came from or who said it first. Here’s an example: Luther said ‘such and such’, and most who believed him said the same thing, and still do to this day? Now, we know that he was angry, fed up, and frustrated with the religious institution of his day, that he saw as so corrupt,( and the visible top line leadership ‘was’ corrupt but not all the leadership was ) in his mind and thinking,it should have been completely shut down, killed and buried. What he called the religious institution known then as the RC Church, an insulting name, he called it that, because he was so angry. After the big split, or the big religious snit, ( anyone see the funny NFB film cartoon called the Big Snit, Funny as a rubber crutch! )the RC Church still had miracles taking place, ie the manifestation of the supernatural of God. The RC Church hierarchy at the time, so well known for its propensity to provoke and incense people to total distraction and further frustration….challeged Luther regarding luther’s authority.. the authority Luther believed to be from God, of the new Protestant religion… the Catholic leaders provoked Luther with the question, “If you have authority, ‘where’ are your miracles? According to this little tidbit of history, there ‘weren’t any’ miracles taking place in Luther’s new religion. No healings. So he got so angry, and concluded that, the institution that he split with, whose authority he had by then completely rejected anyway, which he declared to have no legitimate authority at all anymore, in his eyes, mind, thinking, and beliefs, the RC church institution had to have become one of ‘false authority’ and therefore any miracles that still took place in it, had to be ‘counterfeit’ and therefore ‘of the devil, and therefore demonic. As an interesting aside, may I interject a suggestion for us to think about, when did the church Christ founded ‘with’ true authority, somehow ‘lose it’, as Luther believed and taught, if it really ‘ever’ did lose its authority? Constantine usually gets blamed for that one. That the Church Christ founded ceased to be a christian Church and became ‘pagan!’ after Constantine. One wonders then, how on earth, a false, pagan church, that was no longer christian, could have possibly discerned which books belonged in the old and new Testament canon? Did a pagan emporer whom Protestants don’t even believe was really converted at all, possibly have decided something as important as ‘WHICH BOOKS BELONGED IN THE BIBLE’ that all Protestants to this day ‘accept as inspired scripture? I mean the thought is so ludicrous as to be non historical, anti-historical and illogical to the extreme of mindless inanity.Back to the 1500’s and the big split. This is why Luther made the statement that millions repeat to this day,like parrots, that “The Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon.” This is also the time in christian history when, the false teaching of cessationism began, ( that the supernatural power petered out with Peter after the first apostes all croaked! )and when the false belief of anti-supernaturalism crept into the christian religion within the protestant camps. Luther probably forgot his Old Testament studies, where the prophets fequently called the sinfully idolatrous children of Israel, a Whore, because the nation of Israel went after false gods and worshipped those very ungodly things that caused them to ‘become what they worshipped’. Anti-supernaturalism as a false belief that started with Luther and has continued to this day. In John the Beloved’s Epistle, the Word of God seems to suggest, that such teaching in the christian churches, (ie teaching that miracles ceased, and any miracles to day are demonic, only protestants teach and believe this ), is under the negative influence of the demonic. Therefore scripture suggests that demons can and do teach in the churches today. How can this be? When men believe things about God that are not true, false teaching can be called UNscriptural. But when any teaching is ANTI-scriptural, it really has to be called ‘demonic’ as to its source, where it came from. So that’s a concrete example of Second Hand Information. IF anyone wants to know what the Catholic Church really teaches, they can go on line anytime, and read The Cathechism of the Catholic Church. Or they can buy the book itslf. Its really good reading. Protestants believe the Catholic Church teaches things that it really does not teach at all and never has. False imfornation and again, propoganda. Like salvation by works only. The Catholic Church has never taught this! It is salvation by faith alone and Grace alone. But James teaces that ‘faith without works is dead’ and that we are ‘not’ justified by faith alone. The Epistle of James was ‘not’ one of Luther’s favorites. He coudn’t get rid of the verses he didn’t like without discrediting the entire Epistle. Luther called James, an Epistle of straw! Also, if Protestants want to know that Catholics ‘are’ honest about their past history of serious moral failures in its leadership, ie bad popes, just take a look at Catholic Encyclopedia online. Protestants believe the RC Church only had TEN bad popes. The Catholic Church history honestly acknowledges ‘TWELVE’ bad popes!. And describes in accurate detail just how stupid and bad they really were! It is no justification for sin. It’s just a concrete example of the Catholic Church’s openness and honesty about its rotten past history! It is a very strange belief of Protestants, that Luther somehow ‘rediscovered’ the Scriptures! I wonder ‘where’ on earth the scriptures went for the 1200 years between Constantine and the Reformation? And ‘who’ it was exactly who ‘protected them’ from being completely destroyed by the Barbarians and other like minded ‘sweeties’ of burn and ramage ilk! Why would a false, pagan church, even ‘care’ about protecting, possibly ‘dying’, for the Word of God? Remember, the Barbarians and other destructive invaders, tried to destroy everything in their path. Christians died protecting the Scriptures from being destroyed! Something to pique our thinking minds. Also, the first printed Bible, the Gutenberg Bible came off the new invention of the printing press, in German, fully approved of by the Vatican, almost one hundred years before the Reformation! And several more, was it thirteen, German printings of the Bible, fully approved by the Vatican, followed. Luther’s German Bible version was ‘not’ the first one. Luther did ‘not’ redicover the Scriptures. He loved them. He devoted himself to them. He made himself their main interpreter for his followers. But he did ‘not’ rediscover them. One could only rediscover something such as the Scriptures if they had been truly ‘lost’ and ‘forgotten.’ The scriptures were read at ‘every liturgy’ from the days of the Apostles through to the days of Constantine through to the time of the Reformation through to this day. Something such as the Scriptures, which have been read at every Catholic service for nearly 2000 years, The old Testament scriptures being the only ones available in the beginning, and the New Testament scriptures, being read at services, only ‘after’ they had been written down to shared among the believers. Remember the Church came BEFORE the New Testament was even written! And it was the CHURCH who ‘wrote’ the New Testament. The Church worshipped God with the ‘only’ scriptures they had at the time, The Old Testament and only added the New Testament Scriptures in their services ‘as’ they were made available, written. But between Constantine and Luther, the Scriptures could have ‘never been lost’, so as to have ‘needed’ to be rediscovered by Luther or anyone! BEcause the Scriptures had always been a integral part of church worship and services since the birth of the Church on Pentacost! The three Bobs at BJU all loved and love the Sciptures. But just look at ‘what’ they have done with them! They have used them to manipulate people, and hurl religious missiles of hate and anger and revenge and punishment at any and all who dared to challenge, disagree with or oppose them. They have used the scriptures they supposedly love, to justify every selfish, mean, cruel and unchristian belief and practice they have ever perpretrated on precious people such as those who have fled fundamentalism for their very lives, to then only treat such people, as unfit to associate with. People who found their refuge and healing in Jesus Christ who revealed true Grace to them, in some instances, for the very first time in their lives. Using the Bible to hurt, hinder and harm people’s lives is plain simple and ugly wicked. The three Bobs at BJU have all had ‘their version’ of loving the scriptures. But their practices have produced such a distorted version of ‘love’, that it could hardly be called love at all, by any intelligent reader of a dictionary defintion of love. The three Bobs at BJU have really believed that ‘they alone at BJU along with their arrogant / separatist culture, have always held the corner on the market of all truth about the scriptures, that ‘they’ alone at BJU and its systemic religious culture, are the ‘true believers’! But look at the dreadful reputation they have earned! One wonderful pastor,whose ministry I highly esteem, shared on a wonderful week of teaching and healing many years ago, that : “truth without love HURTS. And truth without grace KILLS. Historical illiteracy and anti-historic propoganda are what allows falsehoods to be believed by millions as ‘fact’, ‘factoids’ and truth. Anyone can freely go ‘to the horses mouth’ the Catholic Church itself, and find out what SHE REALLY TEACHES. Instead of going to people who for the most part only know, ‘second hand information.’
I love the King James Version, but I know there are better versions, that I, as all of you know, that we are free to go to, and enjoy the wonderful truths about our God and this precious gift of faith that we have been graced with. I just would ‘never’ use the Bible, in any version, as a religious text book. Because the Holy Scriptures were never given to us for that purpose. To use the Holy Scriptures in such a presumptuous manner, is to to disrespect and dishonor the God who inspired them. Great thread, Camille. Really love the reformed and post-reformed language! I look at ‘reformed’ as ‘nicer’ than the style or form of theology and doctrine that preceded it. Reformers who brought in ‘reformed’ doctrine, that ‘softened’ Calvin’s rather harsh, forensic redefinition of christianity, Grace,and justification etc., and rendered it more humane and kinder. Sorry this post is so long. Hope it helps us all do more thinking about our journey. Still thinking and still learning. learning.
I have learned a little more lately to understand, the difference between, say, a ‘discipline’ and a ‘doctrine.’ An example of a change in the Church, could be the ‘change’ or relaxing of the ‘discipline’ of meatless Fridays. That was ‘never a doctrine’ but was only a spiritual ‘discipline’. In my pre-Lord days, ( before being Born again ) and in my pre-convert days, before I entered the Catholic church officially ), I actually used to think that the discipline was ‘stupid.’ I mean, I was just as rebellious as any other church going unbeliever, unconverted church goer could be, and I was also very much influenced by my own Anglican background. ‘We’ don’t do those things! Meatless Fridays were’not any part of our Anglican religious culture. But when I married my husband, I respected this discpline. I had wanted to convert to the RC church before marriage, but the priest would’nt convert me. So my Godly desire and intention to convert, was used by God to give me a better and more respectful attitude. Prevenient Grace. So when the RC church relaxed the discipline, it did not ‘change’ any doctrine. It simply ‘changed’ a rule that people could be free to choose to treat Fridays as they wished regarding the choice of fish or meat. Actually during our courtship, my husband ate a hot dog on a Friday evening during the meatless Friday years at the cinema snack bar. I did not say anything to him at the time, but I thought it was kind of funny. If the man didn’t want to follow the Church’s rule, so what! That was his business! I loved the man because of who he was. Not because of any rules he kept or didn’t keep. Another helpful distinction I recently learned about the RC church and doctrine,ie church history, is that there is a clear distinction between, ‘invention’ and ‘development’ with regards to doctrine that the original historic Church believed, taught and developed. Let’s say that the Early Church taught and believed in true Grace, and continued to do so long past sweetie pie Constantine, even at the time of the big split. And,even when Pope Leo refused to listen,to people in the Church, and to Luther and that within the Church at that time,during all that moral corruption,, there still remained true doctrine about true Grace in the Church. And that the problems had nothing to do with doctrine at all, but with practices, behaviour, moral corruption, and a church’s leaders, many of whom had lost their focus on Jesus and the Gospel. Same doctrine all along, but stupidity, ignorance, foolishness of sin, sin, sin in behaviour. This is a concrete example of difference between ‘the practices’, behaviour’ that were very wrong and bad and doctrine. Pope Leo would not listen to the warnings of some of his own fellow bishops, other priests, and brother monks and friars, from different Catholic ‘orders’ etc., that,”the Church needed reform’.. and because Pope Leo also did ‘not’ listen to Luther to help Luther through his own personal struggles with faith frustrations, offense,aggravation with the Church etc., as well as his deep offense with the moral corruption within the Church at the time, which was about the abuse of money, temporal power, and political greediness, for power over anything that walked, breathed, and moved, because Leo would not listen, and instead, partied away most of the money in the Vatican treasury ( he was a real party animal, but was not personally morally corrupt as in booze and women, he was more of a goody goody pope ) and what was wrong with the Church had nothing to do with bad or wrong doctrine but with bad and immoral practices. And these serious problems had been going on for bout a hundred years… Luther and other reformers could not see past the sinful practices, and saw only that something had to have been wrong with all of the Church’s doctrine. That’s why the reformers believed that they really needed to ‘re invent the wheel of christianity’, that God himself wanted them to do this, and develop a new kind of christianity, with completely different doctrines. Because they assumed that all of the problems were being ‘directly caused’ by false doctrine and false teaching in the Church. So all they had to do was leave, get out,get completely away from, this awful religious insitution, and make ‘new doctrine’. Luther’s new religion became a state church. Knox’s new religion bcame a state church. Henry’s new religion also became a state church. So the more prominent reformers, all ended up with the very thing they tried to get away from. Another highly organized and insitutionalized christian religion. Another institution. For generations, in Europe, the different state churches of netherland countries, so dominated the lives of their members, that people were told who they could or could not marry! Relgious control was not cured by the making of new doctrine institutions. It was ‘man the manipulator’,church leaders, riding up on his high horse once again, ruling over the people and ‘telling what they could and could not do’. Insitutionalized forms of religion came into being with the reformers ‘new doctrine’ and their carnal need to control.
After the Reformation began, and there was no chance for leo to work with Luther, as a responsible pope had every responsibility under God to do, The RC Church was forced by God through the circumstances, to start doing what it ‘should’ have been doing long before. The council of Trent was all about the doctrine of Grace being better understood, not changed, but developed. Truth never changes. Nothing was invented atthe council of Trent or at any of the Church’s councils.People criticze councils mainly because they don’t like the people who ran them. The doctrine of Grace was developed’ to be better understood. When members of the RC church practiced wrong things,it was not because of wrong doctrine. It was because they ‘did not obey the teachings of their Church.’It was the sin of rebellion and disobedience, not the presence of or the cause coming from false doctrine or false teaching. But believers need the truth to be better explained so as to better understand by them as to how to live and practice the truth in their lives. Real christianity. Nothing was ever ‘added or invented’ at the Council of Trent! Truth about the doctrine of Grace was ‘developed’ to be better explained, taught, learned, and therefore better understood by believers. So that is the big, big difference between the two opposite words about doctrine: invent and develop. People ‘invent’ doctrines about something that actually ‘isn’t’ true, ‘isn’t’ the truth. Dispensationalism is a good example of that. It is plain and simple, an invention of man, and ‘theological fiction.’ The church ‘develops’ doctrine about that which is true and always has been true. An example of ‘development’ of doctrine in the Protestant camps is different. I believe as christians move back to that which is closer to the original church, ie historic christianity, that these christians re discover the truths that have been somehow distorted by what their predecessors , that were ‘invented’ or confused with private intepretations. Reformed theology is a good example. Compare 5 point tulip Calvinism at its worst extreme-that awful pastor who heads up that awful westborough baptist church, whose members protest outside of funerals for soldiers with hateful signs. They pratice the terrible behavior along with the awful ‘fruit’ of their extreme beliefs based upon extreme doctrine, fueled by hate! Ccompare that with reformed theology where people are nicer and kinder to each other. As christians reform their protestant doctrine, they actually drop off some of what’s wrong with it, and take back on some of what the original church always taught in the first place. SBC don’t have ‘perfect’ doctrine but they sure are a lot nicer than BJU-IFB type preaher boys and the people they control by guilt and fear! SBC believers simply have a nicer approch to how they live and practice their christianity.
If the RC church has ‘ever’ invented false doctrine, where is there any history of that recorded in the archives of ‘tuthhful’church history. Not pseudo-history, propoganda, and fictionalized history. Because whenever a seriously destructive heresy surfaced in the early church centuries, the Church had to act upon them quickly, and protect the sheep. Because before the printing press, hand printed Bibles were very expensive, and most people were illiterate and could not read. The Holy Spirit is believed to have ‘breathed the Apostles Creed’ upon the early Church when such a creed which could be memorized and spoken by the believers, was needed. People who could not read, who did not have access to a Bible which they could not read anyway, who only heard the Bible read to them at services,in the Church Liturgy, they needed a creed to memorize to re einforce their faith and protect their minds from the enemy who was trying to destroy people’s faith. In the Early Church, apparently believers memorized large portions of scripture, such as the psalms, and many knew the scriptures in the early days better than many of us do now. The early Christians did not take the Word of God for granted like so many christians do today.
So there is the big difference between the ‘invention of doctrine’, something that is not true, and the ‘development of doctrine’, something that is and always has been true. Truth never changes. God never changes. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”( I actually heard myself saying, by mistake of course, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the Bible!’) “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” And “all the promises of God find their yes in Him, Jesus Christ, the son of the Living God.”