Review of Rob Bell’s "Velvet Elvis"

Several weeks ago, I preached a sermon entitled, “What is the Gospel? A Resonse to Liberalism and the Emergent Church.” This sermon comes at the end of a long journey into and out of the Emergent Movement, which I mention in brief in the above-mentioned post. I hope to have a short e-book compiled on this experience shortly.

Partially because of my experience, and partially because I now (after researching the topics of Liberalism and Modernity/Postmodernity more thoroughly) feel that I see these issues much more clearly than before, I feel called to engage with and critique the Emergent Movement, which I was formerly a part of.

This book review is a part of that journey. I would also recommend the similar review on Brian MacLaren’s A New Kind of Christian.

FOREWORD

Maybe I should preface this with a few small disclaimers. The first is this: unaware that I could simply download this book for free (see here), I purchased the audio version of Rob Bell’s book. Thus, while I tried to get my quotes as close as possible, I don’t have many page numbers noted, and the wording may be off slightly. I had to say, “Rob bell says somewhere…” a lot, unfortunately. The second disclaimer is that it has been nearly a month since I read/listened to this book. I actually think this is somewhat advantageous, however, since I kept good notes and also because the core of Bell’s message has had some time to peculate. The final disclaimer is that since Bell charges $10.00 per sermon (which, I don’t mind telling you, I think is just ridicules!) for his Nooma series, I was in no way willing to either steal or dish out that money to watch it all. Thus, my impressions of Rob Bell are formed almost entirely by his main and most popular book, “Velvet Elvis.” I think this is fair enough, since this really is Bell’s foundational book, in which he lays out his theology. (Similarly, I don’t need to read everything that John Calvin ever wrote to know what he thought – I could just read the Institutes!)

OVERVIEW

The core of Rob Bell’s message is this: like a painting of Elvis, the Christian faith is a work of art – a product of human imagination, of human self-expression. However, humans of every generation express themselves very differently. Therefore, it is necessary that every generation re-imagine, or repaint the Christian faith for themselves. He clarifies that, “By this I do not mean cosmetic, superficial changes like better lights and music, sharper graphics, and new methods with easy-to-follow steps. I mean theology: the beliefs about God, Jesus, the Bible, salvation, the future. We must keep reforming the way the Christian faith is defined, lived, and explained.” (p. 12) In this book, Rob Bell provides the framework for such a re-invention, then constructs a new version of Christianity and, in the epilogue, provides an impassioned plea for conversion to his faith.

IN-DEPTH OVERVIEW

“Velvet Elvis” is part systematic theology, part missionary tract. In it, Bell presents a complete, coherent system of theology. Fascinatingly, he proceeds exactly as any theologian would, in laying out their theological works:

Jump – the Prolegomenon, or “how I think you should think about theology”

Yoke – on Hermeneutics, or how to read the Bible (also touching on morality)

True – on what is the essence, or most important thing in theology

(Tassels – the gospel that doesn’t fit or, the reason some people think Bell is orthodox)

Dust: Christology, or “how to think about Christ”

New: Sin, Redemption and Salvation

Good: On Morality

JUMP: ON THEOLOGY

Rob Bell begins his book by discussing a trampoline. What is important about a trampoline, he asserts, is that you can jump on it. It is the springs which allow you to jump. By “jumping” he means that they help people feel close to God, love one another and live moral lives. By “springs,” he means doctrines. The doctrines themselves are more useful than true. He specifically names the Trinity, saying something to the effect of, “People have been using this particular ‘spring’ to jump for years. But does that mean that it is essential? Couldn’t we change it for something else? I am not saying that we should - but certainly we could. If we did so, couldn’t we still love God, live moral lives, etc.?” Famously, he also mentions the virgin birth in another place. If Jesus was actually found to have a human father – say, a man named “Bob,” then nothing significant would change. We could still “jump” on Christianity, whether or not Jesus is born of a virgin (thus, of God), or not.

YOKE: ON HERMENEUTICS

Bell brings three items of evidence to bear, on the topic of hermeneutics. First of all, the Bible (especially the Old Testament) is full of brutality and violence. (Especially named is the slaughtering of the “innocent” people in Jericho). As mentioned in a previous post, Bell also uses such difficult passages as Psalm 137:9 to “prove” that the Bible is a conflicted book, which has no real message of its own. Third, Bell reminds the readers that Scriptures can and indeed have been used to justify slavery and the abuse of women, among other atrocities. Fourth, he states that since every person comes to the Bible with their own perspective, it is impossible for the Bible to have a real voice of its own.

Thus, the perspective that a person, “can simply read the Bible and do what it says – unaffected by any outside influences,” is “warped and toxic, to say the least” (p. 53).

He thus concludes, “It is possible to make the Bible say anything we want to, isn’t it?”

Bell is not, however, saying that the Bible has nothing to say to us, or that just anybody can make it say what they want.

Rather, the idea of “a family story” is very important. Story gives meaning and direction to a community. However, he makes it clear that, “The Bible is open-ended. It has to be interpreted.” Who, then, will make the decisions about interpretation? Here he invokes Jesus’ words “I give you the keys of the kingdom/whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” and the fact the early church made binding decisions on various rules (e.g. circumcision) to prove that the community of Christians has the right to decide what Scriptures to keep, and which to ignore. As he says, “The Bible is a communal book. Most of the ‘yous’ are plural. It was written by people to people, who read it, evaluated it, accepted and rejected parts. We must see oursevles as part of this story, making decisions as a group.” Committing the sin which C.S. Lewis has famously named “chronological snobbery,” Rob Bell’s discussion seems to sweep all of the great saints of old casually aside. Those who are now alive, and who have been welcomed into Bell’s inner circle of friends are all welcome to help him “bind and loose” Scriptures, based on the authority they feel they have received from God through Jesus. As he says, “we must see ourselves and those around us as taking part in a huge discussion which has been going on for thousands of years. Because God has spoken, and everything else is commentary.” Those who have gone on before, who have suffered hard and learned hard lessons about false teaching and truth are – due to their being deceased – excluded from the conversation.

Bell also mentions some of his thoughts on morality here. Because he more fully unpacks this in “New,” I will leave his thoughts on that until then.

TRUE: ON THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

For those of you who have been reading along in my posts, you will be noticing a very marked similarity between Bell’s theology so far and classical liberalism, (as summarized very briefly here, or written of at length here). On this point, however, Bell becomes almost stereo-typically a follower of Schleiermacher. What is the essence of Christianity?

Two quotes are highly illuminating:

“You have to understand that I started out playing in bands, back when alternative music was ‘alternative’ I understood music to be the raw art form that comes from your guts. Do it yourself. Strip it down. Bare bones. Take away all the fluff and the hype. This ethos heavily shaped my understandings of what church should be like: strip everything away and get down to the most basic elements. (98)”

For Schleiermacher, religion was about the “feeling of absolute dependence:” for Bell, it is about digging deep into the human soul and “keeping it real” – which is just about the same thing.

A second quote is also helpful: “Perhaps a better question than who’s right, is who’s living rightly?” (p. 21.)

In this subtle turn of phrase, Bell underscores his basic theological premise: getting right with God is not about believing something, but about doing something.

Bell’s religion, then, is about looking deep within one’s self for religious feelings, and about doing good things by which to win God’s favor.

TASSELS: THE CHAPTER THAT DOESN’T FIT

I found “Tassels” to be a highly confusing chapter. In it, Bell says something to the effect of, “Yes, of course, I know that Jesus died for my sins, and that I must trust in Him for my salvation…” He then goes on to discuss many very helpful ministry tips on burnout and “shooting your super-whatever” (in context – not taking one’s self too seriously), on taking sabbath rests, and many other helpful points. If this chapter was all that Bell had written, one would certainly not find anything wrong with him. However, in the following chapters, we quickly see how he is able, on the one hand, to affirm that he holds orthodox Christian doctrine and on the other to state that people can be saved outside of Christianity, and that Christianity is all about works.

DUST: CHRISTOLOGY

To me, the most surprising aspect of Bell’s book is that he seems to be rolling back Christianity to a pre-Christian stage, that is, to Judaism. He writes, “Before all the big language and grand claims, the story of Jesus was about a Jewish man, living in a Jewish village, among Jewish people, calling them back to the way of the Jewish God.” He says later, “Remember, Jesus was a Torah-observing Jew who obeys the TANAK (that’s fancy-talk for the Old Testament) word for word…” He says also, “Remember that Jesus said, ‘Everything that I have learned I passed on to you.’ Did Jesus go to school and learn like the other kids his age? [Thus - isn't he here saying that "all I received" refers only to his instruction in a Jewish synagogue?]” In summary, then, Bell seems to think that Jesus did not “fulfill” (Mat. 5:17) the Old Covenant and in this way make it “obsolete” (Heb. 8:13): rather, he called people back into it.

Here would be a good place to link up with thoughts which were omitted from “Yoke.” Bell explains that Rabbi’s would each produce their own unique commentaries on how to apply the TANAK to their lives. They would themselves live by these lengthy sets of rules, and would eventually amass followers. Those who wished to follow a certain Rabbi would “take on the yoke” of that rabbi. Thus, Jesus was actually teaching a set of rules, a new way of living, just like all the other rabbis were. The mere fact that a rabbi selected a person, however, is highly significant. The rabbi selected people because he really believed those individuals could bear his distinctive yoke. Thus, when Jesus called His disciples – and, by extension, you and I – to follow Him, he was in effect proclaiming “you are able to do everything I will tell you to do, and to live perfectly by my standards.” Bell elsewhere comments on the story of Peter walking on the water. Peter did not fall because he stopped trusting in Jesus – after all, Jesus wasn’t sinking! He fell because he doubted himself.

Jesus has faith in our ability to work our way to perfection, as good Jews: we must have confidence in our abilities too.

In the most famous portion of his book, Bell questions what difference it would have made whether Jesus had really been born of a virgin, or had been begotten by some guy named “Bob.” One wonders why Bell does not just come out and say that he does not think that Jesus is really God, the only begotten of the Father, the Second Member of the Trinity? For one thing, because in Bell’s theological system, it does not really matter whether Jesus was God or not: we are saved by our own efforts, by (in some way) being good Jews, not by anything which Jesus may or may not have done.

NEW: ON SIN, REDEMPTION & SALVATION

In a very Kantian statement, Bell subtly dismisses the idea of original sin by questioning, “Did the story of Adam and Eve happen, or is it happening?” After all, we all feel temptations, and we all sin many times: the story of Adam and the snake is “our story” too.

If there is no such thing as original sin, in which all died, can there be an atonement, in which many were made alive? (See Romans 5)

Utilizing Bartian (that is, based on Karl Barth) theology, Bell writes that when Jesus said, “I will draw all men unto me,” he really meant all men. In other words, His work was effective to save all, whether they have heard of His free gift or not. He uses the analogy of eating supper, and having the waitress come and announce to your table that your tab has been paid for. One can either live in the reality that their supper is paid for, or they can live in the reality that it is not paid for – the choice is yours. How is this decision made? Bell explains that, “Heaven is full of people whom God love and died for. Hell is full of people whom Jesus loved and died for. The difference is how they lived their lives.”

Bell recounts with frustration a counseling session with a new Christian, racked with guilt. Doesn’t he realize, Bell quires, that guilt and self-condemnation is out of place for a Christian or (to be consistent) with any human being? After all – the price has already been paid! We must now live as though we are redeemed people. When we mess up, we must admit it, confess it, make amends when and where we can, and move on to try to live a Godly life. What does this life look like?

As a guiding light, Bell presents the image of God within us all. Bell recounts that a very significant milestone occurred for him in a counseling office, where the counselor told him that his one goal in life was, “the relentless pursuit of who God made him to be. Everything else is sin, which must be repented of.” Not being true to one’s self (that is, to the image of God within, or to what God made a person to be) is sin: being really true to one’s self is righteousness.

This is the essence of Bell’s morality: understanding that all people, everywhere, are made in the image of God. Although there is sin in the world, Jesus died to defeat sin. Therefore, by simply living moral lives, every human may earn their way to God. This begs the question: what is morality for Bell?

GOOD: ON MORALITY

Considering Bell’s insistence on Jesus as a Jew, one would think that he would call people in this chapter to eat kosher, to meet on Saturdays, etc. However, this is not consistent with his evolving model. Those were commands which have relevance for “back then.” Today, we have other pressing needs – specifically, environmentalism, world compassion initiatives, and giving to the poor at home. In Bell’s final chapter, then, he hammers hard on these issues. This is likely a very good way to conclude the book, because his ethics are very relevant and important, and few would disagree with him on what he says in this chapter.

Historic Christianity would only object (and object very strongly) that good works are to be the fruit of a new life, not the grounds of one’s salvation, which is what Bell seems to make it.

Interestingly, though, in another chapter Bell talks about officiating the wedding of a non-Christian couple who were living together and “now wanted to make it official.” He never condemned their sin of fornication, and called their wedding – officiated in the sacred space of nature and followed by a lengthy dance, including much alcohol – “the most sacred event I have ever experienced.” Personal morality, especially on sexual ethics, does not seem to be a priority for Bell – and on this too historic Christianity would strongly disagree with him.

(THE MISSING CHAPTER: ON WHO IS GOD?)

To write a really consistent systematic theology, Bell should have written a chapter on “Theology Proper,” or who is God. Bell’s conception of God is vague partially, I suppose, because he doesn’t think that doctrine is important. Perhaps he is also aware that to clearly and distinctly express his opinions about God would once and for all prove that he is presenting a non-Christian set of beliefs. Whether fairly or not, the image of God which I kept coming up with was “the health-and-wealth-god of the indie-rocker.” Like a health-and-wealth God, the God of Rob Bell is a god who makes no demands, has no vantage-point of absolute truth, and demands no worship or obedience. For that matter, Bell’s God even has trouble with basic communication. Rather than orienting the cosmos around Himself, Bell’s god is a god who lives to serve. He does not bring endless riches in his wings, however, but endless poetic and artistic self-expression: as I said, this is the god of the indie-rocker, not the god of the yuppie.

This may be a caricature – but, to be fair, Bell doesn’t present his views concretely, so the reader is left to piece them together for themselves. This is what I have gotten out of his work.

DOES ROB BELL GRASP THE GOSPEL?

This question seems redundant, but it is always helpful to provide clear statements in communication. No, I do not believe that Rob Bell grasps the gospel. The Gospel – just so that we are not in any way confused – is this:

1. Our first parents sinned, and in so doing doomed the human race (Gen. 1, Rom. 5)

2. Jesus came to die in our place, so that we could have new life through Him (Rom. 6)

3. After receiving this new life, God equips us to live a new life in His strength (the book of James)

4. After death, we are saved by God’s grace and our perseverance in it (see the end of Revelations, 1 Corinthians 15, etc.)

Christianity, rightly understood, is a religion of grace. We get to heaven not because of what we have done, but because of what he has done for us. Because we live in the knowledge of our totally undeserved redemption, we live new lives.

By contrast, all the other religions of the world – as well as false Christianity – relies on legalism.

1. We are not very bad sinners.

2. Jesus came to give us an example of how to live.

3. We must try really hard to follow Jesus’ example

4. Jesus will probably give us a break and let us into heaven.

This approach leads to despair or pride. Pride when we think we are “making it,” despair when we know we are not. There is also no real way of dealing with “really bad sins,” and people tend to super-emphasize one or two “religious works” to try to counter-balance all of their sins. In Pharisaic Judaism, the emphasis was on Kosher: so long as one lived and ate clean, people were free to be full of all sorts of evil thoughts, lusts, etc. in their hearts. For Rob Bell, the emphasis seems to be on environmentalism, and some compassion initiatives. So long as one recycles and gives a bit, it seems, one need not worry about the internal state of their heart, whether their sexual lives are “moral,” or where they will spend eternity.

To put it concretely: This is not the gospel.

WHY IS ROB BELL SO POPULAR?

Like many, I saw a Nooma video by Rob Bell long before I read this book. I thought that the message itself was kind of weak, but the graphics were very flashy. I liked the concept of putting so much visual-arts into a sermon and, since I didn’t find anything really objectionable in the material, I decided that Rob Bell was a decent pastor, who only had one off-video. I figured he was trying to make a real difference in the world by presenting the age-old gospel in a relevant new way (as opposed to presenting a new faith, with the trappings and vocabulary of the old gospel, which is what he actually does). I think this is the experience of a lot of people. They just haven’t bitten dipped deep enough to know that the apple is rotten.

I think Bell is also popular because Evangelical teaching is so very weak. Pastors don’t confront serious issues like the relation of the Old Testament to the new, on cults and why the gospel is so very important, and how to read the Bible accurately. On the other side, individual Christians don’t do any work either, and complain when a sermon goes over twenty minutes, and actually makes them think or (horror or horrors!) gives them some meaty homework. In the words of John Piper, many people never grow beyond a sunday-school faith. When they find their sunday-school faith is unable to come up with answers to their university-level mind, they abandon the faith or listen to someone like Bell who at least has SOME answer to their questions. Even if they are the wrong ones, he is the only one who is speaking on these topics, so who is to say the different?

“My people are destroyed for want of knowledge.”

IS EVERYTHING THAT ROB BELL SAYS BAD?

It is always the half-lies which are hardest to distinguish from the truth: the full-lies are easy.

Many things which Rob Bell says are good, and they fill a void which evangelicals are missing (this is especially true of environmentalism). If you read only TASSELS and GOOD, you would probably actually benefit from this book. There are some helpful tips on pastoral ministry, and some good encouragements to environmentalism and compassion initiatives. It is good to respect what is right in the sight of all men (Rom. 12:17): however, believing that we will be saved from the wrath of God by our own efforts is both foolish and dangerous.

SHOULD I BE WORRIED ABOUT MY FRIEND? I HEARD HE/SHE ACTUALLY LIKES ROB BELL!!

In a conversation related by Mark Driscoll, D.A. Carson mentions why Bell seems to have such an appeal to young evangelicals. It is because (to summarize) many people listen to him without really buying into his system, but only taking his moral exhortations (for example, to be environmentally friendly, etc.) to heart. This has been my experience: I think this is how I would have read Bell’s book a couple years ago, before doing more research on Liberalism. (Note: my research on Liberalism has been exceedingly helpful in understanding Rob Bell. For an overview of my findings and links to more in-depth materials, see here)

I also think that a lot of people listen to one or two sermons, decide they like a person, and then (when that person is said to be a heretic) will defend that person to the death, without ever really looking into what that person believes, or what the charges are. These are people who bring a pail of whiteout to the Bible, and erase every verse which has to do with avoiding false teachers, then highlight and underline “thou shalt not judge” and “love thy neighbor as thyself” – as though not confronting sin in one’s friend was the kindest thing which could be done.

However, I would warn the reader against heretic-hunting anybody who has Bell on their shelf. In my experience, someone who is into Bell has been turned off to normal church: they probably need a loving example of brotherly/sisterly companionship and encouragement in the faith more than they need to be directed to an article such as this.

DOES ROB BELL WORRY YOU?

In the 1920′s a large portion of the church was carved away by Liberalism into what I would now describe as a non-Christian manifestation of the Christian faith. (Read more about that especially in my post, The Man Who Wrote Christianity and Liberalism). Many bitter battles were fought between the “Fundamentalists” and “Liberals” over the essentials of the faith, but in the end the Liberals took over most of the major denominations and seminaries. In the writings and workings of Rob Bell, Brian MacLaren and others like him, I believe that this same spirit of Liberalism is making a deep and bold cut deep into the territory of Evangelicalism. Although Satan could not have their fathers, he is content to steal away the children of Fundamentalism through the words of people like Rob Bell.

I am not sure whether to “worry” or not, since I am only a servant, and God is in charge. However, I definitely think that the issue of Liberal Emergent teaching is far more toxic and dangerous to true faith than many people give it credit for. It is worth some really serious investigation, and worth humble bloggers like myself taking a few minutes aside to review, critique and reject false teachers such as Rob Bell.

RELATED POSTS

THE Book to Read on Emergent

What is Liberalism?

A Song Which Rob Bell Cannot Sing Along To

Reflections on Brian MacLaren’s ‘A New Kind of Christian’

Follow-Up Post to “From….Emergent to….Conservative”

From “Cool Young Emergent Intellectual” to “Old-fashioned, Boring Old Conservative”

 

Modernity and the Roots of Classical Liberalism

This is a paper I wrote for my class on modern evangelicalism. I hope it is a blessing to others – it took me nearly a year to write! A paper parallel to this one is The Man Who Wrote Liberalism and Christianity. As I researched, I wrote two posts which fed into this paper: ”Deconstructing the Modern Man Part 1: The Enlightenment,” “Deconstructing the Modern Man Part 2: Immanuel Kant.” I would recommend these to you.

Also, this paper lays the intellectual foundation for the posts I have since done on Liberalism, postmodernity and the Emergent Church, and especially the post, “What is (Christian) Liberalism?,” “The Myth of ‘Post’ Modernity,” and the sermon “What is the Gospel? A response to Liberalism and the Emergent Church.”

You can download this in PDF here: LIBERALISM & MODERNITY

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this paper is to produce an answer to the question, “What is Liberalism.” A short answer to this question could be, “Liberalism is Christianity redacted to fit within the Modernistic worldview.” Obviously, this is one definition that begs another.

Crudely put, Modernity is a worldview which insists on applying the assumptions and rules necessary to the operation of the scientific method to all aspects of life, including theology, psychology, and the like. More precisely, Modernity is a worldview that holds the antonymous self as the beginning of knowledge and the final arbiter of truth. Modernity was born in the Enlightenment and bred in Romanticism,[1] and components from each era continue to exert competing and complementary influences within the movement to this day.

This paper will begin by providing a survey of the events which lead up the Enlightenment, then provide a brief topical sketch of the major theological tenets championed by the main Enlightenment thinkers. It will dwell extensively on the beliefs of the quintessential Enlightenment man and grand-father of Liberalism, Immanuel Kant. This paper will touch briefly on the Romantic era and will conclude with Friedrich Schleiermacher, who synthesized Enlightenment and Romantic elements with Kantian theology to provide the foundations of what is now known as “Liberal” or “Modern” Christianity.

PRECURSOR TO MODERNITY: THE AD FONTEZ REVOLUTION

The separate yet overlapping historical phenomenon of the Renaissance (1300-1600), the Reformation (1517-1648) and the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution (1500’s-present) could be collectively tied together under the heading of “the ad fontez revolution.” This is possible since the uniting factor in all of these great events was a rejection of the institutions and authorities of the recent past in preferment of the great works of the ancient past, specifically, the Classics of ancient Greece, and the Bible.

The decisive event of Modernity was the perceived failure of both the Reformation and Renaissance and the perceived need to recast both of them in light of the Scientific Revolution.

The Success and Limitations of the Renaissance

Carried on the successes of the past, the Renaissance was a time of many great accomplishments in art, science and technology. Built into the very success of the Renaissance, however, was a serious limiting factor. The case which became emblematic of this problem was the suppression of the heliocentric cosmology (now known as the “Copernican Revolution” in science) by the Roman Catholic Church – whose institutions and doctrines had become very much implicated in Greek thought by this time and thus found difficulty in parting with the Ptolemaic cosmology. Progress, it seemed, could no longer be made by looking backwards, or by trusting the great institutions of the past: it was time for new sources of authority.

The Perceived Failure of The Reformation

Growing out of the Renaissance, the Reformation cry of soli scripturi had promised a new birth of Christian liberty. The actual result however, was a renewed fusion of church and state controlled by a rapidly hardening theology (pejoratively termed “Protestant Scholasticism”), which splintered Europe along religious lines and led to more than a century of bloody conflict. Because the Reformers were unable to grasp the Christian concept of toleration,[2] a pagan concept was substituted. With the signing of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the Western mind became convinced of: 1) the relative unimportance of theology to personal life, 2) the personal nature of religious convictions, 3) a preference for pragmatism, rather than absolute truth in religion.

The Scientific Revolution

The one great accomplishment of the ad fontez revolution that did not tarnish, but seemed to shine brighter with every passing decade, was the Scientific Revolution. In the very generation when the institutions of both the Reformation and Renaissance were faltering, the Scientific Revolution gave birth to one of her most luminous stars. Born in 1643, Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica[3] (1687) would prove to be arguably the most important book ever written in science. Explaining all of the world through a series of simple mathematical formulae, it seemed to lay the secrets of the cosmos bare to the scrutiny of the human mind.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Epistemology

In concert with the prevailing mood of his era, Rene Descartes felt that a new foundation was needed for philosophy. Descartes rejected the traditional Christian perspective that right knowledge begins with a right knowledge of self and of God, inseparably intertwined.[4] Because he wanted to keep epistemology free of Biblical and Church authority, Descartes developed his great maxim: cogito ergo sum (“I think/doubt,[5] therefore I am”). Descartes made himself (that is, the thinking person) the sole foundation for right knowledge. Although the details of Descartes’ system have been endlessly rejected, debated and recast, the core belief that the autonomous human mind is to form the new foundation for philosophy (“Cartesianism”) has been almost universally accepted and should be understood as the cornerstone of Modernity.

After Descartes, philosophy was split into two schools – rationalism and empiricism that, by the mid 1700’s, had each degraded into a reduction ad absurdum.[6] On the one hand, rationalists Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and Gottfied Leibniz (1646-1716) pursued truth exclusively from logical deductions within the human mind, and thus had no clear rationale for studying the natural world in science. On the other hand, empiricists John Locke (1632-1704) George Berkeley (1685-1753) and David Hume (1711-1776) found that in pursuing truth only by studying the natural world, they were left with an endless collage of separate, disjointed observations of the natural world, with no organizing principle to bind them together.  Ironically, as the Enlightenment reached its zenith, science seemed imperiled by Cartesian philosophy.

God & Creation

One cannot understate the importance of Principalia Mathematica in the development of the Enlightenment mind. In contrast to the “superstitious” view, which held that the physical world was controlled by spiritual forces, the Newtonian vision of the world was a cosmos dominated by mathematical laws. The Enlightenment Rationalists, then, sought a vision of God that fit within this new cosmology.

In France, it became popular among the Philosophes to become atheistic: but Deism was to have a longer and broader influence. Not technically a Deist, John Locke (1632-1704) began the move in that direction by exalting human rationality over Scriptural authority. Locke’s “Rational Supernaturalism” was developed into what is today known as “Deism” by Lord Edward Herbert of Cherburn (1583-1648), who had almost no use for Scriptures. Likely the most famous of the Deists was Francois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778) – better known by the penname of “Voltaire.” He envisioned God as the “great watch-maker,” who set up the cosmos, wound it up, then removed himself far from it as it whirred and clicked on its way according to precise laws.

Within such a world, the intrusion of “miracles” (that is, the actions of a transcendent God breaking the very laws of nature which He had ordained) began to seen absurd, against the nature of God, and impossible by definition. David Hume’s work “On Miracles”[7] convinced the Modern mind that if God exists, He does not intrude into the material world.

Anthropology & Hamartiology

There is within Christianity a built-in resistance to humanism. This is the belief in original sin, or the belief that humans are born sinful and naturally defective in thought, action and soul. It is therefore not surprising that very early in the Enlightenment era – influenced in large part by John Locke’s 1690 “Essays Concerning Human Understanding”[8] – the doctrine of original sin was discarded. Humans were not, after all, sinful at birth but merely tabula rasa or “blank slates” upon which the influences and realities of the world impressed either positive or negative imprints. This concept was taken up by other Enlightenment thinkers who romanticized nature, and primitive man[9] and thus saw evil as coming from without, in the unnatural imposition of institutions such as the church and the monarchy onto nature.

Hermeneutics

As a book rife with miracles, as well as a book in possession of and (according to the Catholic view) produced by the Church, the Bible naturally came under attack with the onset of Enlightenment thinking. Desiderius Erasmus 1466-1536) may have laid the foundation for Modern Hermeneutics, but it was Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and later Jean Astruc (1684-1766) who really began the discipline of higher criticism by approaching the Bible like any other human writing. Astruc’s controversial discovery that the Pentateuch was written by several authors seemed to substantiate his presupposition that the Bible was merely a human book.

With the introduction of human authorship into hermeneutics, the possibility of the miraculous nature of its authorship – already a concept unfavorable to the Modern mind – seemed untenable. The Bible’s antiquity also seemed to bode poorly for it. Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) pounded the final nail into the coffin of traditional hermeneutics in what has become known as “Lessing’s Ugly Ditch.” Lessing explained that there are two categories of knowledge: the necessary objects of reason (e.g. 2+2=4) and the incidental objects of history (e.g. Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo). Between these two categories of knowledge there is an “ugly ditch.” Historic Christianity was in error by trying to found necessary objects of reason (e.g. man is sinful, salvation is in Christ alone, etc.) on historical events (e.g. the fall, the incarnation, etc.).[10]

Christology, Soteriology

With the rejection of miracles and the questioning of the bible, it is not surprising that the entrance of the Son of God into human history, to make atonement for sin also came under attack. The event was questioned by Enlightenement thinkers first because their high view of man made it seem uneccessary, and second because their strict sense of justice and personal responsibility made it seem illogical and unethical. Jesus was not rejected, however: only, it was His life and teaching which were emphasized, in order to give practical instruction to the Modern man on moral living. The virgin birth, miraculous resurrection and miracles were made secondary.

Probably the most famous example of this is Thomas Jefferson’s “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” Here the miraculous is completely edited out of Jesus’ life, leaving only a collage of moral instructions.

The Rejection of Christianity as an Original Religion

Steadily, the Enlightenment Rationalists emptied the Western mind of the Trinity, original sin, miracles, the atonement and an inspired canon, and any other doctrines that offended their philosophical allegiances. A final doctrine – that is, the originality of Christianity – seemed thus untenable, since: 1) the vaguely ethical religion that now remained was not much different than other religions, and 2) it made no logical sense for God to reject those who had no chance to hear the gospel message. Thus, the belief that Jesus alone is the “way truth and life” for humanity (John 14:6) was also rejected by the Enlightenment Rationalists.[11]

IMMANUEL KANT

Just as the “untimely born” and “least” came to be the quintessential Apostle, so too the late-born (although certainly not self-effacing!) Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) came to epitomize, summarize and consummate the Enlightenment in his work. The great aphorism attributed to Immanuel Kant is that he “saved science and made room for religion.”

“The Critique of Pure Reason”: How Kant Saved Science

The “Copernican Revolution” of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was to synthesize rationalism and empiricism. Kant agreed with rationalism that certain truths are native within the human mind: his great innovation was to assert that these internal truths subconsciously organize and inform our sensory perception of the world. Thus, it was possible to understand the world, since our minds naturally conform the phenomenal world to our understanding. The great consequence of Kant’s philosophy was the belief that one could only be really sure of those truths that could be reasoned from within one’s mind or perceived in the natural world. Kant’s system thus established agnosticism towards the spiritual world as a maxim of the thinking person.

Critique of Practical Reason: How Kant Made Room for Religion

Upon writing his magnum opus, “Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant supposedly came home to find his manservant in tears. When queried as to the source of his grief, the servant answered, “They tell me you have taken away my God!” Disturbed by this statement, Kant supposedly set about writing Critique of Practical Reason to remedy this situation.[12]

Kant decided that although his previous work had provided a good summary of “what is,” it had said nothing about “what ought to be:” it was to this end that he turned in Critique of Practical Reason. In point of fact every human being has a consciousness of morality which Kant defines as the sort of behavior which one could wish would be a universal maxim. Morality is illogical, however, without, 1) a moral lawgiver, and 2) a post-death judge, who will provide eternal rewards/punishments for moral behavior in life. Thus, Kant carved out room for religion: however, this was no Christian religion, but a restatement of Enlightenment Deism.

Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason

Kant applauded himself on thus making room for religion, but found that traditional Christianity would not fit within the space he had allotted to her: thus, he wrote the aptly named “Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone” to redact Christianity to fit within his system.

Book One: The Radical Evil

The title of Kant’s first book was a great shock to Enlightenment thought: was Kant really going to overturn Locke’s tabula rasa for the older doctrine of “original sin?” Upon closer examination, however, Kant’s ideas here are a restatement of Enlightenment anthropology.

Kant set out to answer the fundamental question of, “Why is it that the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want?” (Rom. 7:19, paraphrased from NASB). First, he divided the human psyche into three compartments. The villa is the moral law or conscience. On this, Kant adopts the Christian view that humanity has such an internal witness of morality (Rom. 2:14-16), but rejects the notion that this witness can be tarnished (1 Tim. 4:2). For Kant, the conscience of every man points continually “true-north.” The second compartment of the psyche is the vilcre – that is, the will, or the choosing agent of the person – which (in rejection of Biblical teaching, e.g. Rom. 6, 2 Pet. 2:19) is always completely free to choose from all available options. It is in the final aspect of humanity – the gesinna, or “disposition” – that the real root of sin resides. The disposition of a person could be tarnished by a host of factors including sensual temptations, poor examples, past history and the like. This corruption, however, never overlaps into other areas of one’s psyche.

Kant looked to the story of original sin in Genesis 3 not as a historic event that transmitted sin to all humanity, but as a metaphor or myth that was universally true for all humanity. In the same way that Adam was tempted by his tarnished disposition (or gesinna), he also had a sense of what was right and wrong (using his villa), and could just as easily have chosen not to sin as to sin as to sin (using his vilcre). In the same way, we too, in every occasion of life, should choose right instead of wrong, in order to impress the great Lawgiver and Judge.

Book Two: Jesus As An Archetype

Because Jesus’ resurrection and ascension were only attended by a few witnesses, and also because the notion of an atoning sacrifice was offensive to the Enlightenment mind, Kant declared that these events were not to be the focus of Christology. Further, Kant cast doubt on the factuality of the entire life of Christ, believing that Jesus was more of a myth than a reality. As a myth, however, Kant felt that the Jesus narrative could be far more useful to humanity. As the sinless man, Jesus was able to teach humanity how to live morally in order to attain the status of favor with God that Jesus enjoyed. Thus, Jesus became the positive archetype, to be favored and followed over the negative archetype of Adam.

Book Three: The Church

Kant believed that church was important. If people were to live moral lives, they should meet together with other moral people and be encouraged and given practical tips on morality. Thus, church was an integral part of Kant’s new religion. It was man’s own moral consciousness, however, not the morality of the Bible that was to be followed. When the Bible seemed to be immoral (e.g. Psalm 137:9), the Bible should be modified to fit within man-made morality.

Book Four: Religions of Magic

Kant divided religion into two categories. On the one hand, there were religions of magic or “priestcraft” whereby humans attempted to manipulate God to do their bidding. On the other, there were religions of morality, whereby humans attempted to please God by means of their morality. In this book, Kant bitterly attacked all religions that did not fit within his moralistic/Deistic framework.

Book Five: Religion and Clericism

The practical upshot of Kant’s system is that much of what had been previously valued as a part of Christianity had to go: specifically, anything that was not directly related to reinforcing morality within people was superfluous. He called these aspects “pseudo-service” and noted especially singing or chanting worship to God, offering penance or incense, etc.: this was merely man trying to twist the arm of God. In “true religion,” man does not really need God’s help, but tries to make one’s self worthy of His favor through sustained moral effort.

Atonement

In conclusion, Kant makes mention of what one should do with the fact that they have sinned often and at times grievously against the moral law. Since the historic atonement for sin has been removed, Kant’s only suggestion is that one must pour one’s self that much more passionately into a moral life, in order to become one’s own atonement for sin. Because of the morality of one’s later life, it would be unethical for God to judge such a person for their earlier sins.

THE ROMANTIC ERA

Dr. Andrew W. Hoeffer says, “If the Enlightenment motto could be understood as ‘I think therefore I am,’ the Romantic motto could be understood as ‘I feel therefore I am.”[13] Occuring in history as two consecutive movements, Romanticism and Enlightenment are really two opposing sides of the same coin of humanism, or Modernity. Because Modernity is basically a worldview which worships the human self, it is natural that the distinctions which create conflict in the human person – that is, between head and heart, between language/art and math/logic, between the left and right-brained tendencies – should also characterize such conflicts and revolutions within the society built upon them. It is also natural that a worldview built upon humanism should be characterized by great waves optimism, then despair, from which new optimism arises.

Because the Romantic Era was really a continuation of the general mood of Modernity that was begun in the Enlightenment, it is not surprising that the Romantics adopted virtually all of the major tenets of Enlightenment Rationalism – only applying these principles in very different ways. The one great exception to this was pantheism. In contrast to the Deism of the Enlightenment (which pushed God far enough away that He didn’t interfere with humanity), the pantheism of Jean-Jacques Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and William Wordsworth (1770-1850) – among others – came pulled God so close that He actually participated in human actions, or even was created by them. This pantheistic notion was eventually taken up by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), who envisioned God as the sum and total of the upward quest of humanity to self-actualize in the evolutionary process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis.

FRIEDRICH SCHLIERMACHER AND CLASSICAL LIBERALISM

The genius of Friedrich Schliermacher (1768-1834) was his ability to achieve erudition in a wide variety of subjects – including New Testament interpretation/exegesis/hermeneutics, ethics, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, etc. – and to synthesize apparently contradictory positions under a perceived higher unity. Schleiermacher eventually completed an eleven-volume systematic theology in which he received and modified Enlightenment and Kantian theology under the distinctively Romantic notion that every doctrine of the Christian faith was to be redefined around the religious self-consciousness, or “the feeling of absolute dependence” one feels in the presence of God.

Schleiermacher’s system was to hold precedence for over a century. During this time, “Protestant Liberalism” was further developed especially in Germany in the Ninteenth century by such thinkers as: Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889), who emphasized the ethical example of Jesus, the “brotherhood of man” and the “fatherhood of God”; Adalf von Harnack (1851-1930), who utilized Hegelianism to produce the evolutionary model for history still current today; Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), who emphasized the “social-gospel,” and Rudolf Boltmann (1884-1976) who sought to “demythologize” the gospel accounts. Karl Barth (1886-1968) and Reinhold Niebuhr’s (1892-1971) attempt to critique and overturn Schliermacher’s system split Classical Liberalism into neo-Liberalism and neo-Orthodoxy – movements which are still active today. Brian MacLaren (1956-), Rob Bell (1970-) and others draw heavily on Liberal roots for the formation of “post-modern” or “Emergent” Christianity.

CONCLUSION

One explanation of Liberalism is that it is a contemporary manifestation of the ancient Christian faith; another is that it is a loosening or slackening of that faith. Both of these illustrations are misleading, however, since Liberalism is a set of beliefs which differs from and rejects Christian doctrine at the most fundamental level.

A helpful metaphor for Liberalism is to see Kant as the innkeeper who lays historic Christianity on the “Bed of Precrustes”[14] of Enlightenment Rationalism. This deceased, fragmented corpse he then passed on to Schleiermacher who – with the help of Romanticism – revivified into the movement now known as Liberalism. The result is not really Christianity, but a non-redemptive, naturalistic, post-Christian religion tailor-made to fit within Modernity.

Centuries earlier, Martin Luther had rightly said that there are only two types of religion in the world: religions of legalism, and the one religion of grace. In emptying Christianity of all things essential to the gospel, Liberalism has thus taken away the gospel core of grace from Christianity, and returned it to the pre-Christian state of vague spirituality and ethics which was already in the world (especially in ancient Greece) before Christianity came on the scene.[15]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Calhoun, Dr. David. Reformation and Modern Church History. Covenant Theological Seminary.

25 February 2010. http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/

covenantseminary.edu.1726917598.01726917605. Internet. Accessed 15 April 2010.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. 2008.

Fox, Richard Wightman. “The Culture of Liberal Protestant Progressivism, 1875-1925.” Journal

of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 10. No. 3. (Winter, 1993). 639-660.

Frank, A. James III. History of Christianity II. Reformed Theological Seminary Virtual Campus.

13 December 2007. http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/

yale.edu.2414602410.02414602418. Internet. Accessed 15 April 2010.

Frame, John M. History of Philosophy and Christian Thought. Reformed Theological Seminary.

14 September 2009. [class lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/ WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/rts-public.1379337550.02487261124. Internet. Accessed. 9 November 2009.

Geisler, Norman L. “Beware of Philosophy: A Warning to Biblical Scholars.” Presidential address presented to the Evangelial Theological Society. 19 November 1998. Published in Christian Apologetics Journal, Vol 2, no. 1, Matthews, NC: Southern Evangelical Seminary. 1999.

Hensley, Jeffrey. Liberal Protestantism. In The Encyclopedia of Protestantism. Edited by Hans J.

Hillerbrand. New York: Routledge Press. 2004.

Hoffecker, W. Andrew. The Church and the World. Reformed Theological Seminary. 10 October

2007. [class-lectures online]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/

Core.woa/Feed/rts-public.1380058302.01380058304. Internet. Accessed 17 February

2010.

Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, L. A. Selby Bigge, ed. Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1902.

Johnston, R.K. Liberal Evangelicalism. In Evangelical Dictonary of Theology. 2^nd ed. Edited by

Walter A. Elwell. Grand Rapids, MI: Paternoster Press. 2001.

Knight, Kevin. Liberalism. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New Advent.org [encyclopedia online]. Available from www.newadvent.org. 7 January 2002. Internet. Accessed 12 April 2010.

Lessing, Gotthold. Lessing’s Theological Writings. trans. Henry Chadwick. London: A. & C.

Black Ltd. 1956.

Lewis, C.S. “De Descriptione Temporum.” in They Asked for a Paper. London: Godfrey Bless,

1962.

Locke, John. “Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” 1690. [document on-line]. Available

from http://books.google.ca/javascript:opengbs Accessed 26 May 2010.

Manning, David John. Liberalism. London, ON: Dent. 1971.

Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans

Publishing. 1923.

McLaren, Brian. A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends. Hovel Audio. 2001.

Download: -bookonline

. Available from http://christianaudio.com/product_info.php?products_id=

319. Internet. Accessed 26 June 2010.

Merriman, John. European Civilization, 1648-1945. Yale University. 10 May 2009. [class

lectures online]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/ Feed/yale.edu.2414602410.02414602418. Internet. Accessed 20 April 2010.

Newton, Isaac. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. John Machin             Oxford Press. 1729. [document online] available from http://books.google.com

/books?id= Tm0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1 and http://books.google.com/books?id= 6EqxPav3vIsC&pg=PA1. Internet. Accessed 28 June 2010.

Open University. Analyzing European Romanticism. Open University. 18 September 2010. [class

lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/ itunes.open.ac.uk.2684291448.02681386373. Internet. Accessed. 11 May 2010.

Reardon, Bernard M. G. Christian Modernism. In Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 9, 2^nd ed. Edited

by Lindsay Jones. Detroit: Macmillan Reference. 2005.

Tindal, Matthew. Christianity as Old as Creation. 1730. New York, NY: Thoemmes

Continuum Publishers. 1999.

Van Til, Cornelius. Christ and Human Thought. Westminster Theological Seminary. 15 January

2010. [class lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/

Core.woa/Feed/wts-public.3164695002.03164695004. Internet. Accessed. 11

---

[1] This illustration provided by Dr. David Calhoun, Reformation and Modern Church History, Covenant Theological Seminary. 25 February 2010. [lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects /Core.woa/Feed/ covenantseminary.edu.1726917598.01726917605. Internet. Accessed 15 April 2010.

[2] According to Romans 14, the Christian answer for variations in opinion is that each person should be “fully convinced in their own mind,” (14:5) and to be diligent in their convictions, as unto God (14:6). Unity is then found in the fact that even very divergent Christian traditions are all expressions of worship to God, and are thus accepted (14:4). By cross-referencing Galatians 1:8 we may see that this does not apply to salvific, or gospel doctrine.

[3] Isaac Newton, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. John Machin (Oxford Press, 1729) [document online] available from http://books.google.com/books?id= Tm0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1 and http://books.google.com/books?id=6EqxPav3vIsC&pg=PA1. Internet. Accessed 28 June 2010.

[4] See for example the first page of John Calvin’s, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 3.

[5] Descartes altered his formulation slightly in translation between Latin and his mother-tongue of French.

[6] This summary – which is far from a consensus among scholars – is presented by Cornelius Van Til in Christ and Human Thought. Westminster Theological Seminary. 15 January 2010. [class lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/ wts-public.3164695002.03164695004. Internet. Accessed. 11

[7] David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, L. A. Selby Bigge, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902), pp. 114-16.

[8] John Locke, “Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” Google  Books, [document on-line]. Available from http://books.google.ca/… Accessed 26 May 2010.

[9] This concept was popularized as the notion of the “noble savage,” or the idea that a primitive person, living close to nature and free from man-made institutions was more free, holy, etc., than a modern, urbanized individual.

[10] Gotthold Lessing, Lessing’s Theological Writings, trans. Henry Chadwick (London: A. & C. Black Ltd., 1956).

[11] Cf. Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as Creation, 1730, (New York, NY: Thoemmes Continuum Publishers, 1999).

[12] In all of the biographies of Kant which I have accessed, this story serves as a bridge between these two works: they all treat this story with some suspicion, however, as to its actual historicity. Factual or not, it provides a good logical bridge between the works.

[13] Andrew W. Hoffecker, The Church and the World. Reformed Theological Seminary, 10 October 2007. [class-lectures online]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/

Core.woa/Feed/rts-public.1380058302.01380058304. Internet. Accessed 17 February 2010.

[14] In Greek mythology, the “Bed of Precrustes” was a inn’s bed which “magically” fit all travelers by stretching those who were too short, and cutting off those who were too long. This myth invoked by Van Til in Christ and Human Thought, 1902.

[15] This point raised by J. Gresham Machen in Christianity and Liberalism, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1923), 53.

 

Machen: The Morpheus to My Neo?

(This post has been modified slightly since originally publishing it)

There is a compelling scene in The Matrix, where Neo – the protagonist – is being recruited by the shadowy, mysterious and attractive Trinity. He says, “Why should I trust you?” And she says (and I paraphrase), “Because I know about you, Neo. I know why you can’t sleep. I know why you don’t have any friends, and why night after night you sit at your computer screen. You’re looking for someone. I know because I was once looking for him too. And when I found him, he told me it was not so much him I was looking for, but the answer to a question. You know what the question is, just as I do – what is it, Neo?” Neo, “What is the Matrix?” Trinity, “The truth is out there, Neo – and he is looking for you!”

On a far less melodramatic scale, I too have been on a quest, and today I feel excited (although trying not to get too excited!) that I may have finally found “The One.”

In a way, my quest began even before I was born, when my newly-saved father attended a United seminary. Fresh, excited and naive, he had no idea what his teachers were talking about. It seemed like they were making gobbly-gook out of the Bible, saying that it wasn’t really God’s word, that Jesus wasn’t really who He said he was…the person who seemed to make the most sense was the atheist mathematician, who could not understand why these “Christian” professors claimed to be Christian, while rejecting Scriptures and Christian doctrine. He wisely dropped out and the rest of his life (and my early life) became defined in part by a reaction against what we came to know vaguely as “Liberalism.” Dad studied in New Tribes Mission – where, as he often told us, “they just studied the Bible – book by book by book.” We did family devotions straight out of the Bible for as long as I can remember, and from a young age we were alternately forced and/or encouraged to read the Bible for ourselves. Dad also brought us to very conservative, Bible-centered churches – one of which I am still a member of.

All of this birthed within me a tremendous love for God, and a thirst for His Word: I would not trade my heritage for anything! However, there have been questions which my heritage has been unable to answer. These questions are many, but among the chief of them is an intellectual glass ceiling.

Often, my Dad and others would contrast “study of the Bible” with “study of books about the Bible.” On the surface this seemed helpful: but it cut me off from so much of the depths and richness of commentaries, theologians and expositors of the past! In this, the near-paralyzing fear of Liberalism was clearly a contributing factor. I was never encouraged to read solid commentaries or systematic theologies growing up, and I cannot think of a single systematic theology which was present in my childhood church-library. This lack of serious books left a void which I filled in part with Scriptures (for this I am thankful) and in part with whatever flimsy pop-Christianity book I could find (this was less helpful).

This reaction against Liberalism into a sort of anti-intellectual retreat into Biblicism is generally know today as “Fundamentalism” – and especially when I went through college and into seminary, this tradition felt increasingly shallow and unsatisfactory.

In seminary, however, I met with exactly the same foe as my Dad did. In my hermeneutics class, for example, I read about several different methods for finding meaning from the text of the Bible. “Finding meaning”? Since when did God’s word become an impressionist work of art? I thought I was looking for truth, not meaning? I also learned that the Bible is a very very old book – we can’t really be sure what all it said, and so we need to find other methods (such as existentialism) for finding God through the Bible. (Note: for those readers who know which school I went to – just FYI, my seminary is/was not a Liberal school per-se – they just expose their students to all sorts of views without necessarily throwing them a life-jacket. Good place to learn to swim? Perhaps. Good place to drown? Also possible.)

I never exactly went along with Liberalism on an academic level, but for a while I experimented with popular-level liberalism in the form of the Emergent Church movement. (Note: not all emergent folks are liberal – see post “THE Book To Read On Emergent“) After walking with that ideology until it fell apart for me, I have come limping back home to my home church and the fundamentalism of my childhood. I think I have come to believe something like Kierkegarrd’s “leap.” No, I don’t support the Bible on science: if I did, I would be asserting that the scientific method (which is based on the functions of my own mind) is a higher authority than the Bible. I just accept that the Bible is true, and start there. It is working for me, but I am still searching. I am searching for some way to get beyond the dichotomy between over-simplified and overly complicated, between too shallow and too deep, between “Bible-only” and “using the Bible as a tool to go beyond the Bible.”

I could find a way through myself. I know that I could. However, such a journey would take my entire life – and there are other things which I would like to do with it. Like, for example, serve my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Is there no other way – no guide who may help me? Someone who has gone on before…? I thought for a while that Brevard Childs had found a way…but his work seemed incomplete and unsatisfactory. I thought that Karl Barth had found a way…but now I have serious questions about him, and I am just not sure. (Read about these disappointments in “Letter to a Bartian Professor.” By the way, I still haven’t heard back from my teacher.)

Today, however, I have new hope. In his sermon “J. Gresham Machen’s Response to Modernism” John Piper seems to have lead me to the one man who may have some answers!

Machen was a guy who lived 1881-1937 in America, within the Presbyterian church. He was very well educated and after studying at Princeton (at the time, the standard, conservative Evangelical school of America) he spent time in Germany where he almost lost his faith (as he would have later put it) to become a Liberal. He went on to spend the rest of his life fighting strongly against the dangers of Liberalism: his thoughts are, apparently, mostly summarized in the book “Liberalism and Christianity” – a book which will either be my salvation or yet another bitter disappointment to me.

According to Piper, the first thing you need to know about Machen is that he was not at all interested in starting a new denomination, or a new institution (note: he did both): rather, he saw true Calvinism as the pure root, the fullest expression of Christianity. All other forms of Christianity were either defective or under-developed forms of Calvinism, which alone gave preference to the doctrine of the Sovereignty of God. Thus, when he saw that Liberalism was a complete dismissal of God in preference for man, he saw it not as a different and acceptable variation of Christianity, but as a denial of it. This was in contrast to Fundamentalism, which seemed to make a new denomination, and fight Liberalism as a rival denomination.

According to Machen, Liberalism began with “the modernist spirit” of the last half of the 19th century.

In a mere fifty years, the scientific process and the powers of the human mind had brought mankind from a primitive to a “modern” way of life. Now there were trains, appliances, telegraphs, etc., to make life so much better than before! However, along with these amazing inventions came a certain way of thinking which was less helpful: in short, people were 1) distrustful of the past, 2) less interested in absolute truth, more interested in practical truth (who care about the soul and ultimate reality? what is really important is learning how to turn on a light bulb and becoming a millionaire!) and 3) dismissing of the supernatural (after all – if it is little demons making the light-bulb turn on, science is useless!). Machen points out that Christianity does need to face these very important questions: there have been two main options – fundamentalism and Liberalism.

Fundamentalism was a movement which identified and rallied around the following points, in reaction against Liberalism:

1) Scriptures are divinely inspired, and were inerrant in the original writing;

2) Christ was born of a virgin and truly God;

3) Christ’s death resulted in a real substitutionary atonement for our sins

4) Christ really rose from the dead, and

5) Christ will come again Christ’s personal pre-millennial and imminent second coming.

Machen was not a fundamentalist, and he did not especially like being grouped in with them – but, if I can paraphrase him – he believed that, “against that great and terrible foe of Liberalism, my differences with Fundamentalism appear trifling.” Trifling, yes, but still existent: his objections to Fundamentalism could have been written by myself, if I had more education and more time to think about it:

1. An absence of a historical perspective (Fundamentals can’t remember history past about 1830)

2. Lack of appreciation for scholarship (I gained less, not more credibility in some circles by becoming more educated)

3. Substitution of brief, skeletal creeds for historic confessions (Why don’t we know/use the confessions of our denomination?)

4. Lack of concern for precise formulation of doctrine (Again – where were the theology texts, where was the solid preaching on doctrine in my childhood…?)

5. Pietistic/perfectionistic tendencies (“Read your Bible, pray every day and you’ll grow, grow, grow!” …seriously – is this all that there is to true holiness? cf. James 1:27, Matt. 25:33ff)

6. One-sided other-worldliness (Not sure what that means)

7. A penchant for futuristic, premillennial nonsense (Two words: “Left Behind”!)

Machen was not a Fundamentalist – thank God! – but neither was he a Liberal. According to him, the main problem with the Liberal/Fundamentalism debate is that the Fundamentalists made the debate about a mere five points of doctrine, and fought over these points as though Liberalism was a rival denomination of Christianity. This was not thinking deeply enough about the issue, and it was giving Liberalism far too much credit. Far from being a denomination of Christianity, liberalism was and is a a denial of Christianity because it differed to the spirit of the age rather than holding fast to the scorn of the Cross. Thus, they 1) minimized the usefulness of the past, 2) substituted the pursuit of usefulness for the pursuit of truth, and 3) denied the supernatural. The result was the Christianity which my Dad encountered in seminary – professors who were atheistic or agnostic about the supernatural,  but who nevertheless called themselves “Christian” professors. Rather than approaching Scriptures humbly, seeking instructions from a God who really existed, they approached Scriptures brazenly (with a knife on one hand, and a fire on the other cf. Jer. 36:23), seeking “useful” thoughts which would help them live happy, moral, comfortable lives….and, of course, keeping their cushy jobs as Christian teachers (rather than leaving the seminaries to fight for crowded and under-funded posts in secular philosophy – the only other job which would be open to them if they actually admitted they were no longer Christian)!

Liberals are agnostics and atheists who claim to be Christians: naturally, there is a certain amount of dishonest which comes along with this territory. The primary lie is that they accept virtually any doctrinal statement, but behind their back they cross their fingers with this simple phrase, “I believe this is a useful doctrine.” A word is a symbol, and symbols are helpful to different people in different times. In the ancient, primitive first century, when people believed in resurrection from the dead (note: no, people did not believe in the resurrection of the dead back then, cf. Acts 17:32). In today’s enlightened world, however, we do not believe in the supernatural. Therefore, a Liberal will willingly sign any statement of faith – but secretly he will be saying that these doctrines are really useful more than true.

Two things really got Machan’s goat: 1) theological slipperiness. That is, people who used orthodox words, but meant radically different things by them. (Note: This happens all the time with modern-day liberal Emergents!) and 2) people who let liberals get away with theological murder. They don’t criticize the Liberal pastor/teacher who is hiding behind his position and his orthodox words, when anybody who knows anything should be able to see that he is an atheist or at least an agnostic, and destroying the faith of many.

Machan attacked Liberalism basically on two fronts: internally and externally. Internally, Liberalism purported to be the most “useful” doctrine known to man – but what good was it after all? All of this technology and industry has made our lives more comfortable, yes – but has it made us better people? We have no great poets or artists: our best are mostly imitative of the past, and those which are not are usually quite strange. Because we have lost touch with God and with objective truth, we are not really going anywhere – all that we have is a shifting kaleidoscope of varying perspectives. He also attacked Liberalism externally, from Scriptures. Liberals claimed to be Scriptural – well then, what did the Bible say about itself? It says that 1) Christianity is based on facts which really happened, and were witnessed (2 Pet. 1:16, 1 John 1:1), 2) these facts were authoritatively interpreted by the apostles (1 Pet. 1:20-21, ), 3) these facts were formulated into concrete doctrines, which were passed on to future generations (1 Cor. 11:2, 2 Thess. 2:15). Paul was amazingly forgiving and tolerant of pastors preaching the gospel with lousy attitudes (Phil. 1:15-18), but was categorically unforgiving of those who got the facts wrong, who preached “another gospel” (Gal. 1:8). In denying the historicity, the authoritative interpretation, and the historical transmission of the Christian tradition, Liberalism is not a variation of Christianity, but a denial of it, full-stop!

According to a very smart person whom Piper quoted (sorry, that’s as good as you get by memory!), Liberalism has never produced a good answer to Machen’s arguments.

Machen called for several points of application which are just as pressingly relevant today as they were in the thirties:

1. Let us use straight language. No more etymological gymnastics. No more using words, but refusing to define them, or pretending to accept them when really one is only saying that “I affirm that some people believe this, and that it has been useful to them….” Let words be defined and clear, with standard usages!

2. Let us alert people to the utter “doctrinelessness” of the church in our day. This is a serious problem! If people are not taught firm truths about God, they will fill in the void with whatever pop-culture spirituality and ambiguity they find in Christian pulp-fiction section, or on TV. Likely, the people in your church are doing this already!

3. Let us realize the importance of founding and maintaining institutions. Yes, it is all about one’s personal faith – but where would any of us be without a church to grow up in, without good books to read, without a solid college and somewhat solid seminary to attend? Institutions are important – let us hold the tide against the Liberal takeover of them!

4. Let us wake up and realize the danger of “indifferentism,” of sitting by idly as Liberalism – that is, as agnostic or atheistic peoples, posing as Christians – categorically takeover the institutions, pulpits and literature of our churches and denominations, thus preaching and teaching their worldview, and destroying the faith of many. This is not right and it is worth fighting over.

5. Very importantly, let us preach and extol a worldview which holds to the centrality and supremacy of God. Only when God is on His throne in our minds will the world make sense.

6. Let us recognize that we will be criticized. This is no easy doctrine, and Liberals have whole arsenals of weapons at their disposal.

I had already planned to write a minor paper on Machen: now, I will switch that to writing one of my major papers on him. Machen has already shed a tremendous amount of light on the Fundamentalist/Liberal distinction, and has given me a whole framework of thought.

Thank you, Morpheus – if your thoughts pan out, I will fight hard where you were unable to complete your mission!!

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Podcasts which you may be interested in would be:

A Christian And An Atheist: Show #72 Here, the atheist presses a Liberal “Christian” on his beliefs, and he ends up abdicating most of them, except for a vague notion of deism and love. Note that the Atheist starts making a lot more sense than the “Christian.”

The White Horse Inn: “Is Christianity the One True Religion?.” This podcast is helpful just for the introduction, and has some very profitable discussions throughout.