RIP Gwen Ashley

I was really shocked to read in the AUC alumni magazine that came in today’s mail that a good friend, Gwen Ashley, had died back in April. In these days of instantaneous communication, you wonder how something like this still happens. She had been a secretary at the Atlantic Union Conference and then was the president’s secretary at Atlantic Union College. For the last number of years, though, she lived in Maryland, and was secretary to the president of Adventist Risk Management. We had been out of touch for a number of years, but had gotten back in touch last year. I last heard from her on February 20.

She was a good friend at a critical time. I got to know her at the Village Church in S. Lancaster, where she was Sabbath School Superintendent. She got me into teaching Sabbath School, and, when I started causing trouble, she stayed a friend through thick and thin. When I was still living in the northeast I would be sure and see her on every visit to AUC. In 1996 I moved to California; in 1999 she left AUC, and then a letter she wrote criticizing the new AUC administration became public–she loved the school, and couldn’t stay silent. That was true when she defended anything–or anyone–she loved. She’ll be missed.

A tribute from ARM.

Lost in Translation

Sign translation troubles in Wales and China–via Volokh.

Woodrow Whidden on Ellen White’s Christology

Woodrow W. Whidden II, Ellen White on the Humanity of Christ: A Chronological Study. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1997.

In this volume Woodrow Whidden summarizes chronologically Ellen White’s thoughts on the human nature of Christ. The background to this study is that this became a controversial subject in Adventist teaching in the 1950s, when a group of theologians and administrators sought to influence change of the church’s teaching. Prior to the 1950s there was consensus among Adventists that Jesus had a “post-fall” human nature; today, Whidden says, “probably the majority” of pastors and professors say he had a “pre-fall” nature. Ellen White has been quoted by partisans on both sides. Whidden finds the terminology itself unhelpful, as there are things Jesus shares with those born after the Fall and ways in which he is unique. Whatever position we take, he argues, it will affect our views on salvation and perfection; so the debate on this point has had wider implications.

Whidden notes that any discussion of Christ’s humanity is meaningless without affirming Jesus’ full divinity (p. 14). That’s a good and necessary point, but I think he says too little, too late. I think we need a full awareness of what Jesus was from eternity, and then speak of the Incarnation and kenosis, and the relationship of the divine and human natures, before getting into these issues. In other words, we need to stand on the solid ground of Nicea and Chalcedon.

The definition of sin is critical if we are going to discuss its effect on humanity. But since we are here considering Ellen White’s thought, we have to realize she doesn’t use the term “original sin” (apart from one use of it as a reference to Adam’s sin), neither is she conversant with the theological history of the concept. I think Whidden muddies the water with his own repeated analogy of sin as an “infection,” as if sin is something tangible (it isn’t a term Ellen White uses). Still, it is clear that she thought there is something about sin that depraves and defiles, that is inherited, and is an “inwrought” “selfishness.” This leads Whidden to ask, if Christ had this, how could he be our substitute?

In the period leading up to the 1888 General Conference, Ellen White speaks of Jesus sharing our “infirmities” and “weaknesses” but not “possessing like passions.” His sacrifice had to be superior to what man could offer. Wooden regards White’s article in RH 7/28/1874 as a critical statement, which she references and builds upon in later years. He again emphasizes a distinction between being “infected” but not “affected,” using language she does not. Clearly Christ’s humanity is affected by the Fall (but so is ours). Is it right to speak of sin as an “infection,” as if it were a kind of self-existing substance (rather than, as Augustine put it, a privation of the good)? I think this is problematic.

Whidden notes an article in which White stresses Jesus did not rely upon his innate divine power, a theme that she will repeat in her future to underline Jesus’ efficacy as an example. She makes a helpful contrast when she says whereas we are “sinful by nature,” he had “no sin in him.” I think Whidden is mistaken in suggesting that White uses “character” and “nature” as synonyms; in an earlier article in that same series on redemption (2/26/1874) she contrasts Adam’s perfect nature with his character that had to be developed through tests and maturity.

Whidden makes an important point when he observes that at the 1888 General Conference, and in documents reflecting on it, Ellen White places no emphasis on Christological issues (pace the interpretation of the 1888 message by Wieland, et al.). In the next few years, however, she places great stress on the incarnation, and the union of the divine and human in Christ (I think the term “blending” unfortunate, opening the way to a non-Chalcedonian Christology). Christ’s humanity is unique, but remains truly human, ensuring his genuine identification with us.

Whidden surveys some key words that she seems to use in contradictory ways—at times White says Jesus shared our human passions and propensities, while at other times she says he didn’t. Whidden follows Larson in noting that these terms can be neutral terms, without a moral quality attached to them; she uses them in this way when speaking of what Jesus shared, but when she qualifies them as “sinful” or “fallen,” she distinguishes between his humanity and ours. He discusses Poirier’s theory about the Melvill distinctions between innocent infirmities and sinful propensities, and offers that as another aid in understanding her use.

In the late 1890s, Ellen White published her greatest writings on the life of Christ (Desire of Ages, Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, Christ’s Object Lessons), but in these she did not reflect more carefully and fully on the issues at hand, but simply republished statements that had appeared in earlier articles. There was more emphasis in this period on Christ’s uniqueness (it is interesting, and even a little puzzling, that she didn’t respond directly to the statements by AT Jones in this period and the years immediately preceding).

She frequently makes statements like this: “Christ did in reality unite the offending nature of man with his own sinless nature, because by this act of condescension, he would be enabled to pour out his blood in behalf of the fallen race.” Whidden’s argument that the phrase, “his sinless nature,” here refers to his human nature is not persuasive; this passage, and others like it, are clearly speaking of the incarnation, and his condescension and humiliation in uniting with our humanity (p. 54).

Whidden says, “No other individual promoting sanctification and the life of victory over sin appropriated the humanity of Christ as Ellen White did” (p. 57). While he wasn’t part of the holiness movement, surely there’s a parallel with Edward Irving (d. 1834), who also connected Christ’s (fallen) human nature with our sanctification—something Herb Douglass has often pointed out; Irving’s thought has been appropriated more recently by Karl Barth and Colin Gunton.

Ellen White’s 1895 (1896?) letter to W. L. H. Baker, brought to light in the 1950s, was the main catalyst for shifting the emphasis on Christ’s humanity within Adventism, Whidden argues. He sees Baker (whose actual teachings aren’t cited) as being in the camp of Waggoner, Jones, and Prescott). Whidden says her major concern is with Baker’s presentation of Christ’s humanity, and that she emphasizes Christ’s uniqueness and sinlessness, free from the “propensities of sin.” He analyzes Wieland’s interpretation of the letter, which he finds forced, imposing a preconceived view, equating terms that Ellen White was seeking to separate.

She says to Baker, “Let every human being be warned from the ground of making Christ altogether human, such an one as ourselves; for it cannot be” (p.65). This seems to suggest something more was going on with Baker than Whidden allows. It isn’t just the kind of humanity which Jesus had that she’s concerned about—it’s that Baker seems to make Jesus “altogether human”—in other words, he’s at risk of denying his divinity.

She tells Baker, “Truth lies close to the track of presumption … you need to guard strenuously every assertion, lest your words be taken to mean more than they imply.” This is immediately followed by a warning that he not “lose or dim the clear perceptions of His humanity as combined with divinity.” Then come statements that emphasize his divinity (pace Whidden): “His birth was a miracle of God”; he was “the Son of the Infinite God.” “The incarnation of Christ has been, and will ever remain a mystery.” Then the statement that Whidden cites without comment: don’t make him “altogether human, such an one as ourselves: for it cannot be. The exact time when humanity blended with divinity, it is not necessary for us to know.” This suggests Baker was advocating a variety of adoptionism, thus denying the reality of the incarnation, not merely discussing the kind of humanity. This, I suggest, is why his statements would merit a firm rebuke while those of Jones, Waggoner, and Prescott did not.

In chapter 9, Whidden lays out his own interpretation, and it seems clear that a particular understanding of justification and sanctification is the hermeneutical principle that guides his understanding of Christology. Should it not be the other way around? Shouldn’t we start with who Christ is, and what he has done in the incarnation? I think that’s what Ellen White does. Whidden notes that Ellen White’s teachings didn’t vary with time. She was consistent. In some contexts she emphasized his identity with fallen man, at other times his uniqueness as the sinless Savior. Whidden’s bottom line, with which I highly concur, is that we can’t completely reconcile the two; there must always remain a sense of paradox, tension, dialectic, when speaking of the Incarnation.

I think it a critical point when he observes that Jesus didn’t have “a previous experience in sin”—he didn’t know what it was like to struggle to over come “habitual sin,” which is something that binds all humans (pp. 73-74). We speak glibly of Jesus not having an “advantage” over us—but this is surely an “advantage” he had, and a “difference” from us. This is worthy of much more emphasis.

I am troubled, though, when Whidden says, “Christ was not just like fallen humans,” but “was enough like them to identify with their ‘infirmities’” (p. 70). Elsewhere, “Could Jesus have a nature just like ours and still be our interceding advocate and high priest?” (p. 72). Here I think he misunderstands the thrust of her statement in the Baker letter that he was not “altogether human”—she was warning against denying his divinity or the reality of the incarnation, not watering down the genuineness of his humanity.

Here Whidden is on very dangerous ground, and this is furthered by the fact that “nature,” a philosophical concept, is not thoroughly discussed and defined in terms of its long history of theological use. We can’t do theology in a vacuum, assuming that Ellen White was the first person since Paul to wrestle with these questions. This also shows the danger of trying to argue theology from the writings of one who was not systematic, and not a theologian—as well as the danger of building the case on her writings, and not on Scripture.

Whidden doesn’t do exegesis here. He might say it’s because he’s writing about Ellen White’s views—but in this chapter he is trying to argue what we should teach, and is basing it on her writings, just as his opponents do. But Scripture says it is precisely because of his identity with us that he can be a high priest—because he was “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” and “was in all points tempted like as we are” (Heb. 4:15); because “he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (Heb. 2:18). And this is rooted in his having a “nature just like ours”—“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same”; “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren” (Heb 2:14-17). This must be our starting point. We can discuss what it means, but we have to do it in the larger context of Christian theology, including Nicea, Chalcedon, Reformation discussions of Christology, current theology, and not just pick selective statements in Ellen White that support our preconceptions.

In chapter 10, Whidden more directly addresses those with whom he is in disagreement—those who may call themselves “historic” or “traditional” Adventists. He wants first to establish common ground. Following Froom, he wants to distinguish between the “eternal verities,” genuine Adventist “landmarks” (of which Ellen White only identifies three), and points we’re still discussing. Agreeing we’re all on the same side, and proceeding on the basis of charity, will go a long way in changing the tenor of the conversation. He argues we have to be careful about the term “historic Adventism” because there is much in Adventist history no one would want to embrace, including Arianism and the denial of the Trinity and the personhood of the Holy Spirit. He suggests that all Adventists can agree Jesus was enough like us that he is able to be sympathetic intercessor and profoundly unique that he can be our sinless substitute. That’s the paradox he wants to cling to.

Chapter 11 is a contribution by Kevin Paulson (a classmate of mine at Loma Linda): “The Lower and Higher Natures: The Key to Resolving the Adventist Christology Debate,” and includes Whidden’s reply. It is a helpful addition to the book, in that it raises an issue that Whidden never adequately addresses—the question of anthropology. What exactly is human nature? Paulson argues it is more complex than Whidden suggests. We have a “lower” nature, what Paul calls “the flesh,” and a “higher nature” nature, what Paul refers to as “spirit” or that might be called the will; this is the place of character development. This, he says, is the key to understanding Ellen White’s statements on such things as “propensities”—Christ had the “propensities” or “inclinations” of the flesh (hunger, thirst—fear?—sex drive?), but his will was unsullied. He never assented. I’d suggest that this “lower nature” is more than “infirmity” or “weakness,” but includes all those things that are basic bodily cravings or stress responses. The key part of Whidden’s response is his basic agreement with this anthropological point.

Some reflections I made after the QOD conference are worth repeating here:

Reflecting on this from the perspective of having been away from Adventism for over two decades, having studied at Lutheran and Catholic institutions of higher education, it seems to me that the different parties have more in common than I think they realize or want to admit. All agree Christ was fully human and fully divine, and that his humanity was affected by heredity, and was the weakened, mortal flesh we share. All agree he is substitute and example. All agree as a high priest he is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. They all agree he could have sinned (something Catholic and most Protestant theologians would deny), but never wavered. All agree that while we are born separated from God, his relationship with the Father and the Spirit was never broken. All agree that Seventh-day Adventists are fully Arminian. All agree that Jesus is coming and that there will be a time of trouble and that those who live through it will have a very intense experience that will require them to cling closely to Christ. All agree, I think, that the Holy Spirit will continue to uphold them.

There are issues that undergird the differences that need further exploration. Some self described “evangelicals” are comfortable using the term “original sin.” The phrase was stricken from an early draft of QOD but the idea remained. It isn’t found in earlier Adventist theology and doesn’t appear in official Adventist publications after this. Both liberals, like David Larson, and conservatives, like his recently deceased father, Ralph Larson, have problems with it. This raises a number of questions when we speak both about Christ’s inheritance and ours. What is the nature of sin? What exactly do we inherit? If sin isn’t inherited guilt (as Catholics teach), is it some sort of “substance” or “infection” that can be passed along, as some Protestants seem to suggest? Or is it better spoken of as a broken relationship and acts of the will? David Larson asked whether we might be operating with an understanding of the human person derived more from Aristotle and Plato than from the Bible.

There wasn’t much discussion of the larger Christian history of discussion about these issues. Douglass and an Evangelical scholar, Donald Dayton, pointed out that many theologians have shared a belief that Christ took our fallen nature (including Edward Irving, Karl Barth, and Colin Gunton). I think it would be good for some historians and theologians to explore their thought and how it compares with the thought of Adventists who share this perspective.

George Knight on the “1888 Messsage”

George R. Knight, A User-Friendly Guide to the 1888 Message (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1998).

My personal introduction to the “1888 Message” came when, as a junior at Broadview Academy in 1977, I came across some issues of The Layworker in the library, and saw an advertisement for a set of free tapes by Robert J. Wieland. Having had a pastor who was a hardcore legalist, this was the first gospel presentation to impact me with the good news of God’s redeeming grace in Jesus Christ. I went on to read “1888 Re-Examined,” Lessons on Faith, and everything by Jones and Waggoner published by Leaves of Autumn, as well as Luther’s commentaries on Romans and Galatians, and The Bondage of the Will—all before I started as a freshman theology major at Atlantic Union College a few weeks after Glacier View. By that time I’d gone on to Paxton, Ford, and Brinsmead—and within three years I left the Adventist church. I returned after two dozen years, and have been playing a game of catch up to see how discussions have changed on these issues in the time I was away. With that context, I’m grateful for Knight’s perspective on this (as I am grateful for his assessment of the QOD controversy)—he helps to separate myth from reality, and offers an interpretation that accords with the evidence (regardless of which side’s ox is gored).

The heart of the 1888 message is not all that complicated, as Knight presents it, focusing on Ellen White’s comments in Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 91-93: “Many had lost sight of Jesus. They needed to have their eyes directed to His divine person, His merits, and His changeless love for the human family.” He was uplifted as the sacrifice for the sins of the world; it was proclaimed that justification is through faith in him; people were invited to receive his righteousness by faith, which is manifest in obedience. (19-22; 91ff).

Adventists had become used to focusing on controversial doctrinal topics that separated them from other Christians. The approach to evangelism assumed that the hearers were Christian (23). But in focusing on distinctives, the central Christian affirmation of the gospel of Jesus Christ got shortchanged, in both preaching and in experience. “Adventists had been suffering from a Christless religion, and they needed the love of Jesus in their minds and hearts” (92).

It is of critical importance to stress that neither Ellen White, E. J. Waggoner, nor A. T. Jones imagined that they were preaching some new, uniquely Adventist message of salvation. Waggoner and White both said that it was the same gospel preached by Paul, Luther, and Wesley—if not, “we had better get rid of it as soon as we can” (82-83). They did not see it as new light but old light in a new setting, separated from error (85; 108-110). It was a bringing together of Adventist distinctives with the common Christian proclamation of Christ crucified (114).

In the light of the controversies stirred up by Wieland and Short and others, which focus in an almost Gnostic way upon obscure points, I think it well to heed the warnings of Ellen White against trying to be “more minute than is Inspiration” (93). So much ink has been spilled on arguments about universal forensic justification (99), whether the 1888 message was accepted or rejected (145ff), and the precise details of the human nature of Christ (152ff), etc., that salvation is almost seen to turn on what you know rather than who you know. Perhaps we need to recall that it isn’t denominational repentance (150) that justifies, nor gnosis, but individual repentance and faith in Christ.

The historical context is important, including the anxiety caused by the Sunday law crisis (32, 56-57; 121ff) for both sides, as well as the problem of aggressive personalities on both sides (23), some of whom “lost their Christianity” (64).

Some of the other topics debated in Minneapolis remain relevant, too. The argument over the identification of the ten horns might be said to center on the question of whether we should stay with what is familiar or whether we should always be interested in grounding our discussions of historical issues in good history (34)?

The question of the law in Galatians has undergone many interpretations and re-interpretations over the years. The earliest Adventists said it was the moral law; this shifted to the ceremonial law after 1856, in order to protect the ten commandments; Waggoner reverted to the understanding that it was the moral law (p. 38). He did so to emphasize that we are not saved by the law. As Knight notes,

He made a strategic decision not merely to debate the issue of the law in Galatians, but to raise the larger issue of salvation in terms of law and gospel, and then to discuss the book of Galatians in that context. (p. 54)

Waggoner was preaching and doing his exegesis of these passages within an Adventist context. His opponents focused on the law instead of Christ’s righteousness, and so they became the “Galatians” he had to refute. In the same way, Luther was operating within the context of late medieval Catholicism and his opponents, the advocates of the via moderna, became the “Galatians.”

Contemporary exegesis would emphasize that both were missing Paul’s context. Krister Stendahl, in Paul among Jews and Gentiles, argued we all tend to forget the questions Paul was addressing regarding Jews and Gentiles in the church. Paul was concerned with the law that separated Jew from Gentile, the whole Jewish law; his opponents said Gentiles needed to keep it if they wanted to be Christians, submitting to circumcision, etc. Paul responds by arguing that Gentiles are justified by faith apart from the law, just as Abraham was, long before the law was given. The law was added later, because of transgressions; it was a custodian for the Jews until Christ came. But Waggoner, like Luther, used the text to make a different point—that the Ten Commandments are the schoolmaster that brings us to Christ today (55); they show us our sin, so that we may turn to him in faith.

Looking at it from this perspective, I think we’d have to say that the Adventist pioneers who emphasized the “Jewish law system” were more right exegetically than Waggoner, though they, too read Galatians in light of their own concern to preserve the perpetuity of the Ten Commandments. On the other hand, Waggoner was theologically right in stressing that the moral law does not save us, but can only show us our need of a savior.

In light of contemporary debates over the role of Ellen White it is well to point out, as Knight does, that she refused to “function as a theological police officer or an exegetical referee” (p. 59) Instead, she referred disputants of her day to “the Bible, the Bible alone” (p. 62).

Knight does a good job in pointing out some inconsistencies in the debate over the human nature of Christ. For one thing, it didn’t play a role in discussions until the 1890s, when A. T. Jones increasingly made it an issue, especially at the 1895 General Conference Session. Ellen White says nothing of this as an issue in her comments about the Minneapolis General Conference or in her praise of Jones and Waggoner—she doesn’t even make an issue of it in Steps to Christ or Desire of Ages (p. 163). And even while Jones stressed that Christ shared our fallen fleshly nature, he had to insist that his mind was not like ours; thus, while arguing that there were no differences between our humanity and his, he had to concede that there was in fact a difference (pp. 158-159). I especially appreciate Knight’s care not to misrepresent Ellen White’s teaching.

There is not the slightest doubt that Ellen White believed that Christ took upon Himself fallen, sinful human nature at the Incarnation. Whatever that nature consisted of, however, it is clear that it did not include any evil propensities to sin—those “thistles and briars” of selfishness, self-love, and so on. (p. 160, emphasis Knight’s)

Thus his focus becomes trying to understand what she meant by saying Jesus had a fallen nature, and he finds Poirier’s study of Melvill’s sermons helpful (p. 162).

I think Knight makes a strong case for his position that we shouldn’t look for new and unique understandings of the gospel in the post-1888 writings of A. T. Jones, E. J. Waggoner, and Ellen G. White. They claimed to be proclaiming the NT message  of the gospel, as also proclaimed by Luther, Calvin, and Wesley. The point of the message was that we can’t lose sight of the basics when we are arguing about our distinctive teachings–nor can we let our debates rob us of our Christianity. Good advice still relevant for today.

George Knight, Millennial Fever

As I’ve already mentioned, I’m heading up to Walla Walla, WA, Sunday morning to take a week long intensive course on “The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Theology” with George Knight. He had us to a lot of reading in advance (some of it in his own books), and I thought I’d post some of my reflections on that reading here.

George R. Knight, Millennial Fever and the End of the World: A Study of Millerite Adventism (N.p.: Pacific Press, 1993).

Millerism ultimately succeeded as a movement, argues Knight, because it was mission driven; “they saw themselves as a prophetic people with a message that the world desperately needed to hear” (p. 10). Seventh-day Adventism, the largest child of Millerism by far, is the only one to share that prophetic identity and mission. The most important challenge facing Adventism today, Knight suggests, is whether it will retain that identity—that “millennial fever” (p. 342). He writes, I think, to help us do just that, and to kindle it anew.

Knight sets Millerism within the broader context of the period. First, it should be seen not only as part of, but indeed as the climax of the period of religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening (pp. 21ff). Second, it was part of a particular trend within American Christianity known as Restorationism, which sought to get away from the creeds, confessions, symbols and traditions of Protestant orthodoxy in order to rediscover and restore primitive Christian doctrine and life (38ff; cf. the Stone-Campbell movements and the Christian Connexion).

Another feature of the period was a growing interest in the millennium, starting in the late 18^th century. This was due to a combination of natural and human events, including the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the French revolution, and the capture of the pope by Napoleon’s forces in 1798. This latter event, which seemed to provide a firm date for the terminus ad quem of the Biblical prophecy of the 1260 days, led prophetic interpreters to take a closer look at other prophetic periods, including the 2300 days of Daniel 8:14. Eventually, according to Froom, some 65 expositors on four continents would calculate it as ending in the 1840s (15-16).

Miller’s primary innovation was not the preaching of definite time (which he long resisted), but teaching that Christ would come before the millennium, contrary to the postmillennialism that was dominant at the time (17). Whereas postmillennialism had an optimistic vision of a world tending towards betterment and a bright future, Miller proclaimed that it was heading to destruction (20).

Miller left Deism behind when he converted to Christianity, but he retained its rationalism, as can be seen in his evangelistic method of calm appeal to reason through carefully laying out the evidence (39, 103). While the movement also had its charismatics, such as S. S. Snow and George Storrs (who would dominate the movement in its final year), and moderates, such as Charles Fitch, this rationalistic approach was shared by the key leaders, including Himes and Litch (113).

Miller preached mainly in small towns prior to linking up in 1840 with Joshua Himes, who “transformed a one-man show into a genuine movement” (75). Himes was more than a promoter, but helped to create a sense of “self-consciousness and community” through publications and general conferences (78ff). Josiah Litch would add camp meetings (95ff).

In the next couple of years, growing tensions between Millerites and their churches forced Millerites to take further steps in organization. They could no longer meet in many churches, many were subject to discipline in the churches in which they held membership, and many ministers were removed for their adherence to Adventism (148-149). As a result, Millerites increasingly pulled away from the existing denominations to find fellowship with like-minded Christians; they had a larger sense of community through conferences and publications such as those Himes founded; they built tabernacles of their own for meetings—and they called and ordained ministers (151-153). The culmination came when Charles Fitch provided “a theological rationale” for separation in his July 1843 call to “Come out of her, my people” (154-155). 50,000 were to answer this call by October 1844 (p. 157).

Himes’ role as organizer was even more critical following the disappointment in 1844 (219). Where Miller was initially able to transcend denominational line (and saw no reason why Christians of all denominations shouldn’t be able to embrace the Bible’s teaching on the premillennial return of Christ), further rejection after October 22, coupled with the fact that the Adventist doctrine occupied the center of their hope in a distinctive way, ultimately led to the formation of denominations (229).

Differing interpretations of the significance of 1844 shattered the unity of the movement, however. The first interpretation, that the door of probation had shut on October 22, was originally accepted, indeed “actually … fathered” by William Miller (227; 237); it was the logical conclusion to teachings that appeared in Evidence from Scripture and History that there would be a close of probation (Rev. 22:11), and a shutting of the door, prior to the return of Christ. Influenced by Himes, Miller gave this up in short order, along with the belief that anything happened in 1844 (241-242). Driven by Himes, these “open door” Adventists organized at Albany in 1845, separating themselves from all who held to the shut door. They accepted a doctrinal platform, developed an evangelism plan, provided for ordinations, and spelled out their differences with other groups which they believed had wrong ideas (postmillennialism, as well as the idea of a return of Israel) or “unseemly practices” (p. 271-272). These Albany Adventists would later split over the issue of the state of the dead (285).

Others thought the problem was not with the time, but the event expected (230-231), and continued to speak of a door being shut. Apollos Hale and Joseph Turner wrote a seminal article in January 1845 in the Advent Mirror, saying that on Oct. 22 the bridegroom, Jesus, entered spiritually into the marriage feast (using imagery from Matthew 25:10); they connected this with the picture in Daniel 7 of the Son of Man coming before the Father in judgment (238; 304-305). One group would go with the bridal imagery and say Christ had returned to earth spiritually (some would enter the Shakers; others would engage in varieties of fanaticism). Another group took the judgment imagery and said Christ had entered a new phase of ministry (242). This is the group from which Sabbatarian Adventists arose (295).

Separation from the “fanatics” was a difficult process, and took time in the confused period following 1844 (266). Thus we see oddities like Ellen Harmon associated with Israel Dammon (arrested for disturbing the peace), and her visions appearing in Enoch Jacobs’ Day-Star, in which he published his own tendencies toward Shakerism, as well as O. R. L. Crosier’s articles on the sanctuary (296). The group that became Sabbatarian Adventists would achieve distinct identity through the rise of new leaders (esp. Joseph Bates, and James and Ellen White), new doctrines that explained their experience (the sanctuary and the Sabbath), and their own publications and organizational structure (298).

The key doctrines, or “pillars,”  of Sabbatarian Adventism were in place by 1848. They affirmed that God was leading in the Advent movement, that the prophetic timetable was correct, only the event was misidentified; instead of Christ coming to cleanse the earth by fire, he had entered into the final phase of his high priestly ministry, akin to the jugdment role of the high priest on the Day of Atonement. They saw they had a continued mission to proclaim the third angel’s message of the eschatological meaning of the Sabbath (and its connection to the sanctuary) (pp. 306-312; 314-315). To these were joined other distinctives, including conditional immortality, baptism by immersion, and the belief that the gift of prophecy was manifested in Ellen White (313).

Knight’s book is concerned with the Millerite movement as a whole, and is not a history of Seventh-day Adventist theology. He just takes us as far as the formation of a distinct Sabbatarian Adventist group. But he leaves us with that tantalizing question–as the church has developed in theology and in institutional life, has it retained that original, dynamic, “millennial fever”? And if we’ve lost it, how do we recover it?

Hamstra on Hahn

David Hamstra reviews Rome Sweet Home.

The Founding Fathers on Property Rights

“Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables. Would Mr. Nedham be responsible that, if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority, the eight or nine millions who have no property, would not think of usurping over the rights of the one or two millions who have? Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them. The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet,’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.”–John Adams, 1787.

“The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.” –Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association–’the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.’” –Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy’s “Political Economy,” 1816.

“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”–Abraham Lincoln, March 21, 1864.

Spokane?

So, if someone was going to be in Spokane for a day, what would you recommend they see or do?

U.S. Catholics and Kristallnacht

Komonchak @ Commonweal.

Free Speech Denied

Pro-life students have been arrested and jailed at the College of Alameda in California for exercising their right to free speech. This college earlier threatened to expel two students for praying with a faculty member.

Rashid Khalidi

Rashid Khalidi’s resume. Another clip.

The Right to Privacy

The Democratic Party is always talking about a “right to privacy.” But they don’t give it to Joe the Plumber or Bill Sali. No wonder they haven’t been complaining about Bush’s forays into this field–they reserve the right to revise and extend.

Pantheist Nuns

The New Oxford Review carries a review of Sarah McFarland Taylor, Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology (Harvard University Press).

Reformation Day

See Paul McCain’s post.

Former Muslim Pleads to Pope

Journalist Magdi Allam, baptized last Easter by Pope Benedict XVI, has written him a letter warning about Islam and telling him the Vatican’s director of interreligious dialogue doesn’t get it. CNS Story.

“Those Sacrifices Were Not Mistakes”

“They died for a purpose, not a mistake,” says Iraq veteran Joe Cook. He made a sacrifice, too (as you’ll see if you watch all the way to the end). He doesn’t think his sacrifice a mistake.

Religious Oppression in Russia

Russia Moves to Liquidate Fifty-Six Religious Groups.

On October 15 the Russian Ministry of Justice took steps to begin liquidating 56 non-Russian Orthodox religious organizations.  The groups face dissolution, Russian news sources reported, because they failed to file required annual reports on their activities. Those targeted include a range of non-Russian Orthodox organizations and churches but hardest hit were various Christian groups, both Protestant and Catholic.  Baptist groups were prominent on the list, but Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Seventh-day Adventist and Pentecostal groups were also included. Well known humanitarian groups such as World Vision and Youth with a Mission were also named, as was the Russian branch of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.   Non-Christian organizations were also named, including Muslim and Buddhist associations.

According to the Slavic Legal Center in Moscow, many of the organizations believe they are in full compliance with filing requirements and are surprised to be included in the list.  They are unsure if the posting is a scare tactic or if the Ministry of Justice indeed intends to pursue liquidations on a massive scale.

Out of the Loop

I hear the World Series is over. I didn’t know it had started.

Latest Gas Price: $1.99

Yes, I saw gas selling for $1.99 today.

Justification by Faith Re-Examined

This Friday, October 31, is Reformation Day, the anniversary of the day back in 1517 that Martin Luther posted his “95 Theses on Indulgences.” Justification by faith alone, the hallmark of the movement, wasn’t just one doctrine among many, but was for Luther the “chief article” which must critique all that the church says or does.

Back in the 1970s and ’80s there was widespread debate in the Seventh-day Adventist Church over justification. Much of the debate was in reaction to provocative claims by Australian layman Robert D. Brinsmead in his magazine Present Truth, echoed by his Anglican associate Geoffrey Paxton in The Shaking of Adventism. Together with Australian Adventist theologian Desmond Ford they sought to persuade Adventists to accept a version of justification by faith drawn largely from Reformed writers such as James Buchanan (The Doctrine of Justification, 1867) and a Reformed interpretation of the Lutheran “Formula of Concord.”

I bought into their interpretation at the time, but this shifted when I was a graduate student at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, studying under professors such as Eric Gritsch and Robert Jenson. One of the shocking surprises of my Lutheran education was that the Lutheran understanding on justification was not so easily reduced to the forensic and accounting metaphors favored by Ford-Brinsmead-Paxton. Going from the post-Reformation scholastic formulas to the dynamism of the Reformation itself, I saw justification as something with more power, more life, than the sterile dogmatism they offered.

Lutheranism is not reducible to Luther, but it cannot be understood without considering Luther’s background. For reading in this area, I’d suggest Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil, or Eric Gritsch, Martin: God’s Court Jester. An Augustinian friar, Luther was formed in the via moderna, the nominalistic scholasticism of Gabriel Biel. Catholic theologians have said that “Luther rebelled against a Catholicism that wasn’t really Catholic,” because nominalism presented a warped view of grace and works that allowed for works done apart from grace to be regarded as meritorious. A nominalist slogan was facere quod in se est– work out what is in you–take the first steps toward God, and God will reward you. This philosophy, combined with a spirituality of ascent (from Pseudo-Dionysius, translated through Franciscan mysticism), and the submission, obedience, hard work of the Augustinian rule made the spiritual journey an athletic contest in which a neurotic young monk, overwhelmed by feelings of personal sin and unworthiness, was a non-starter.

In the face of his inner turmoil, his anxieties or “Anfechtungen,” brought on by the assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil, Luther sought assurance. Where can one turn for assurance of acceptance with God? And the answer he came to, through study of Paul and the Psalms, was simple—you cling to the external Word. You do not count your “Brownie points,” you do not measure your success, you do not stack your indulgence certificates, you do not evaluate the quality of your experience or weigh your doubt against your faith. You cling to the Word of God in Christ.

A key experience was probably when Staupitz asked the fretful Luther to recite the Apostles’ Creed. When he came to “I believe in … the forgiveness of sins,” Staupitz said that was the problem—he believed in it abstractly; he believed in the forgiveness of sins of others, but he didn’t believe God forgave his own sins.

Luther’s theology of justification was a working out of the answer he found to his own anxiety—and he worked it out in lectures on Biblical books, in sermons, and in polemical tracts. He was not a systematic theologian. This is important to remember. It’s one of the ways in which he differs from Calvin and the Reformed school, who were able to construct a theological package in which everything fit together nicely. Later Lutherans, readopting scholasticism, would do that. For a taste, see Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.  And between Luther and later Lutheran orthodoxy stood Melanchthon, who attempted to turn Luther’s personal insights into the confession of faith of a people.

One of Luther’s important early sketches of his understanding of justification is his 1519 pamphlet, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” in which he draws a distinction between the imperfect righteousness of our own obedience and the alien righteousness of Christ, which is “the righteousness of another, instilled from without.  This is the righteousness of Christ by which he justifies though faith ….”

Through faith in Christ … Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness and all that he has becomes ours; rather, he himself becomes ours. … This is an infinite righteousness, and one that swallows up all sins in a moment, for it is impossible that sin should exist in Christ. On the contrary, he who trusts in Christ exists in Christ; he is one with Christ, having the same righteousness as he. It is therefore impossible that sin should remain in him. This righteousness is primary; it is the basis, the cause, the source of all our own actual righteousness. For this is the righteousness given in place of the original righteousness lost in Adam. It accomplishes the same as that original righteousness would have accomplished; rather, it accomplishes more. …

… This alien righteousness, instilled in us without our works by grace alone … is set opposite original sin, likewise alien, which we acquire without our works by birth alone. Christ daily drives out the old Adam more and more in accordance with the extent to which faith and knowledge of Christ grow. For alien righteousness is not instilled all at once, but it begins, makes progress, and is finally perfected at the end through death.

The second kind of righteousness is our proper righteousness, not because we alone work it, but because we work with that first and alien righteousness. This is that manner of life spent profitably in good works, in the first place, in slaying the flesh and crucifying the desires with respect to the self … In the second place … in love to one’s neighbor, and in the third place, in meekness and fear towards God. …

This righteousness is the product of the righteousness of the first type, actually its fruit and consequence. … This righteousness goes on to complete the first for it ever strives to do away with the old Adam and to destroy the body of sin.

Some speak as if this “alien righteousness” is an abstraction–but for Luther, it is a person, it is the person of Christ. He is our righteousness, and he transforms us. We do not trust in the things we do, but we trust in Christ.

In 1529, he summarized the gospel in his Small Catechism:

I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won [delivered] me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, in order that I may be [wholly] His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.

The gospel for Luther is Christocentric; Jesus is the focus, his life, death, and resurrection life. He has purchased us, delivered us; the Spirit brings us to faith in him, having called, gathered, enlightened and sanctified us. It is interesting that in this most basic summary the forensic/legal/accounting metaphors are completely absent. All those metaphors, though, are meant to emphasize that we don’t bring our own efforts into consideration–and this summary makes the same point. It is Jesus’ blood that has purchased us; it is the Holy Spirit who calls us to faith in him.

The following year the “Augsburg Confession,” written by Philip Melanchthon, was presented to the emperor by the evangelical princes in 1530. It begins by summarizing the teaching of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds on God and the redemptive actions of Christ, adding in between a statement on the fall—the predicament that necessitated salvation: “since the fall of Adam all men begotten in the natural way are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with concupiscence; and that this disease, or vice of origin, is truly sin, even now condemning and bringing eternal death upon those not born again through Baptism and the Holy Ghost.” Now come the critical articles:

Article IV: Of Justification

Also they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. Rom. 3 and 4.

Article V: Of the Ministry

That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake. …

Article VI: Of New Obedience

Also they teach that this faith is bound to bring forth good fruits, and that it is necessary to do good works commanded by God, because of God’s will, but that we should not rely on those works to merit justification before God. For remission of sins and justification is apprehended by faith, as also the voice of Christ attests: When ye shall have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants. Luke 17, 10. The same is also taught by the Fathers. For Ambrose says: It is ordained of God that he who believes in Christ is saved, freely receiving remission of sins, without works, by faith alone.

Let’s summarize some of the key points:

• Christ’s, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins
• We are freely justified for his sake, through faith, when we believe that we are received into God’s favor and forgiven because of this
• The Holy Spirit comes to us through the preached Word and the sacraments, and creates this justifying faith in us
• Faith bears fruit in works, but we don’t cling to these works for our justification

Justification is through faith in Christ’s atonement; this faith is created in us through the work of the Holy Spirit through the external “means” of the Word and Sacraments. We can better understand this part by looking at Luther’s understanding of the sacraments.

Starting with baptism, look at how Luther described it in his Small Catechism:

Baptism is not simple water only, but it is the water comprehended in God’s command and connected with God’s Word. … It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare. … It is not the water indeed that does [these great things], but the word of God which is in and with the water, and faith, which trusts such word of God in the water. For without the word of God the water is simple water and no baptism. But with the word of God it is a baptism, that is, a gracious water of life and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Ghost …

Justification is by the word, and that word comes to us both audibly, through the preached Gospel, and visibly, through the sacraments. Melanchthon’s “Apology [or 'Defense'] of the Augsburg Confession,” art. 13, explains it this way:

… God, at the same time, by the Word and by the rite, moves hearts to believe and conceive faith, just as Paul says, Rom. 10, 17: Faith cometh by hearing. But just as the Word enters the ear in order to strike our heart, so the rite itself strikes the eye, in order to move the heart. The effect of the Word and of the rite is the same, as it has been well said by Augustine that a Sacrament is a visible word, because the rite is received by the eyes, and is, as it were, a picture of the Word, signifying the same thing as the Word. Therefore the effect of both is the same.

Baptism thus shows us through a physical acting out what justification by faith alone is really about: believing in and clinging to the word of promise. In the “Large Catechism,” Luther hammers this point home:

Our know-it-alls, the new spirits [the Reformed and Anabaptists] assert that faith alone saves and that works and external things contribute nothing to this end. We answer: It is true, nothing that is in us does it but faith, as we shall hear later on. But these leaders of the blind are unwilling to see that faith must have something to believe—something to which it may cling and upon which it may stand. Thus faith clings to the water and believes it to be Baptism in which there is sheer salvation and life…. Now, these people are so foolish as to separate faith from the object to which faith is attached and bound on the ground that the object is something external. Yes, it must be external so that it can be perceived and grasped by the senses and thus brought into the heart, just as the entire Gospel is an external, oral proclamation. In short, whatever God effects in us he does through such external ordinances. No matter where he speaks—indeed, no matter for what purpose or by what means he speaks—there faith must look and to it faith must hold….To appreciate and use Baptism aright, we must draw strength and comfort from it when our sins or conscience oppress us, and we must retort, “But I am baptized! And if I am baptized, I have the promise that I shall be saved and have eternal life, both in soul and body.”

Pay attention to the critical issue of how we respond to fits of doubt and anxiety–we cling to the promise of the external word; we rememember our baptism. That’s the reason for all the emphasis on objectivity; it is, as I said at the beginning, rooted in Luther’s only experience of how he came to peace and assurance: he believed the Gospel.

For this reason, Luther also had continuing appreciation for confession–he saw it as another way in which we hear the Gospel’s promise spoken directly to us by someone who has just heard us admit our sins.  He radically altered the Catholic understanding and practice of confession, however, by rejecting the idea that we could provide satisfaction for our sins (Christ did it!) and by denying that it was obligatory (or even possible) for Christians to name all their sins. He sometimes referred to confession as a “third sacrament,” while at the same saying it “is really nothing else than Baptism.” Luther elaborates in the Large Catechism.

Baptism remains forever. Even though we fall from it and sin, nevertheless we always have access to it so that we may again subdue the old man. But we need not again have the water poured over us. Even if we were immersed in water a hundred times, it would nevertheless be only one Baptism, and the effect and signification of Baptism would continue and remain. Repentance, therefore, is nothing else than a return and approach to Baptism, to resume and practice what had earlier been begun but abandoned . . . . Thus we see what a great and excellent thing Baptism is, which snatches us from the jaws of the devil and makes God our own, overcomes and takes away sin and daily strengthens the new man, always remains until we pass from this present misery to eternal glory. Therefore let everybody regard his Baptism as the daily garment which he is to wear all the time. Every day he should be found in faith and amid its fruits, every day he should be suppressing the old man and growing up in the new. If we wish to be Christians, we must practice the work that makes us Christians. But if anybody falls away from his Baptism let him return to it.

Luther’s emphasis on the sacraments, understanding them as the “visible word,” preserves, rather than detracts from, the centrality of the word in justification.

And that word of forgiveness spoken by God is not a “legal fiction.” That Word is effective, as Luther said in his commentary on Genesis (LW 1:17, 21-22):

…[I]n the beginning and before every creature there is the Word, and it is such a powerful Word that it makes all things out of nothing. . . . [T]he words ‘Let there be light’ are the words of God, not of Moses; this means that they are realities. For God calls into existence the things which do not exist (Rom. 4:17). He does not speak grammatical words; He speaks true and existent realities. . . . We, too, speak, but only according to the rules of language; that is, we assign names to objects which have already been created. But the divine rule of language is different, namely: when He says: ‘Sun, shine,’ the sun is there at once and shines. Thus the words of god are realities, not bare words.

The Word creates a new reality. Jesus transforms us when he joins himself to us. Justification must produce fruit in our lives, the fruit of a new obedience. But we don’t look to that in time of doubt. When we are troubled by doubts, or tempted by the devil, we are not to look at the effects of the Word, but to the Word itself.

This is likewise related to Luther’s epistemology. How do we know about God? Can reason tell us what God is like, as the medieval scholastics supposed? No, Luther said. Just as we cannot trust our own feelings or works in the matter of justification, so we cannot trust our own reason when we seek to understand God; instead, we must cling to the revealed Word. We can know nothing about God apart from his revelation in the Word and the Sacraments. This revelation is at the same time a concealment, for God only allows us to see that part of him which he wishes to disclose.

Those who want to reach God apart from these coverings exert themselves to ascend to heaven without ladders (that is, without the Word). Overwhelmed by His majesty, which they seek to comprehend without a covering, they fall to their destruction. (LW 1:14)

But when Luther in that same book turns to pastoral application, his tack is very different. He says that this “hidden God” (Deus absconditus), the God of glory and majesty, the God whose word has eternally predestined all that must happen, is not the “revealed God” (Deus revelatus) of the Gospel. He believed in predestination, just like Calvin and Zwingli. But he didn’t see any point in focusing on that, or in trying to figure it out, or in trying to reconcile that with God’s promise of mercy. Worrying about the hidden God can drive one mad—we need to cling to the Word.

God must therefore be left to himself in his own majesty, for in this regard we have nothing to do with him, nor has he willed that we should have anything to do with him. But we have something to do with him insofar as he is clothed and set forth in his Word, through which he offers himself to us and which is the beauty and glory with which the psalmist celebrates him as being clothed…. Diatribe [Erasmus], however, deceives herself in her ignorance by not making any distinction between God preached and God hidden, that is, between the Word of God and God himself. God does many things that he does not disclose to us in his word; he also wills many things which he does not disclose himself as willing in his word. Thus he does not will the death of a sinner, according to his word; but he wills it according to that inscrutable will of his. It is our business, however, to pay attention to the word and leave that inscrutable will alone, for we must be guided by the word and not by that inscrutable will. (LW 33:139-140)

In both justification and in revelation, we cling to the Word, not to our fears.

“The Smalcald Articles” is Luther’s theological “last will and testament,” his summary of the Reformation faith. Justification is “the first and chief article.”

1. That Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification, Rom. 4, 25.
2. And He alone is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world, John 1, 29; and God has laid upon Him the iniquities of us all, Is. 53, 6.
3. Likewise: All have sinned and are justified without merit [freely, and without their own works or merits] by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood, Rom. 3, 23f
4. Now, since it is necessary to believe this, and it cannot be otherwise acquired or apprehended by any work, law, or merit, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us as St. Paul says, Rom. 3, 28: For we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the Law. Likewise 3, 26: That He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Christ.
5. Of this article nothing can be yielded or surrendered [nor can anything be granted or permitted contrary to the same], even though heaven and earth, and whatever will not abide, should sink to ruin. For there is none other name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved, says Peter, Acts 4, 12. And with His stripes we are healed, Is. 53, 5. And upon this article all things depend which we teach and practice in opposition to the Pope, the devil, and the [whole] world. Therefore, we must be sure concerning this doctrine, and not doubt; for otherwise all is lost, and the Pope and devil and all things gain the victory and suit over us.

XIII. How One is Justified before God, and of Good Works.

1. What I have hitherto and constantly taught concerning this I know not how to change in the least, namely, that by faith, as St. Peter says, we acquire a new and clean heart, and God will and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake of Christ, our Mediator. And although sin in the flesh has not yet been altogether removed or become dead, yet He will not punish or remember it.
2. And such faith, renewal, and forgiveness of sins is followed by good works. And what there is still sinful or imperfect also in them shall not be accounted as sin or defect, even [and that, too] for Christ’s sake; but the entire man, both as to his person and his works, is to be called and to be righteous and holy from pure grace and mercy, shed upon us [unfolded] and spread over us in Christ.
3. Therefore we cannot boast of many merits and works, if they are viewed apart from grace and mercy, but as it is written, 1 Cor. 1, 31: He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord, namely, that he has a gracious God. For thus all is well.
4. We say, besides, that if good works do not follow, faith is false and not true.

Luther’s consistent and clear teaching on the necessity of works has often been ignored. Christians do good works. They must. But they do not add to our justification. They do not further us towards God. We do them because God’s Word has changed us; his Word bears fruit in our lives. The point is that we do not trust in them or raise them up to God to get his attention. We cling to the Word. We cling to Jesus.

Because our works are not the basis of our justification, but spring forth as a result of the change wrought in us by Christ and the Holy Spirit, they can be done freely, without fear or coercion. That’s the point of his tract, “On the Freedom of a Christian,” and the paradox he sets out: “A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.” As a poet quoted by Henry Ironside once put it:

I would not work my soul to save;
That work my Lord has done;
But I would work like any slave
From love to God’s dear Son.

The problem with Ford, Brinsmead, and Paxton was that in the name of the Reformers they denied something the Reformers held critical–the transforming power of the Gospel. They supposed justification to be a blanket that didn’t effect what was underneath, playing into the Catholic myth that Luther said justification by faith alone is a sprinkling of snow on a pile of dung. They did this to undercut the emphasis of other Adventists on sanctification (derived from Wesley). You have to keep the two together–Luther did, even though Lutheranism, and some others who used his name, didn’t always.

Justification became a topic of renewed discussion between Catholics and Lutherans in the 1990s, culminating in the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, which suggested that all differences had been resolved. I initially bought into this optimistic assessment, but gradually saw that the agreement was a smokescreen; key issues such as indulgences and satisfaction were never discussed–the very issues that sparked the Reformation. But modern liberal Lutheranism (as represented by the Lutheran World Federation and the ELCA) and Catholicism share this–they spend little time talking about justification, and lots of time emphasizing a social gospel which assumes human effort can transform the world into the kingdom of God.

The Reformation message of justification by faith alone still needs to be heard. It needs to be heard by men and women who tremble on account of their sins. It needs to be heard by those who imagine that their spiritual exercises and good deeds will bring them closer to God. It needs to be heard by those who suppose that their lives do not need to be changed. It needs to be heard by those who imagine religion to be nothing more than a way to make the world a better place. And it needs to be heard and proclaimed by those who have the final gospel message to proclaim to the world.

Build a Lamborghini in Your Basement

Ken Imhoff of Wisconsin did just that. And then had to excavate through the yard and knock out the basement wall to get it out. But he knew going into the project that it would come to that. He just couldn’t see working on the car in the unheated garage during Wisconsin winters.

Prayer in Georgia

Federal appeals court in Atlanta says Cobb County, GA, can continue to invite members of different religious faiths to offer prayer before commission meetings, praying as their own faith dictates, be they Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or any other faith. Americans United objects, and demands that those offering prayers be muzzled and made to pray only in a generic, least common denominator way. Here it is AU that is trying to impose a religious test, seeking to enforce by legislation a generic religion that includes all gods. The appeals court saw this for what it was.

Text of the opinion.

The clergy have represented a variety of faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Unitarian Universalism, and Judaism, and their diverse prayers have, at times, included expressions of their religious faiths. … The taxpayers argue that the Establishment Clause permits only nonsectarian prayers for the meetings of the commissions, but we disagree. Marsh v. Chambers makes clear that “[t]he content of the prayer is not of concern to judges where . . . there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief.” 463 U.S. 783, 794–95, 103 S. Ct. 3330, 3337–38 (1983). The district court applied this standard, found that the practice of the County Commission had not been exploitive, and refused to parse the content of the prayers. The district court also found that the practice of the Planning Commission had been exploitive during 2003 and 2004 and declared that practice unconstitutional. Because there is no clear error in either finding by the district court, we refuse “to embark on a sensitive evaluation or to parse the content of a particular prayer.” Id. at 795, 103 S. Ct. at 3338. Whether invocations of “Lord of Lords” or “the God of Abraham, Issac, and Mohammed” are “sectarian” is best left to theologians, not courts of law. We affirm.

The lone dissenter demands a line be drawn, and he strangely says, “I would draw the line at state-sponsored prayer at invocations before the United States Congress and State legislatures. I therefore dissent.” And yet he is concerned that generic, state-sponsored religion is rendered without power: “When state sponsored prayer is a perfunctory and sterile exercise marking the beginning of a commission agenda, religion becomes the casualty.” That would slap down Barry Lynn’s version of appropriate public prayer, and rightly so.

Another Look at Newman on Development

One of the key books that I read on my journey to Catholicism was John Henry Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. I was first introduced to it when I was a graduate student in church history at Loma Linda University; Paul Landa had me read it for a course on the History of the Papacy and Roman Catholicism.

I was persuaded by his arguments, especially by this passage:

History is not a creed or a catechism, it gives lessons rather than rules; still no one can mistake its general teaching in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines and broad masses of colour rise out of the records of the past. They may be dim, they may be incomplete; but they are definite. And this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this.

And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion at first, at least as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt it. This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity from the Bible alone: men never would have put it aside, unless they had despaired of it. It is shown by the long neglect of ecclesiastical history in England, which prevails even in the English Church. Our popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages which lie between the Councils of Nicæa and Trent, except as affording one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain prophesies of St. Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but the chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon. To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. [p. 5]

Against all interpretations of church history that speak of apostasy, rupture, or discontinuity, Newman asserts that basic continuity must be assumed unless it can be proved otherwise. He acknowledges that there are contradictions, but refuses to take the Protestant path.

They say, in the words of Chillingworth, “There are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the Church of one age against the Church of another age:”—Hence they are forced, whether they will or not, to fall back upon the Bible as the sole source of Revelation, and upon their own personal private judgment as the sole expounder of its doctrine. This is a fair argument, if it can be maintained, and it brings me at once to the subject of this Essay. [p. 4]

He acknowledges the contradictions, but is not swayed by them.

Here then I concede to the opponents of historical Christianity, that there are to be found, during the 1800 years through which it has lasted, certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in its doctrine and its worship, such as irresistibly attract the attention of all who inquire into it. They are not sufficient to interfere with the general character and course of the religion, but they raise the question how they came about, and what they mean, and have in consequence supplied matter for several hypotheses. [7]

It doesn’t matter if theologians and bishops contradict each other through history; that is to be expected in the course of development.

… the one essential question is whether the recognized organ of teaching, the Church herself, acting through Pope or Council as the oracle of heaven, has ever contradicted her own enunciations. If so, the hypothesis which I am advocating is at once shattered; but, till I have positive and distinct evidence of the fact, I am slow to give credence to the existence of so great an improbability. [12]

What would he have said in our day? Where once popes praised and defended the execution of heretics, wars against Muslims and Albigensians, torture of those suspected of being crypto-Jews or Protestants, and condemned in no uncertain terms the idea of religious liberty, popes and councils in our era have claimed religious liberty is a Catholic idea, have denied the state’s right to execute criminals, have condemned torture–and a pope has kissed the Koran. Were he alive today, he’d have to acknowledge he was wrong, that “the hypothesis which [he was] advocating [was indeed] shattered” by the tumultuous change of the past forty-five years.

He argued that most seeming contradictions are developments, and that these are to be expected–as long as they don’t involve contradictory statements by authoritative teachers, i.e., popes and councils.

How do you tell the difference between true “developments” and aberrations? He lists seven “Notes of a Genuine Development”:

1. Preservation of Type
2. Continuity of Principles
3. Power of Assimilation
4. Logical Sequence
5. Anticipation of Its Future
6. Conservative Action upon Its Past
7. Chronic Vigour

Let’s look briefly at these. This being a blog post, I don’t have time to marshall lots of quotes and citations; this is a brief sketch to lay out some thoughts and ideas I will explore at length another time.

1. Preservation of Type

Newman argues that the church should still be the same type of organization

There is a religious communion claiming a divine commission, and holding all other religious bodies around it heretical or infidel; it is a well-organized, well-disciplined body; it is a sort of secret society, binding together its members by influences and by engagements which it is difficult for strangers to ascertain. It is spread over the known world; it may be weak or insignificant locally, but it is strong on the whole from its continuity; it may be smaller than all other religious bodies together, but is larger than each separately. It is a natural enemy to governments external to itself; it is intolerant and engrossing, and tends to a new modelling of society; it breaks laws, it divides families. It is a gross superstition; it is charged with the foulest crimes; it is despised by the intellect of the day; it is frightful to the imagination of the many. And there is but one communion such.

Many of those phrases do describe the early church (a look at the New Testament suggests it wasn’t as unified and organized and orderly as he supposes), but does his portrait of an underground, subversive church really describe Roman Church of history? I suggest it does not–it describes those whom the Roman Church persecuted. Following the legalization of Christianity, and then its endorsement as the official religion of Rome, a path was followed which negated these features Newman sketches. It made discipline and order a mark above others; it embraced the world and made external acceptance of its rule a minimum which allowed the world to in turn influence it. It raised and deposed kings, and boldly asserted its superiority over them. It claimed superiority to the laws of God, and replaced those with its own, to which it demanded obedience. It embraced pagan ideas and established universities to further them; the intellectuals of its day defended the embrace of paganism and built great systematic theologies justifying this union. Where the early church hid in fear, this power declared war, and justified execution and torture. Where the early church was poor and outcast and naked, like its crucified Lord, this was rich and arrogant and clothed in gold and silver and scarlet and purple.

But in each era we see Christians who did refuse worldly honors; who valued truth over life and comfort; who remained a thorn in the flesh of persecuting powers; who lived the non-violence of Jesus; who were content to be naked and beaten and bruised for the sake of the Gospel. These are the Christians who demonstrated true preservation of type.

2. Continuity of Principles

As we’ve seen above, some principles of the early church were deformed through the centuries, especially those regarding the church’s attitude to the world and to violence. But Newman suggests some specific principles he has in mind when he wishes to demonstrate their continuity. It has a sense of dogma, “supernatural truths irrevocably committed to human language”; of faith as “the absolute acceptance of the divine Word with an internal assent”; of faith as opening  “a way for inquiry, comparison and inference”; of the Incarnation as “a divine gift conveyed in a material and visible medium”; of the necessity of interpreting Scripture “in a second or mystical sense‘; of grace involving a transformation; of mortifying our lower nature; of the “malignity of sin“; that “matter is an essential part of us.”

Many of these are good points. I’d agree that true Christianity has a sense of dogma, of “supernatural truths irrevocably committed to human language,” and these are established once for all in the inspired Scriptures, which preserve the actual teaching of the apostles and the revelation of God and are the continuing norm for all doctrine. I’d agree that faith requires “the absolute acceptance of the divine Word with an internal assent,” but add that this must be so even when humans teach contrary to it. I’d agree that faith “opens a way for inquiry, comparison and inference,” and that this is true for every Christian, who has the obligation of searching the Scriptures daily to see whether the things taught by church leaders are so. I’d agree that the Incarnation is the touchstone, and it shows that Christ divests his power and glory and takes on humility–something that stands in stark contrast to papal pomp. And if the Incarnation is the touchstone, if human flesh can envelope the divine, if human language can express divine truth, then we must shun any pretensions of “a second or mystical sense” of Scripture, and must seek to understand the actual words. Yes, grace must transform and sanctify us; we must mortify our lower nature; we must be aware of the “malignity of sin” and the beauty of the grace of God which is in Christ Jesus. But when we look at the Catholicism of history we see structures of sin, that embody pride and arrogance; we see a church that regarded itself as above the law, that absolved crimes and transferred the criminals and protected them from harm while pursuing and hounding and persecuting those who called the church to true holiness. I’d go further than saying that “matter is an essential part of us”–it is what we are, formed out of the dust of the earth, animated by the breath of life, and when that breath departs our lips we will die, and wait the resurrection of our bodies on the last day.

In the very areas where Newman says we should see continuity of principles, we see stark discontinuity when we look at the Roman church through history–but in each era we see Christians who clung to the word of God instead of the word of man, who recoiled from sin, especially when they saw it in the temple of God, who refused to explain away Scripture, but accepted its plain teaching and conformed their lives and their teachings to it. Who searched the Scriptures daily to see whether those things were so. Who let the mind of Christ rule in them, humbling themselves, embracing the cross and its shame. These are the Christians who demonstrated true continuity of principle.

3.Power of Assimilation

Newman thinks it a positive thing that Catholicism did not conquer paganism by the proclamation of the truth but instead absorbed it into its own heart. But Paul warned against false teachers who would lead astray; of a man of sin sitting where he ought not. John called all to come out of Babylon, a false system that would enmesh Christians in the life and ideas and beliefs of the world. They didn’t urge assimilation, they called Christians to come out and be separate. And throughout history, Christians responded to the Roman Church’s assimilation of paganism by calling the church back to the purity of the apostolic faith, unmixed with error.

4. Logical Sequence

Newman thinks it a virtue that one idea led logically to another. But this is only a virtue if the foundation is true and pure, and not mixed with error. Lay a bad foundation, mix error in with truth, and you may built logically upon it, but still go drastically astray. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of it is death. Yes, if you believe souls are immortal, it is logical to assume you can communicate with them, and they with you, and that some are purified after death and that some will suffer forever. But if you accept the clear teaching of Scripture that the idea of natural immortality was the first lie of Satan in the garden, then all these other teachings must logically fall apart. And throughout history we see Christians in all places seeking to purify the church by uncovering and removing the false elements that had been implanted deeply into the teachings of the Roman Church.

5. Anticipation of Its Future

Christianity, affirming the goodness of the material world, and the reality of the Incarnation and of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, looks forward to the resurrection and glorification of our bodies at the last day. Yes, indeed. But where Newman says this is why the church adores relics, and prays to saints, and places Mary in a special role, we have to cry, “Wait!” It is specifically because our eternal life in Christ is future, and inseparable from the resurrection of the body, that we must say no to all these aberrations. These are all premised on the lie that “Ye shall not surely die,” on the admixture of the pagan idea of the natural immortality of the soul with beliefs in the Incarnation and the future resurrection of the body. And throughout history we see Christians who looked with faith to the return of Christ when all the saints who sleep in the dust will be raised to eternal life.

6. Conservative Action upon Its Past

Newman says genuine Christianity must be conservative. It must hold on to the past, and resist innovation. Indeed, that is why the apostolic teaching must be given primacy of place; why Scripture, the inspired record of God’s revelation, must be listened to with reverence. Why all those things which would take us away from Scripture, and the life and practice of the apostolic Church, must be resisted. And all through history we see Christians who did so, and called the church to reject the changes and aberrations that had been brought in, and to return to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

7. Chronic Vigour

Newman argues that “a corruption, if vigorous, is of brief duration, runs itself out quickly, and ends in death; on the other hand, if it lasts, it fails in vigour and passes into a decay.” Islam is vigorous today, as is Hinduism. By this logic they must be true. But the father of lies is still propagating his errors, and he is very vigorous, coming after us like a roaring lion because he knows his time is short. The vigor we need to embrace is that spirit-given life that energizes the church, that helps it to persevere in the face of persecution, that gives it the courage to proclaim the word even when it is beaten down. And that vigor we find in the church of all ages, in Christians who wouldn’t let themselves be squeezed into the world’s mold, but broke free of the hold of lies and distortions to proclaim the truth as it is in Jesus.

I wasn’t wrong in seeking to embrace Christians of all places and times. I was wrong when I assumed they would be found within the walls of a particular building, accepting the word of certain men. But God’s word is alive in every day. He will not let it be bound or captured by tradition and error. In each era men and women of faith and humility have opened its pages, or heard a passage read, and let it do its work. They took what steps they could, on the basis of the light they had. But all who hear the voice of the shepherd and follow are his sheep, regardless of the fold they find themselves in.

The test of truth is whether it is in accordance with God’s word, and I have learned to say ‘Amen’ to that truth whether it is spoken by Augustine, the Cappadocians, Francis or Dominic, Aquinas or Bonaventure, Huss or Luther, Zwingli or Calvin, Wesley or Miller, John Paul II or Benedict XVI, Billy Graham or Mark Finley. I do believe in the communion of saints–a communion based in Jesus, and his word, and our desire to follow him and learn of him–a communion that will be realized in that great day when we shall be raised at his appearing, and shall go in to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and shall join in praising him for ever and ever. Amen.

MSNBC–Too Liberal even for Liberals

At a lunch meeting sponsored by the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors, even Democratic media people drubbed MSNBC as by far the most partisan news outlet.

The cable news channel is “completely out of control,” said writer-producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat. …

Bloodworth-Thomason and others seemed especially critical of the way MSNBC — and other media — has attacked Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while demeaning her supporters.

“We should stop the demonizing,” she said, adding that Democrats have been worse than Republicans as far as personal attacks on candidates are concerned. “It diminishes us,” she said of her fellow Democrats.

Getting much of the criticism: Keith Olbermann.

Union Bullying and Power Grabs

Unions are working hard to eliminate the right to a secret ballot on votes to join a union. End bullying by unions. Protect the right to private votes.

Bishop Martino of Scranton

Bishop Joseph Martino crashed a political forum at a church in his diocese, and gave them a piece of his mind.  The main issue was the Catholic approach to abortion, and there were a number of panelists. What got his goat was that they passed out and discussed the USCCB document on “Faithful Citizenship,” but they didn’t pass out, and no one mentioned, his own letter on the subject.

“The only relevant document … is my letter,” he said. “There is one teacher in this diocese, and these points are not debatable.”

“No USCCB document is relevant in this diocese,” said Martino. “The USCCB doesn’t speak for me.”

Chutzpah

Chutzpah (KHʊt’ spə): Utter nerve; effrontery. Pope Benedict XVI had the chutzpah to claim that “the distinction between religion and politics is a specific achievement of Christianity and one of its fundamental historical and cultural contributions.”

I think David Gibson at the Catholic blog, dotCommonweal, is on to something when he says, “this statement seems to elide a lot of history. Like, a lot.”

Teresa Beem on “Journeys Home”

The Journey Home is a program on the independent Catholic network, EWTN, featuring stories of converts to Catholicism. It is hosted by Marcus Grodi, a former Presbyterian minister, who is the director of the Coming Home Network, an independent Catholic ministry to support converts, particularly clergy. I was one of the first CHN members; it grew out of an informal network of converts who had connections with the Franciscan University of Steubenville. I was never on the program, but Marcus invited me to expand an article I wrote for the newsletter for his book, Journeys Home.

A recent program featured Teresa Beem; she was raised Adventist, left the Adventist church in 2001, and after some time checking out various Protestant churches became Catholic.

She said her family was liberal, and thus they “were protected in our home from the more dark doctrines of Seventh-day Adventism.” Marcus Grodi is a very gracious and genial host, and that caused him to raise an eyebrow. She explained she was referring to Adventist teachings on the role of Catholicism in the last days.

She claimed Adventist teachings on eschatology came from the visions of Ellen White. In fact, they were derived from Scripture independently from Ellen White’s visions. They had been worked out by Joseph Bates before she had much influence.

Marcus said at one point, “It sounds like Adventists don’t look forward to the second coming.” “Right,” she responded. What? The key point of Adventism is in fact its joyful expectation of the second coming!

She said that Adventists don’t eat pork or shellfish because of Leviticus—and then added, as an additional point, that they also have a health message. That’s getting the cart before the horse. Adventists have a health message, and it is because of the health message that they see that the Levitical laws may have had a practical side to them (see the very good chapter on this point in Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine). Marcus suggested that this makes it sound as if Adventists pick and choose what they want from the Old Testament—take tithing, Sabbath, diet, but not the rest. Well, the New Testament does affirm that some of the Old Testament laws have relevance to Christians and some do not; all Christians acknowledge this, though they differ in identifying those things that remain relevant.

“It all comes down to Ellen White, the prophetess. They claim to be Biblical based … but they see it through the lens of Ellen White.” That wasn’t her position, but it has been a perspective adopted by some Adventists.

“Hiram Edson quote, had a vision.” He never claimed that. He had an insight, based on the Scriptures they had been studying.

Millerites weren’t Sabbatarian—that was “Ellen White’s slant.” No, she was one of those who came to see that the Sabbath was still binding from study of Scripture.

Adventists have an educational system that is “slanted to indoctrinate children into what they believe.” Can’t that be said about the Catholic educational system? Or the Lutheran? Isn’t that why any church establishes schools?

Marcus asked “Is it true you have to go to their universities?” “Yes,” she quickly replied. Perhaps she just didn’t hear the question. Adventists don’t have to go to Adventist schools at any level (though once upon a time Catholics had to go to Catholic schools). For some reason Marcus said, of Adventist colleges, “I don’t want to name them.” Why not?

“A lot of Adventists are just cultural Adventists. They haven’t really been out in the world to have any of what they believe challenged. They just accept it as true.” Few Adventists, if any, live in Adventist communities, and even those are challenged by non-Adventists and fellow Adventists.

What made her decide to leave? Ultimately, it seems to come down to this: “I saw some hypocrisy through the years.” Guess what? She’ll find it in Catholicism, too!

She said, “I got involved in the pro-life movement, and I was told I was a rebel, because the SDA church is, at is core, pro-choice.” She seems genuinely confused on this point (despite being head of Adventists for Life at one point), because she then says Adventists “are on the fence,” and even that “most Adventists are pro-life.” So which is it?

The core of her frustration seems to come from the fact that she was invited to be on a committee that drafted abortion guidelines for the church, and, under pressure from some institutions, the final document was wishy-washy. That says more about a church’s bureaucracy than its core commitments, I think. She said Adventist hospitals don’t have to follow the guidelines, and so do abortions. She may be surprised when she learns that Catholic hospitals and colleges don’t always follow Catholic guidelines, either. Still, I grieve with her regarding this experience, and that her passion and compassion for the unborn ran into the brick wall of denominational politics and institutional inertia.

She suggested that Adventists believe that as long as you go to church on Saturday, nothing else matters. I’ve never met Adventists who believed that.

Following her disillusionment resulting from her committee experience, she and her husband came to the conclusion, “This is just so wrong, we have to leave.” They started visiting other churches through her husband’s travels.

Looking back at Adventism, she expresses surprise that Adventists see the church as quickly falling into apostasy. “Somehow in that one generation they got it all messed up.” It wasn’t just one generation, but Paul saw the spirit of antichrist at work in his day, and confronted many false teachers.

She said Adventists are Trinitarian. Marcus responded that the “Trinity isn’t Biblical,” and wondered what they based it on. Marcus must have misspoken. Surely he was taught the Biblical basis for the Trinity as a Presbyterian!

She muddled things a  bit when she said Adventists teach that Michael the archangel is Jesus, comparing Adventists to Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Big difference. These latter denominations believe that Jesus had a beginning, and thus is not eternal. Adventists understand that angel comes from the word for messenger, and that it is the eternally preexistent Son of God who is the commander of the heavenly hosts. Again, see QOD.

At one point Marcus said he had a former guest on the program who was an Adventist, became a Catholic, and eventually went back. I wasn’t on the program (but was in the book), but it seemed pretty clear he was alluding to me. He was gracious about it. He suggested I was “Discouraged by what he found in the church.” “He saw all the flaws in Adventism.” Why did I go back? He thinks it had more to do with fellowship, and the pull of friends and family still mourning for me. Certainly those things were all pulls, though there were doctrinal issues as well. But I thank Marcus for his continued graciousness and kindness.

Tony Hillerman

One of my favorite authors, Tony Hillerman, has died at 83.

Trick or Treat

In 1994 I took a trip to one of the most beautiful countries in the Americas … Guatemala. I had never seen a volcano, before, but flying into Guatemala city I saw a whole line of them sticking up above the clouds like islands. It was Semana Santa, Holy Week, and the streets of the towns were filled with processions. I was asked to participate in one of those processions in the mountain town of San Andres Itzapa. It was Good Friday, and about 40 of us were asked to help carry the andas, a heavy wooden platform on which stood a life size statue of Jesus carrying the cross. The path we were to follow was decorated with alfombras, or carpets, beautiful creations of different colors of sawdust and pine needles and flowers, laid out in intricate stenciled designs. The heavy weight pressed on my shoulder. I stumbled over the cobblestones in the road and gasped in the thin air. Behind us a band played, old men playing ancient instruments, playing the mournful sounds of “the dead march.” We passed by the stations of the cross, teenagers in costume acting out the scenes of the passion. And then we came to something that startled me. We walked under a ramada, poles holding up a leafy canopy, and from that canopy all kinds of strange things were hanging. A duck. A deer’s head. A rabbit. I looked and I puzzled. And then the rabbit kicked. It was strung up alive.

It was a strange addition to the Christian drama. And that week I heard of other strange things. Chickens sacrificed on church steps. A bizarre cult devoted to St. Judas Iscariot, also called Maximon—an ancient Mayan idol dressed up with a cowboy hat, a bandana, and offered cigars and alcohol.

In all of these things I was seeing a blending of pre-Christian Mayan beliefs with Christianity. What happened was the missionaries who came with the Conquistadors five hundred years ago didn’t teach the Christian faith fully to the people they baptized. They taught them some basic prayers, some rituals and ceremonies. But the heart was still unconverted. The worldview was still Mayan. They still clung to their ancient beliefs about life and death and how the world goes around.

This has happened in many cultures around the world. It first happened nearly 2000 years ago, when Christians first went out into the Greek world.

The apostle Paul was the first missionary to the Greeks, and of course he was very careful. He used their language and started conversations with Greek philosophers using their own concepts—but he didn’t compromise. Acts 17 tells the story of his trip to Athens. He went up on the Areopagus, Mars Hill, where he saw a statue to an “unknown god”—he tells the gathered philosophers, “That’s the one I’m tell you about,” and he proceeds to preach Jesus. He quotes one their philosophers, but to his own purpose: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being”—but he meant Jesus.

Paul was careful—he just used these little bits as conversation starters, to show he could speak their language. And he was bold in his proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ. But some who followed him weren’t so careful. They didn’t just speak with Greek philosophers, they became their students. They didn’t want the world to think them ignorant. They reasoned that God spoke to all men, and that even in pagan philosophy there was wisdom They drank deeply from that well, and they lost their bearings. They could no longer distinguish between what was Greek and what was Christian—and they didn’t really care. And those they baptized didn’t know the difference—they didn’t teach them the difference.

It’s critical that we understand the difference. We must understand what is essential to the Christian worldview, and how it is different from the worldviews of other religions.

It starts with how we understand creation, and matters of life and death.

When we read the creation story in Genesis, we see that God is creator; all things made by him, and distinct from him. We are not God. We are creatures formed from the dust.

Genesis 2: 7—“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

We are material beings, with the breath of God keeping us alive. We can relate to spiritual things, to things of God, but we are of this earth. When we die, the breath goes back to God, and the body goes back to the earth. 1 Tim 6:16, “God only hath immortality.” When we die, we sleep. Solomon tells us, in Ecclesiastes 9:5, “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing,” and v. 10, “there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” But that’s not all. Daniel 12:1-3 speaks of the time of the end:

And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

And that eternal life has a condition. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

That’s the Biblical worldview: we are separate from God, created by him, and at death we will sleep until our body is raised at the last day. We cannot talk to the dead. We have no fellowship with them until that day when, if we believe in Jesus Christ, we are raised at his return to live eternally with him.

The Greek view was different. It’s based on a dualism between spirit and matter; God is spirit, and that is good. Matter is not so good. We are a little bit of both, said the Greeks, we’re part matter, part spirit. The spiritual part is good, it’s what is divine in us, and it is immortal; the material part is not so good—we need to break free. At death, the body may die, but the spirit lives on. It is set free from its bodily prison. It cannot die.

Where did this idea come from?

Genesis 3:1-5

Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Here’s the source of the idea that we are really spiritual beings who cannot die. Here’s the dividing line between the Biblical worldview and all those worldviews we call pagan—all the different polytheistic and animistic traditions. These other religions divinize man, and make him naturally immortal. The Biblical worldview maintains a distinction between the creature and the Creator, and says we have life only in him.

But the ideas got mixed. Christians embraced the Greek worldview, and began to teach that the soul is immortal, just as Plato did. They said some go to heaven immediately, and bask in the presence of God; these they called saints. They got another idea from Plato—the idea that some aren’t quite ready for heaven, and are purified after death; they called this “purgatory.” They got a third idea from Plato—they taught that those who are thoroughly evil are thrown immediately into hell, where they will be tormented forever and ever and ever. [For more info on this, and for documentation, go here.]

The next step was that Christians were taught that you can communicate with the dead–you can pray to saints.

Three years ago I went to Rome. I went to St. Peter’s basilica, where I climbed all the way to the top of the great dome built by Michelangelo, and I also went on a special tour of archaeological excavations way underneath. St. Peter’s is built on an ancient Roman cemetery that was next to Nero’s personal race track, called a circus. Catholic tradition claims that the apostle Peter was crucified by Nero in that circus, and then quickly buried in the cemetery next door. That cemetery was quite extensive; it was a necropolis, a city of the dead. And many of the tombs, and the streets in between, have been excavated.

It’s like going back in time. The Roman tombs have some interesting features. You have niches in the wall where the bodies would be left to rot; and when they were just dust and bones, they would be buried in a hole in the ground, and covered with a slab with a hole in it. On the anniversary of the person’s death, their friends and family would come to visit. They’d bring a bottle of wine, drink a toast in honor of their loved one, and then pour some of it down that hole so their dead friend could share it, too.

That was the pagan custom. The Christians didn’t do that. They buried the whole body in a stone casket, because they still believed that the body would be raised at the last day to rejoin the soul. But they picked up the pagan Roman idea of gathering at the tomb on the day the person died, especially if that person was a martyr. They didn’t pour wine into the ground, but on the person’s tomb they would celebrate the mass. They would ask the saint to pray for them.

When Christianity became legal, and large churches were built, they took the bones of the saints out of the catacombs, out of the cities of the dead, and put them inside the altar. They continued to honor the day the saints died, and celebrated those days by bringing out the bones of the saints for all to see, by carrying a statue of the saint around in procession—just as idols had been. They said you should pray to St. Anthony if you lose something, to St. Blase if you have a sore throat, to St. Jude if nothing else works—each saint in charge of a certain group of people, or a certain illness, or a certain request. They got this from the pagan religions, too, from the idea that different gods had different jobs and responsibilities and concerns.

They realized they might be missing some, so a day was established to remember All the Saints, November 1. They next day was All Souls Day, a day to pray for all those in purgatory.

All Saints Day had another name in England—All Hallows Day. They kept the Biblical idea that days begin at sunset, so All Hallows Day began in the evening, which they called, All Hallows Evening, from that we get, Halloween. And just like I had seen in Guatemala, people in the English countryside still kept up lots of folk tales from pagan days, they had stories of fairies and goblins; they still believed certain wells and caves had magical properties, and some pagan traditions crept into the celebration of All Hallows.

Here in the Southwest we’re aware of other traditions from Mexico. There, All Saints Day and All Souls Day were merged together with Aztec customs in a great remembrance of the dead, Dia de los Muertos. The Aztecs believed the souls of the dead return each year to visit the living—they would visit the graves, and decorate them, and take the best food and drink and have a celebration. That continues today, even though now the people doing it consider themselves Christian.

This blending of Christian and pagan ideas is called syncretism, and you find it in many places. You can find it in HEB or Fiesta any day of the year. Look at the section of religious candles—next to candles featuring saints like Joseph, Jude, Martin of Tours, and Francis of Assisi, you find some for good luck, some for money, some praying to the Mexican bandit, Pancho Villa, and some to do harm to your enemies.

It’s a confused mix in which superstition and paganism and Christian ideas blend together until the people practicing them don’t know which is which. And this isn’t limited to the ignorant–Hans Urs von Balthasar, a leading conservative Catholic theologian, friend of Ratzinger and of John Paul II, wrote a favorable introduction to a book of Meditations on the Tarot. This shocked me–as did the nonchalant reaction of Catholic apologists. I was working for the Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston at the time, and this was one of the key things that jolted me awake and forced me to restudy and evaluate my Catholicism.

Among liberal Catholics and liberal Protestants there are other forms of syncretism, including the neopaganism of C. G. Jung, use of New Age spiritual practices such as the labyrinth, and feminist advocacy of goddess worship.

Scripture, however, is quite clear on this question of blending the Christian and the pagan, whether it be in adopting pagan attitudes toward death or blending Christianity with occult practices.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

The Bible’s answer is clear—don’t do it! Keep them separate. Don’t confuse the word of God with the teachings of men. Don’t confuse truth and error.

Conservative Protestants aren’t immune. We are immersed in a culture that has gone even further over the line; our culture is permeated with supernaturalism and spiritualism, and the same lie that you won’t die, that you are divine. From ghost stories told around a camp fire to books and cartoons and movies and TV programs with supernatural themes to Oprah Winfrey pushing the latest New Age bestseller—we can’t get away from it.

And there’s been an increase in this stuff over the years. And a change in tone.

In the 30s they made movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman. Stuff that might scare a five year old. Then TV came, and up through the 1960s we watched comedies like “Caspar the Friendly Ghost.” “The Munsters.” “Bewitched.” and “I Dream of Jeannie.”

Something started to change in the late 60s and early 70s. Hollywood took a darker turn, and began a preoccupation with the devil—“Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Omen,” “The Exorcist” and countless sequels. Today, there’s so much of it no one could keep up with it all.

Have you noticed that Halloween has changed, too? When I was a kid it was a fun holiday. Everyone would be out trick or treating. We dressed up as firemen, Superman, cowboys, Indians, princesses, nurses, doctors, and clowns. Then, in the early 70s, things began to shift—here, too, we saw a shift to much darker images. More frightening. Now you go to the costume stores and the blood, the gore, the violent, the Satanic, dominate—along with the sexually suggestive.

All these things of which we’ve been speaking are symptoms of the struggle that has characterized human history. A struggle between good and evil—what we call the great controversy between Christ and Satan. It’s a history of deceit, of compromise, of good people being blind to the true nature of what they were embracing, of evil only revealing its true nature when it was too late.

Now, in our day, it seems clear we are building to a climax. The struggle between light and dark, between good and evil is intensifying. Things that once seemed innocent, amusing, have turned ugly.

Come on, some one may say. You’re taking this too seriously. It’s just make believe.

Is it? Or is the supernatural real? Are there dark spiritual forces arrayed against us, who are trying to capture our minds and hearts? Paul tells us there are. He says in Ephesians 6:12 that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

And the climax of the battle is drawing near.

Revelation 12:12 woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

You don’t even need to be a Bible believer to realize it. Even some of the authors in today’s pop culture realize it, and admit it.

Consider Philip Pullman. He’s the author of a series of three books, a series called, “His Dark Materials.” The series starts off with The Golden Compass, and goes on to The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. The theme of the series is startling—war on heaven. You don’t see it in the first book; it only gets explicitly mentioned in the second—and then in the third, there is open warfare.
In the first book we’re introduced to a girl, Lyra, whose uncle, Lord Asriel—really her father—looks for a way to jump from his world to a parallel universe. She’s told the reason in the second book:

“he’s aiming a rebellion against the highest power of all. He’s gone a-searching for the dwelling place of the Authority Himself, and he’s a-going to destroy Him.”

Lyra befriends some witches, who are siding with her father’s struggle—and against the church. Not just the bureaucratic church ruling her world, but every church in every world. The witch queen tells her,

“… every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling. So if a war comes, and the Church is on one side of it, we must be on the other, no matter what strange allies we find ourselves bound to.”

Lyra then meets a pair of fallen angels who have been assigned to protect her. They are a pair of homosexual lovers (and this in a children’s book!). One tells her:

“The first angels condensed out of Dust, and the Authority was the first of all. He told those who came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie. One of those who came later was wiser than he was, and she found out the truth, so he banished her. We serve her still.”

Everyone realizes war is coming. One character describes it this way:

“There is a war coming, boy. The greatest war there ever was. Something like it happened before, and this time the right side must win. We’ve had nothing but lies and propaganda and cruelty and deceit for all the thousands of years of human history. It’s time we started again, but properly this time …. There are two great powers, … and they’ve been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.”

And war does come. Fallen angels and men from every nation besiege God and his angels when he descends to the earth in a cloudy chariot to rule directly over men. They surround his city and storm the walls … and, in this version, they triumph.

It’s an amazing story. It is the Great Controversy, told from Satan’s perspective. It shows how people of disparate beliefs and philosophies can be united in hatred and rebellion against God. It depicts very well, I think, how Satan’s deceptions are going forward and will go forward in time to come.

This war is real. And we have to choose sides. We can no longer imagine we can be neutral.

What of you? Which side are you on? Is it clear in your life, in your beliefs, in the things you enjoy?

Perhaps you are entangled in things that you should not be involved in. Perhaps you were raised with some traditions that you know are not Biblical, but you haven’t been able to shake them because they were so important to your family, or your culture. Perhaps you’re just caught up in the culture of this world, and have enjoyed certain books or movies or music. Perhaps you have dabbled in the occult, or fortune-telling, or superstition.

You need to hear the Word of God:

Revelation 18:1-4 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

Babylon isn’t just a church or a group of churches that have embraced error—though that’s part of it. It’s this whole society that has embraced the lies of Satan, that lives by delusion, that exalts self in the place of God. Come out, warns the Bible. Stay apart.

Parents have another challenge.

Halloween is coming in a few days. What will you do? What will your kids expect? What will you tell them?

Here’s a place to start. Especially if they want to rent a horror movie, or they want to go check out the gory costumes and props in the costume shop. Invite them to recall Paul’s words to the Philippians:

Phil 4:8 whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

If they must have a party or candy, consider this. Have them invite their friends over. Let them wear a costume of something beautiful or good. Put some music on praising God, or a Bible story video. Pray for those tempted by darkness. And when the neighborhood kids knock on the door, open it.

Realize that this is the one time of the year when lots of people knock on your door asking you to give them something. Go ahead. Do it. Give them a piece of candy or two … and a tract, or a Bible Study card, or perhaps just a little note with the webpage of the Voice of Prophecy on it: kidsvop.com, and perhaps this message: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

In this time of ever increasing darkness, do all you can to let some light shine.