Revivalism or Fake Revival, Jesus Revolution, and Asbury
Other Work By Me On This Topic (Here1, Here2, Here3, Here4, Here5, Here6, Here7, Here8, Here9, Here10, and Here11)
What do you think is worse? Fake Revival or No Revival? I would say, fake is worse. I’ve got, I think, good reasons for fake being worse than no revival. Fake revival does far more damage than nothing happening. True revivals through history occurred. Probably more fake ones though.
Jesus Revolution and Asbury University
In recent days, attention focuses in the United States among religious folk especially about an apparent revival in the 1960s, called the Jesus Revolution in Time Magazine. Descendants of Calvary Chapel made a movie, which is in mainstream, secular theaters. Another apparent revival presented itself in Asbury, Kentucky, at Asbury University, a historic Wesleyan/Holiness institution. I see it as a great interest that these two so-called revivals dovetailed like they did.
Revival moved up as a conversation topic. Conservative podcasts even among non-believers discuss the two, Jesus Revolution and Asbury. I think Fox News mentioned the two in various instances. Because Emmy award winner, Kelsey Grammer, starred as Chuck Smith in the Jesus Revolution movie, that brought greater coverage and consciousness.
Asbury reads as Woke or somewhat woke, which modified its revival in the traditional sense. In the history of the United States, historians point to two revivals they call “the First Great Awakening” and “the Second Great Awakening.” Before the second, the first was just the Great Awakening, like the first was just the Great War until a second World War occurred.
The two, the first and second Great Awakenings, were much different in nature and in effect. A big chunk of professing Christendom rejects the second Great Awakening and says only the Great Awakening in colonial America actually happened. I would be one of those. I agree the Great Awakening was a revival. The second was a fake one.
Controversy of Calling Something “Not a Revival”
Calling a professed revival, not a revival, is as controversial as denying the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. People who accept the revival, like those who say the Covid vaccinations were wonderful, want to hear only positive affirmation of their revival.
Questioning a revival is very close to questioning salvation, which is taught in scripture. If you read either 1 John or James, those two epistles among other places in the Bible, you see challenging or questioning a salvation profession. John does it. James does it. Paul does it. And Jesus does it. Some will stand at the very Great White Throne before Jesus, professing salvation, and He will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”
Revival, as I see it in scripture, is a larger than normal flurry of true conversions. The idea of revival indicates something dead becoming alive, which speaks of regeneration. People are getting really saved in large numbers and based upon true gospel preaching.
The Asbury leaders say that God brought a revival there starting on February 8. They also say they can’t stop it, since God brought it, even though they did stop the regular meetings there just this last week in part because of a case of measles. As you might comprehend already, I don’t think the Asbury “Outpouring” or the Jesus Revolution were revival. I don’t need to wait to see on those two. I’m saying right now. They’re not.
My Experience
School Camp
As a senior in high school, I experienced my only gully-washer so-called revival experience. My academy had school camp, which it also called “spiritual emphasis week.” We got revivalistic style preaching morning and night. In long and emotional invitations, weeping students knelt at the front. Thirteen made professions.
The week ended with a session of emotional testimonies. Then we headed home. It did not translate into anything lasting. Not long after, it was the same-old, same-old with rebellion, apathy, and lack of biblical interest. The effects of school camp and spiritual emphasis week, despite the “revival,” didn’t continue.
Jack Hyles
When Jack Hyles was alive and in his heyday, in many instances I was in meetings where almost everyone in massive auditoriums came forward at his invitation. They streamed forward with only a few people left in their seats. I would think that Hyles could easily vie with any revivalist in his production of effect. If immediate outward manifestations measured revival, Hyles did better than anyone I’ve ever seen and on a more consistent basis.
At one point, independent Baptist, revivalist churches in the Hyles movement were the largest churches in the world. Huge crowds gathered to hear a line-up of revivalist preachers. They were pragmatic and doctrinally errant, but people felt intense closeness to God. I’m telling you that I’ve seen it.
Jack Hyles compared his gatherings to the Day of Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This recent “revival” at Asbury University its advocates also call an “outpouring.” This reflects a particular viewpoint about the Holy Spirit, that since the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, more outpourings of Him might occur.
Mexico
I took a trip to Mexico after my Freshman year in high school, and we drove into remote mountain villages around Monterrey to hold revival meetings. I didn’t know Spanish except for six or so verses I could quote then. Dozens and dozens made professions of faith with the pragmatic, emotional manipulation that occurred by my group. I would contend that much greater fake revival occurred in the 60s and 70s through revivalists than the Asbury one. These revivals did not get popular media attention of Asbury or the Jesus Revolution, but they resulted in explosive numerical growth as significant as the Jesus Revolution and much greater than Asbury.
Revival?
In listening to a few evaluations of the Jesus Revolution, a significant effect of this revival, mentioned by supporters, was the rise and popularity of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and informal or casual dress in church attenders. I could add others from reading and observation. I’ve read Calvary Chapel Distinctives and the Philosophy of Calvary Chapel. I got especially interested, because of one of the largest evangelical churches in the state of Oregon is in Applegate, very close to where we started our church in Jackson County there. Many people involved with the movement, it’s obvious have no true conversion and don’t even understand the gospel.
I listened to at least one of the revivalists running the Asbury revival in one of its earlier video recorded services. I would not characterize what I saw as revival. I wouldn’t call it gospel preaching. It was so shallow, superficial, sentimental, worldly, woke, and Charismatic that I would have nothing to do with it. I hope someone gets saved through it, like Paul hoped in Philippians 1 with men who opposed him. Of course, I would want the salvation of people in Kentucky in the Asbury vein and through the Jesus Movement out of California. I believe both hurt the overall cause of Christ like any fake revival would.
Many years ago, Ian Murray wrote the classic Revival and Revivalism, distinguishing between true revival and only revivalism. Almost everything today is revivalism, which is fake revival. People want God to do something. God is doing something. Instead of being so overtly concerned that He does something, they should surrender to what He has done, is doing, and will do in the future.
More to Come
Trail of Blood and Landmarkism
Men use the terms “Trail of Blood” and “Landmarkism” as a kind of mockery, almost never with evidence. They use them in the same manner as calling someone a “Flat Earther.” If I said I was “Trail of Blood” and “Landmark,” what would I mean? Should I embrace those terms in light of potential derision?
Trail of Blood
“Trail of Blood” refers to a booklet written by James Milton Carroll in 1931. Carroll did not originate the words “trail of blood” as referring to the persecution of churches. Others before used “trail of blood” to describe the ongoing record of atrocities of Roman Catholicism through the centuries in its opposition to the truth. I like the metaphor of Carroll, which is saying that you can detect true churches in the historical record through findings of state church persecution.
Carroll would say that the trail of blood started with the Lord Jesus Christ and that suffering marks the trajectory of true churches. I use this exact language all the time, “There have always been true churches separate from the state church.” I also ask this question, “Do you believe the truth was preserved in and through Roman Catholicism?” Men find it difficult to answer “yes” to that question. If they answer, “No,” then they essentially take a Trail of Blood position. I say, “Well, then we take the same position, don’t we?”
Whitsitt Controversy and English Separatism
Opposition to the Trail of Blood started with a liberal president of the Southern Baptist Convention, William Whitsitt (read here, here, here, and here). The work of Whitsitt is less famous than Carroll’s Trail of Blood, but if someone does not accept the Trail of Blood, his other option is called, “English Separatism.” Can we mock someone as “English Separatist”? The Trail of Blood position predates the English Separatist one. If someone rejects Trail of Blood, he is left with the Roman Catholic position on church perpetuity or succession. He denies the promise of Jesus, “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
Whitsitt took from his European training a modernistic view of truth. He wrote and said that if it does not have primary source historical evidence, it isn’t true. From this, Whitsitt said that the earliest Baptist churches trace from 1610 in England.
A split occurred in the Southern Baptist Convention over Whitsitt. The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary under the presidency of B. H. Carroll started in a major way because of the Whitsitt controversy. Most Southern Baptists then distinguished themselves from Protestants. Carroll’s brother wrote Trail of Blood.
The Application of Modernistic Historicism
Did you know a historical gap exists between the completion of the New Testament and the doctrine of justification? With that historical position, justification did not exist until after the Protestant Reformation. No primary source evidence exists for the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. I’ve been to Bethlehem in the Palestinian West Bank area, and the best historical evidence outside of scripture for Jesus’ birth is secondary and vague. It starts around 325 with Constantine’s mother Helena visiting there.
The mockery designated for Trail of Blood reminds me of the mockery by scientists of a God Hypothesis and intelligent design. Trail of Blood is true, but it is institutionally inconvenient. Intelligent design or a God Hypothesis puts people out of business. Trail of Blood is a strict ecclesiological position that undermines free-floating free agents, who function outside of church authority, like for instance, Alpha and Omega ministries. “Ministries” function outside of a church, not something we read in the Bible, and cross denominational lines on a regular basis.
Landmarkism
The attack on Landmarkism dovetails with the one on Trail of Blood. Landmarkism did not originate local-only ecclesiology. The Landmark movement began in the Southern Baptist Convention because of an ecumenical drift in the Convention. Modernism began affecting the Convention. Compromise grew. Baptist churches began allowing Presbyterians in their pulpit and accepted their “baptism” for transfer of church membership. The Landmarkers stood against this.
The Landmarkers believed local-only ecclesiology like most of the Southern Baptists in the middle 19th century, but they stressed and influenced a stronger practice. They rejected what they called, “alien immersion,” baptism without proper authority. They were saying, “Don’t accept Presbyterian baptism,” or any other Protestant baptism. The Protestants arose from Roman Catholicism with a continuation of state church doctrine. Baptist churches should reject their baptism, Landmarkers claimed, practiced, and encouraged all Baptists to join that.
Many today define Landmarkism with a giant falsehood. They say Landmarkism is chain-link succession of Baptist churches. Furthermore, they say that Landmarkism requires proof of a chain-link succession of Baptist churches all the way to the Jerusalem church. That is not what Landmarkism is.
In a more simple way, you should understand Landmarksim as, first, since Christ, true New Testament churches always existed separate from the state church. Second, churches start churches. Third, baptism requires a proper administrator. Authority is a matter of faith, but scripture recognizes the importance of it. It does not proceed from Roman Catholicism, so it also does not come from Protestantism.
Authority isn’t arbitrary. It is real and it is somewhere. We should not eliminate it. This arises from the rebellion of men’s hearts. Men don’t want authority, especially church authority. I see this as the primary cause of the controversy over Landmarkism and the Trail of Blood.
The Post Text and Version Debate Attack on the Thomas Ross “Landmark” Ecclesiology
On February 18, 2023, when Thomas Ross debated James White on the superiority of the KJV and its underlying text to the LSV and its underlying text, I was overseas. I got back to the United States yesterday. After the debate, I tried to find information about it, and could find very little to none. As of right now, I have watched a short interview someone made with Thomas Ross and a five minute criticism by James White on his dividing line program.
Criticism of Thomas Ross in the Debate
Most of the combined time of the two critical pieces after the debate dealt with one thing Thomas Ross said after the debate (not during). Thomas said he was Landmark (watch here). I don’t have a problem with his calling himself “Landmark.” It wasn’t wrong. I would not have done it in an interview, but I am glad Thomas stands by what he believes on this.
In his five minute critique of Thomas Ross on his Dividing Line, James White attacks the style of Brother Ross (between 8:45 and about 15:00). He mocks Thomas in in an insulting way for more than half his five to seven minutes because he talked too fast and used too many powerpoint slides.
All the while, in his inimitable way James White praises both his own style and his own humility. In hindsight, White should win because he used less slides and related to his audience better, not because he made better points or told the truth. Is this the standard for a debate? I haven’t seen the debate, but it would not surprise me if Thomas could have communicated better, but in the end, was he telling the truth? Did he make arguments that White did not answer and did he answer or refute White’s arguments?
Landmark?
White took a shot at Thomas Ross for being Landmark. He does not deal with it substantively, which is quite normal for White. He uses it to smear Thomas Ross. This is a debate technique often used by White.
The man, who interviewed Thomas Ross, asks him about Athanasius not using 1 John 5:7. Thomas gives a good answer. As a part of the answer, Thomas distinguishes Athanasius as state church. Since Thomas had likely just promoted a position on the church keeping God’s Words, he did not espouse Roman Catholic Athanasius as a true church.
As a separate point, is White right that Landmarkism is a flawed historical position? In his twitter feed, White says:
I wish I had known about the Landmarkism as it would have clarified a few statements in the debate. Landmarkism is without merit, historically speaking, of course.
Knowing Thomas was Landmark would not have changed the debate on the preservation of scripture. It wouldn’t.
No Issue
I get along well on the preservation issue with people who take another ecclesiological position than I do. I and others can separate this line to keep what we have in common. The confessional position of the reformed Baptists and Presbyterians says that God used the church to keep or acknowledge the canonicity of the New Testament text. Its adherents would say, “God used the church to keep His Words.” I would say, “God used the church to keep His Words.”
The reformed and Presbyterian both say the true church is universal. I say it is local. They say all believers kept God’s Words. I say, true churches, which believe in regenerate membership, kept God’s Words. This difference does not change what we believe on preservation. It would influence a debate about the nature of the church, which isn’t the debate here.
Neither James White nor any one else since the debate has explained why Landmarkism has no merit. The ex cathedra speech of White gives him his only authority. White clarifies that Landmarkism has no merit, ‘historically speaking.’ That is the most common criticism against Landmarkism. It can’t be proven historically. This parallels with White’s main criticism of the preservation of scripture. It can’t be proven historically. Does that make what God says in his Word, not true?
If we can’t prove the doctrine of justification historically, does that nullify justification?
Historicism
God does not require anyone to prove a position is historically superior. That itself is a position without merit. White selectively supports historicism when it is convenient for him. God didn’t promise to preserve history. The true position is not the one with the most historical evidence.
However, as a matter of faith, we look to history. We look to see God doing what He said He would do. We don’t have to prove He did something in every moment of every day of every year that He said He would. Historicism parallels with so-called science (cf. 1 Tim 6:20). Science cannot prove a universal negative. Roman Catholicism burned and destroyed the historical evidence of other positions. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).
True Churches, Not Athanasius
Foundational to Landarkism is the perpetuity of the church. God works through true churches. True churches always existed throughout history separate from the state church. Since the church is the pillar and ground of the truth, we trust those churches above the state church. With that as his position, Thomas Ross in part says that he respects the Waldensian text above the work of Athanasius.
We can enjoy good work from Athanasius without looking to him as a primary source. I agree with Thomas Ross. We can quote the verbiage of Athanasius to show an old defense of the deity of Christ. He is helpful in that way. No one should give too much credit to him. He was not part of the pillar and ground of the truth.
I would gladly debate James White on the text of scripture, the doctrine of preservation, or on the nature of the church. To win the debate, of course I would need to use less powerpoint slides than he and interact with my audience in a helpful way after the supreme model of James White. James White though not the pillar and ground of the truth is at least the pillar and ground of debate style.
The Difference Between a Conservative and a Liberal
After walking quite a distance, my wife and I sat to rest in a large tent where someone was serving Turkish coffee. We both sat on little stools and the terminology “classic liberal” came into the conversation. After someone else commented, I was asked by a hippie-looking younger man what I thought liberal was.
I said that I relate conservative and liberal to the U. S. Constitution when it comes to a political definition. The liberal takes what many call a “loose construction” of the constitution. With that approach, the liberal can conform the meaning of the words to what he wants. The constitution is malleable.
You have heard progressive applied to liberals. The Constitution is an evolving document. According to liberals., it can progress in its meaning.
Related to a loose construction of the constitution is a view of government that says man gets his rights from democratic government. Man gives and takes away rights. They can change. Meaning changes, because it is subjective. Taking it to an extreme, a man can self-identify as a woman and vice-versa.
Since power comes through human construct, forms of power are human constructs, using language. This can change using language through deconstruction. Some would say by synthesizing an antitheses with a thesis, forming a new thesis.
On the other hand, a conservative takes a strict construction of the U. S. Constitution. His goal to to find what the authors meant by what they said. This is sometimes called originalism. The conservative looks for author’s intent. The constitution is objective in its meaning. It can’t change in what it means. The goal is to find out what they meant, not read into it something that he wants it to mean.
I continued by saying that this approach to reality and truth affects everything. An engineer building a bridge or an airplane must follow the laws of physics. He can’t read whatever he wants to natural laws. This was a good hopping off point into evangelism.
Our rights are not given by government, but by God. Meaning is objective because it proceeds from God. Natural rights from God are self-evident truths.
Theological conservatism or liberalism are not much different, except that instead of the constitution, someone interprets scripture according to either a strict or loose construction. Someone can look into the text of scripture and see what he wants, everyone having his own take, his own opinion. Or, he interprets the text of scripture according to original intent, what God and His human authors intended, what they meant by what they said.
Men Seek Signs and Wisdom, But God Saves by the Foolishness of Preaching the Gospel
1 Corinthians 1:18-32: The Foolishness of Preaching
In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul said God uses the foolishness of preaching to save. God saves people through the foolishness of preaching. Paul started out this section in verse 18 by saying that “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.”
It’s not that the cross is foolishness or that preaching is foolishness. People think it is foolishness and Paul is saying, “That thing they think is foolishness; that’s what God uses to save.” God uses a means that does not make sense. Because people think the gospel is foolishness, they become offended from it.
Of all the offenses of the gospel, Paul gives at least two. (1) The Cross, and (2) Preaching. The cross is offensive. It is this way also in at least two ways. (1) Someone on a cross needs saving. Saving comes by a powerful means. (2) The cross would be to say that Jesus is the Savior or the Messiah. I’m not going to write about that in this post. Instead, preaching.
Rather Signs or Wisdom
Paul in essence asks, “Why use preaching when Jews seek after signs and Greeks after wisdom?” (1 Cor 1:22) He divides all men into these two different methodological categories. Jews and Greeks need signs and wisdom, not preaching. In my thirty-five plus years of ministry, I agree that every audience of ministry breaks down into those two general categories.
When you think of signs and wisdom, that might seem like two items people should like and want. They are two biblical words. In a very technical sense, a sign is a miracle. Almost exclusively, I think someone should view a miracle as a sign gift. I will get back to that.
Wisdom. Isn’t Proverbs about wisdom? We pray for wisdom. How could wisdom be bad? Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principle thing.”
Signs and Wisdom
Signs
Signs are something evident in a way of supernatural intervention. If there is a God, won’t He do obvious supernatural things? “If He doesn’t do those, why should I believe in Him? I want to see some signs. Wouldn’t He give me those if He really wanted me to believe in Him? That would be easy for Him, if He really did exist. If God did give me signs, I would believe. Since He doesn’t, then I won’t believe or I don’t need to believe.”
The absence of signs is not that God is not working. He works in thousands of different ways in every moment. They are all supernatural. We even can see how God is working in numbers of ways.
People would say they want more than God’s providential working. That isn’t enough. They want God to make it easy for them to believe by doing something amazing and astounding like what they read that Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the Apostles did. People desire direct supernatural divine intervention.
Churches feel the pressure to fake signs, because people want them. They aren’t signs, because they’re faking them, which redefines even what a sign is. Churches also conjure up experiences that give an impression that something supernatural is occurring. People can claim a sign from a lowered expectation of what a sign is. Even if it isn’t something supernatural, people want to feel something at church that might have them think the Holy Spirit is there. This is their evidence for God.
Wisdom
Wisdom in 1 Corinthians 1 isn’t God’s wisdom, but human or man’s wisdom. This could be what people call “science” today. It is scientific proof or evidence. They need data or empirical evidence. This is very brainy arguments.
God is working in the world. It is good to talk about that. This is known as the providence of God. He upholds this world and all that is in it in many various ways. I love that.
A lot of evidence exists out there for everything that is in the Bible: archaeological, scientific, psychological, logical, and historical. People will say that’s what they need and that’s what makes sense to them. Even if they’re not saying that, it makes sense to believers that they need intellectual arguments.
Jews and Greeks in 1 Corinthians 1 represent all apparent seekers in God. If churches and their leaders are seeker sensitive, they would provide signs and wisdom. In a categorical way, that’s what they do. They use the preferred ways of their audience, rather than what God says to do. Apparent seekers are not the source for a method of salvation. God is.
You could give analysis as to the place of signs and wisdom as categorical approaches for ministry philosophy. Churches are rampant with both. Paul is saying, eliminate those as methods. Use the God-ordained method only.
God wants preaching as the method of accomplishing salvation. People are not saved any other way than preaching. Many reasons exist for this, some given in 1 Corinthians 1 and others in other biblical texts.
Local Only Ecclesiology and Historical Theology
My graduate school required a large amount of theology, which included the branch of historical theology. Before I took the class, I must admit, I had not thought much about the category. I know men introduced historical theology to me at different times and varied manners in other classes, but it became important to me at that time between the ages of 22 and 25 years. Now when I listen to a presentation of a position, I want to hear its history for good and biblical reasons.
I know I’m writing on this subject because of an article I read today (as I first write this), called, “Five Reasons Historical Theology Is Necessary for the Local Church.” The man who wrote it is not local church. I would point out to you, if someone uses “local church” language, he may believe in two churches, universal and local, rather than the biblical one church, which is local only. However, churches need historical theology. They need to know that churches always believed what they believed, because it is the truth. Caleb Lenard in the article gives good reasons.
Examples for Historical Theology
A strong argument for perfect preservation of scripture in the original languages comes from historical theology. Christians believed this doctrine, as read in historical confessions of faith. In a theological way, no one has yet upended that position on preservation. Since this is what Christians have believed, you could call a change, heresy. A new position on the preservation of scripture diverges off the already established belief.
Sometimes I hear the language, “the reformed doctrine of justification.” Did the doctrine of justification originate with the Protestant Reformation? I don’t believe that. Maybe they dusted it off or took it out of the trash bin, but men kept believing it or else no one was saved not long after the advent of the Roman Catholic Church.
Is local only ecclesiology also historical theology? Christians do not have to prove that a majority of believers received and propagated local only ecclesiology. If it is true, scriptural doctrine, then believers should reveal its history, tell the historical story of local only ecclesiology. It is also helpful to show how that other ecclesiology diverged from the path of truth, if local only ecclesiology is true.
Historical Ecclesiology
I would like those with a different ecclesiology to consider the historical problem of a catholic ecclesiology and the bad consequences too. Roman Catholicism affected corrupt thinking on the doctrine of justification and many other doctrines. That did not disconnect with Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Correcting justification and not rectifying the other corrupted doctrines still leaves churches with much bad doctrine. This dishonors God and hurts many people.
Men often will not say, perhaps because they don’t know, that their doctrine is Roman Catholic. They don’t teach the false gospel of Roman Catholicism, but they teach other false doctrines. Those false doctrines lead back to a false gospel. One Roman Catholic doctrine accepted is the Roman Catholic doctrine of the church. Catholic church is universal church. That ecclesiology, a false one, spread in a widespread way to Christians.
Some of you reading right now are nodding your head, “no.” Back and forth, maybe smirking, rolling the eyes. Maybe. Just think about it though. Did you get your ecclesiology from Roman Catholicism? What kind of effect does that have for your life, others’ lives, and for all the other doctrines?
On the other hand, did I get my ecclesiology from mid 19th century landmarkists (see this series, and this one)? Everyone had believed in catholic ecclesiology (just like they denied justification before) up to that point. Local only ecclesiology then arose as a knee jerk reaction from J. R. Graves and Baptists in America. They didn’t like the ecumenism spreading among Southern Baptists, so they invented the local only position to combat it. Is that what happened instead? What is it about Baptists that made them in particular prey in a widespread way to a teaching that the church was only local, never universal?
Catholic Ecclesiology
I wouldn’t believe the local only position if I thought it originated among 19th century Baptists in America. Instead, I believe that looking in the Bible and also tracing history of doctrine supports something different. The universal church view grew from seeds of neo-platonism previous to Constantine and took hold as the predominant ecclesiology only with the state church in the 4th century. The Catholic Church persecuted churches separate from the state church. Those churches existed and they believed the church was local, not universal.
A platonic system of theology, Origen’s allegorical or spiritualizing system, affected everything in the Roman Catholic Church. Sprinkling of infants proceeded from this. A corrupt human priesthood arose. Amillennialism, the view that the kingdom was the Roman Catholic Church, took hold. Hierarchical church government became the norm. Tradition took prominence. The Pope. Transubstantiation.
Roman Catholicism and universal ecclesiology led to the dark ages. It caused regression or glacially slow progress in measurements of living standards. Most people stayed stupid for a long time because of Roman Catholic ecclesiology now embraced by many professing Christians. Satan used it greatly. The Protestant Reformation did not correct all that Roman Catholicism ruined. It embraced or absorbed Roman Catholic ecclesiology and eschatology with few exceptions.
Consequential Regression
Byproduct of Roman Catholic Ecclesiology
Even if there is notable minute progress to which someone might point in correct thinking about issues of life, it is an exception. It is usually a few bright spots mixed into still astounding darkness. Useful scientific discovery overall, subduing and having dominion, came to a stop for over a thousand years because of Roman Catholicism. Wherever it spread, such as Central and South America, left its destructive nature.
Everywhere the Roman Catholic Church took hold still continues a worse place to live because of its influence. It is a byproduct of Roman Catholic ecclesiology, that can’t be separated from its system of interpretation. As I say that, anticipating this argument, I understand that forms of paganism like animism also left the culture in ruins. It wasn’t much worse than Roman Catholicism, and I compare the consequences to biblical Christianity in contrast.
Still today people think “Christian” means Roman Catholic. Evangelicalism is a branch off a Catholic root in the mind of the general population. Every Christian then becomes responsible for the crusades, the inquisition, the conquistadores, feudalism, a flat earth, religious wars, and widespread poverty.
Once the hold of Roman Catholicism was broken, including Catholic state church ideology, the freedom brought astounding progress. People don’t trace that to ecclesiology or even talk about it in history classes, but it is true. When Warren Buffet says that John Rockefeller did not live as well as Buffet’s middle class neighbors, this relates to progress arising from the downfall of a state church.
Wreaking Havoc
The ecclesiology of Roman Catholicism, however, still continues, reeking its havoc everywhere. Globalism itself and its damage comes from Roman Catholic ecclesiology. It is a utopian, universalist concept, that first existed in Roman Catholicism. It stems from the mystical, spiritualistic, and allegorical system of Roman Catholicism.
A religious grounding from the system of Roman Catholicism continues in leftist thinking, which spreads utopian thinking, exerting power over individuals. It has the capacity to return the world to neo-feudalism and another dark age. None of this is true. The trajectory of the American colonies and the first one hundred fifty years of American history changed the world by overturning the influence of universal church doctrine. A nation begins to suffer as it welcomes it back.
I have written about the founding of catholic ecclesiology, the universal church doctrine, many times here (here, here, here, here, and here among other places). I have also written about the history and biblical doctrine of local only ecclesiology, offering that position (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and see these two on English separatism–here and here).
Because of the dominance of a universal church through history through the Roman Catholic Church, in comparison not much local only material exists. The winners told the story. They could destroy anything that countered their viewpoint. You hopefully know the same practice occurs today in almost every institution. Some call the falsehoods, fake news. It is revisionist history based on a system of interpretation similar to what hatched Roman Catholicism.
More to Come
The Trinitarian Bible Society and Its Position on Scripture
Four days ago the Trinitarian Bible Society launched this video, called, “Upholding the Word of God.”
I appreciate their stand on scripture. What they present is what, I believe, many Christians across the world say they believe. What the above video explains is also why they believe it.
Scriptural Presuppositions
The Trinitarian Bible Society starts with scriptural presuppositions. Their practice of Bible publication arises from their biblical beliefs about the Bible. This is how it should be. It’s also what we do not see with those on the critical text side. They do not emphasize or most often even teach at all what is the scriptural basis of their position. Their position does not have a biblical mooring.
Someone who appears and speaks often in the above video is Jonathan Arnold, who is also pastor of the Westminster Baptist Church in London. My wife and I visited that church twice on trips to England. I appreciate this younger man’s stand on the Word of God in a time of much attack on the doctrine of scripture. He is now the General Director of the Trinitarian Bible Society.
Many pastors across the world use the Greek New Testament, textus receptus, printed by the Trinitarian Bible Society. They also print an entire original language Bible in the received text of the Old (Hebrew) and New (Greek) Testaments.
Separatist Heritage
The Trinitarian Bible Society is by history and, therefore, by definition a separatist organization. It started from a split from the British and Foreign Bible Society over spreading Unitarianism, hence, Trinitarian, and over scripture, therefore, Bible. As an indication of how significant people thought that was, two thousand gathered for the first meeting at Exeter Hall in London in 1831. Could they get that many to gather for that separatist purpose today?
The British and Foreign Bible Society allowed a Unitarian as an officer. Unitarian at the time became the doctrinal position du jour. It’s a familiar theological term now, unitarian, but it really does encapsulate almost every major theology error in the history of heresy. It was essentially Socinianism, which taught works salvation and anti-Trinitarianism. Unitarians denied not only the deity of Christ but also the miracles of the Bible. They did away of the authority of scripture.
For a long period of time, we would call Socinianism or Unitarianism theological liberalism. Most liberal churches in whatever denomination are Socinians or Unitarians. In many ways, we would say they don’t believe anything. They are drawn together by their denial of scriptural and historical doctrine, which is to say, they deny the truth.
Overall
I have attended many churches affiliated with the Trinitarian Bible Society (TBS) in England. Some strong churches exist who would not fellowship with the Trinitarian Bible Society, but very few. A majority of the strongest churches in England, where the best representation of New Testament Christianity exists, associate themselves with the TBS. This says much about the outcome or consequences of the received text of the original languages of scripture and the King James Version, which these churches support and propagate.
I differ from most of these Trinitarian Bible Society affiliated institutions in ecclesiology, eschatology, and dispensationalism versus covenant theology. That saddens me, but it does not take away the joy I have for what they do believe. I rejoice in that. I have more in common with these churches than I do most other Baptist churches today.
The churches affiliated with the Trinitarian Bible Society believe an orthodox, true position on the Trinity and about the Lord Jesus Christ. They preach a true gospel, including repentance and Lordship. TBS type churches utilize reverent worship. They are active in their evangelism of the lost. Their churches are not worldly churches. Their preaching of scripture is dense and thorough. They rely on scripture for their success. I am not saying these doctrines and practices are all that matter, but they do distinguish the Trinitarian Bible Society affiliated churches.
Perverting Beauty Perverting Truth and Perverting Truth Perverting Beauty
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
God and Beauty
God is one. All truth, goodness, and beauty proceed from God. Since God is one, His truth, goodness, and beauty are one. You can’t take away from one of these three without taking away from the other two. Each of those relate to God, so their perversion perverts an understanding of God, creates a false god or false gods, and/or takes glory from the one and true God.
God is beautiful and beauty itself also issues from Him. He defines beauty both in His essence, in His acts, and in His creation. Man made in God’s image, functioning according to His likeness, produces or generates beauty and beautiful works. Of course, sinful man operating in his flesh does not do that; only his performing according to the image of God. This requires regeneration. After conversion, he can, and should generate only beauty and beautiful works, but still must submit to God to do so.
The production of beauty and beautiful works means the skillful formation or formulation of what reflects God’s nature and achievement. One judges the formation or formulation according to standards aligned with revealed truth about God and what He does. A believer can know beauty. He can know he forms or formulates it. He can know when someone else does. How does he know? He knows based on the testimony and application of God’s Word.
How Do You Know Beauty?
Scripture states in a sufficient manner truth, goodness, and beauty. A believer then applies these to the world. God enables believers to do that. I call this truth, goodness, and beauty in the real world. Believers don’t just know these three in the Bible. They know them also in the real world.
God’s Word says a truth such as “flee idolatry,” “flee fornication,” or “let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.” It assumes that you will understand the application of that truth in the real world. You can’t say that you didn’t know that. You can also understand and apply, “think on whatsoever things are lovely” or “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.”
When Proverbs 7:10 says that a young man met a woman “with the attire of a harlot,” the passage doesn’t explain the attire of a harlot. It assumes you know already. People are still responsible for things that God does not explain. Lack of explanation does not permit dressing like a harlot.
Like many other applications of the Bible, music and art require honesty and setting aside lust or self-will. God gives the necessary capacity for judgment. As is so often the case, the problem isn’t with intelligence, but volition.
Departure from Beauty
The Standard for Beauty
Does someone leave the truth when he departs from beauty? Or does a departure from beauty stand alone, totally isolated, disconnected from the truth? Does leaving beauty start with a flight from the truth?
The view that beauty was neither true nor false, that it made no pronouncements about the world, that it just reflected the mind or feelings of an artist was a completely novel view when it appeared with the origins of modernism in the late 18th to the early to mid 19th century. Truth was true in itself, goodness, good in itself, and beauty, beautiful in itself, separate from the judgment of any man. All of this came from God. If someone can criticize beauty, it could only be because there is some objective standard outside of the object by which to judge it.
Absolute beauty requires principles by which to judge them. If not, then beauty is meaningless. Beauty must be beautiful in itself, not from a mind or feelings, Its judgment comes from external criteria. The standard of beauty transcends the beautiful thing. For something beautiful to exist, something not beautiful also must exist.
Kant and Mill and Beauty
Immanuel Kant in his 1790, Critique of Judgment, introduced the concept of subjective beauty, beauty in the eye of the beholder. He said concerning beauty, that it was
a judgment of taste . . . not a cognitive judgment and so it is not a logical judgment but an aesthetic one, by which we mean a judgment whose determining basis cannot be other than subjective.
John Stuart Mill, English philosopher, later in the 19th century popularized the notion that art was nothing more than the intrinsic personal feelings of an artist. Beauty was just an expression of subjective emotion. An assertion of a thing as beautiful described the state of mind of the one asserting. Beauty did reflect reality, but now only a person’s perception of reality.
You can see how that man dethrones God when he decides what is beautiful. Man becomes final arbiter of beauty. Value becomes subjective based on his thinking or feelings.
Beauty Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings
God and Science
Some might say subjective beauty is a matter of freedom. You can say what you like or don’t like. You’ve heard the phraseology, especially made popular by Ben Shapiro, “facts don’t care about your feelings.” How does that relate to beauty?
Isaac Newton, believer in God, and others like him stand as the foundation of scientific progress of the last three hundred years, which started with God as the standard. God’s Word inspired science. It did not disregard man’s senses. In accordance with God’s Word, Newton and his colleagues recognized the place scripture gave to man’s reason, his senses, and evidence. This was different than elevating man’s thinking and his feelings to the only source of truth. They must function in subjection to God within His world.
Empiricism: Senses as the Source for Beauty First and then Science Second
Kant and Mill established a secular approach to beauty. They elevated man’s senses as the sole source for beauty. Empirical beauty. Not long after, empirical methods became the sole source for truth, a philosophy called empiricism. A secular approach to knowledge and truth followed a secular approach to beauty. Sensory experience formed the basis for both and it started with beauty.
Very often today, Christians say that truth is objective with the Bible as final authority, but they judge beauty with their feelings as the standard. They might confuse the feelings with a mystical experience from God or the moving of the Holy Spirit. Long ago many churches ejected to various degrees from objective beauty. Today we see many of those churches capitulating in objective truth and goodness. This follows along the pattern of the first effect of empiricism on the arts with Kant and Mills and the second with science.
View of Beauty Shapes View of God
When someone starts with God on beauty, he will have the right view of beauty. He will produce, support, and endorse only the beautiful. However, the opposite is also true. Someone’s view of beauty shapes his view of God. He might have God in his doctrinal statement, but his imagination of God will accord with his depiction of beauty. The view of beauty and the view of God will both match.
Easily the world deceives on beauty to pervert the imagination of God. The non-beautiful or what is ugly will draw someone away from the true God. At the same time, he thinks he has or sees God. The two views cannot coexist.
Two people might say they are Christians. They should be similar, shaped by the transcendent view of truth, goodness, and beauty. Their standard is the same.
If two professing Christians’ thinking on beauty is different, their Christianity will seem like two different religions. They are. One has the true God. Very often, depending on the extent, the other does not. He has God on his doctrinal statement, but he imagines a different God, not in fitting with the God of the Bible. What I’m explaining occurs today by far more than it ever has in my lifetime.
So Which Is It, Truth or Beauty? Authenticity
One can say that truth is beautiful and beauty is truthful. When you look at beauty, actual beauty, it is true. It is real. If it is not beauty, it is not true or is in error.
If it is beauty, it is not just someone’s imagination or feelings. Very often today, when it is feelings, people call that authentic. They say it’s authentic, because from the perspective of the performer, it is how he feels. However, it may not and probably does not represent the truth, which mean it is not authentic.
I think I can say the following is ironic. Authenticity isn’t authentic anymore. Authenticity is now a lie.
In the past, authenticity meant true. It wasn’t leather. Instead, it was naugahyde. It wasn’t a diamond, but it was cubic zirconia. If it is not beautiful according to the nature of God, then it is not authentic. In this way, it is not true.
If the lie starts with beauty, treating the non-beautiful as beautiful, that spreads to the judgement of truth. This is where our world is today. You can’t say something is true, but that started with eliminating objective beauty. Today your truth can be your truth, but for a longer time, your beauty is your beauty.
Force Multiplication
In recent days, as I read various material, I saw for the first time that I remember, the use of the terminology, “force multiplier.” I really don’t think I heard it before and on the same day I saw it twice. Military officers or strategists might be rolling their eyes, because of those words’ common usage.
The Concept of Force Multiplication
In definition, a smaller factor when added to a larger one multiplies the larger one in its effectiveness and outcomes. Colin Powell said, “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” On a football team, the addition of what some might call, “one key player,” results in many players better than they were before his inclusion. If you are a baseball fan, you’ve seen a whole line-up add multiple runs per game with the addition of one good power hitter in the middle of the batting order. I see force multiplication explicated by Solomon in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12:
9 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. 10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. 11 Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? 12 And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
The addition of one to one doesn’t equal two in Solomon’s explanation. One can hardly measure how much greater the achievement and results with the addition of one to one. Something exists, a force multiplier, that brings more than the addition of one.
The efforts of a single person in a church can take the church to far greater affects than the addition of one. It multiplies the effort of the entire church in an exponential way. Even the addition of one skill or one surrendered talent to one person could take the whole church to a new level. A utilized tool could make one person so much more effective that it multiplies the accomplishment of the whole church.
Kinds of Force Multiplication
The encouragement of a less talented individual could bring confidence and greater motivation to the more talented individual. He may lack the spirit to continue. The production of the less talented person does not increase, but the effect of his encouragement multiplies the production of the talented person. The encouragement is a force multiplier. God knows this effect that encouragement has. If you are a wife, you could do this for your husband. If a child, you could do this for your parent or a parent for a child.
The day after I learned “force multiplication,” while working out I listened to a podcast of William Lane Craig and Stephen Meyer. They discussed with a host the existence of God and origins. If you have one good argument for the existence of God, that will help. Craig is now well-known for the “Kalam cosmological argument” for both the existence of God and the origin of the universe.
Stephen Meyer argues for the same conclusion as Craig, but gets there with what he calls “inference to the best explanation.” His inference is a God hypothesis, part of the name of his magnus opus, Return of the God Hypothesis. He says that the choice of God as a hypothesis best explains the available data, whether the irreducible complexity of the cell or the information found in a strand of DNA.
If it is true that God is the explanation for everything, then one would think more than one argument exists for that. It’s like doing a math problem and checking the outcome of your figures by the use of a second method. Joining the inferential argument by Meyer, a more inductive approach, to the philosophical argument, more a deductive tact, it becomes a force multiplier to Craig.
The Whole Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
Each true path ends in God. And those are not the only ways to reach that same outcome. Several more exist than the inductive argument of Meyer and the deductive one of Craig.
As I think about force multiplication, I am reminded of the statement, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” A church is a body. Each body part fits into the whole. Each body part functions in a greater way by fitting into the whole body. A church can outperform the actual summation of the abilities of each member by their working together.
When you were reading this post, you perhaps thought of other force multipliers for the church, your family, and your individual life. You think, prayer. Maybe you added, God’s working in your life, or Bible knowledge. As powerful as America is, its rebellion against God can and will debilitate its apparent advantages. The United States could lose its technological dominance very quickly. God Himself is the ultimate force multiplier.
Bifurcation in Beauty: Dualism of Spiritual/Sacred and Natural/Secular, Pt. 2
Bodily Resurrection as Paradigm for Unity Regarding Beauty
Jesus’ Bodily Resurrection
The bodily resurrection of Jesus reveals a paradigm for the unified physical and spiritual. It contradicts a denigration of the physical. Bodies are not the product of chance. God created them and they have a purpose, His purpose.
The Greeks in Corinth according to Gnosticism, joining others across the Roman Empire, denied bodily resurrection. God’s creation of the material world deems it valuable. Just like God redeems sinful mankind, He will also redeem His physical creation. God created man in His image in a physical body. Paul also commands in 1 Corinthians 6:20, “Glorify God in your body.”
In addition to creating a physical world and man in a physical body, God took human flesh and raised it from the dead. The Greeks and others were fine with a spiritual sort of phantom resurrection, Jesus as an archetype or an avatar. However, the power in Christianity, and why the Empire persecuted Christians, was because Jesus really did bodily rise.
Future Bodily Resurrection
In the future, believers in resurrected physical bodies will inhabit a new physical creation. Jesus rose as a firstfruit of that future resurrection. It is more than an archetype. It is a true, real, factual, and historical event that presupposes other future events. As such it sits at the foundation of the gospel message. God requires a belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ as a prerequisite for one’s own future bodily resurrection.
As a result of a natural and spiritual split, Corinthian unbelievers justified fornication with the statement, “Meats for the belly and the belly for meats.” They considered sex to be natural or physical and as such has no intrinsic moral value. It is the consequence of blind and materialistic selection. It is, therefore, neutral. Nothing spiritual or sacred would exist on that plain.
Sanctified through Thy Truth (and Beauty)
Known Truth
Jesus, God the Son Incarnate, the Creator and Sustainer of all heaven and earth, prayed to God the Father in John 17:17: “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” The Word of God sets apart someone unto God. Being set apart means a boundary, which is the Word of God, the truth. On one side of that boundary of truth is someone sanctified and on the other side is someone not.
This boundary over which someone can pass implies a law. A law implies a lawgiver. God is the lawgiver from the beginning. The distinction between the two sides of that boundary, set apart from the other, implies a penalty. Does the penalty occur? It does.
God the lawgiver established natural laws and moral laws. None of these are arbitrary. It is not that you just may or may not be sanctified by the truth, that is His Word. You are in fact sanctified by the Word, which is the truth. Every thing in the Word of God sets a person apart from something else, which would not be of the nature of God.
Think on These Things
In Philippians 4:8, the Apostle Paul in the New Testament of the Word of God, commands:
Finally, brethren, 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.
Scripture commands, “Think on these things.” One of “these things” is “whatsoever things are lovely.” This commands a person to think on something lovely because he can also think on something unlovely. When he thinks on something unlovely, he breaks that command, “Think on these things.” He is then not sanctified by the truth. As in the nature of God, truth and beauty are inextricably connected.
By definition, a fact is something true or proven true. Everything in the Word of God is true and proven true. Truth is in accord with a fact, which is also reality. Scripture is reality. Because of the nature of the Word of God, you know it is true. You are certain of its truthfulness. Since God’s Word is true, you can and should know what is beauty or loveliness by which to be sanctified.
The Contradiction
On the one hand, within the confines of the physical or natural, men deny morality or objective beauty because it is deterministic machinery. On the other, in the realm of the spiritual, men cannot know if or what exists in this realm. Morality is necessary to adjudicate behavior, but it has no objective meaning. The spiritual allows for freedom beyond the restrictions of the physical. It must be private and subjective.
The contradiction comes in the incapability of natural causes to regulate morality. They are just natural. And yet the spiritual cannot judge morality because it follows personal freedom. Neither can the spiritual judge morality because it is subjective. It isn’t knowable. Everything becomes secular through this contradiction.
God is the author of the physical and spiritual world. The sacred does not isolate to the spiritual. Truth, goodness, and beauty proceed from Him. They are knowable and objective through the whole world and everything in it.
When churches and their leaders today give a wide latitude of acceptable aesthetics, they come from at least a variety of the secular view that finds beauty in the realm of freedom from objective meaning. Meaning is assigned. It is not knowable. There are other reasons, pragmatic ones, for this treatment of beauty, including lust. But the underlying thinking comes from the dualism that finds truth only in the physical world, even if it is deterministic.
Keep Them Coming
As I write this, a few hours ago a notification appeared on my computer telling me about a film called, The Jesus Revolution. That would catch my interest anyway, but more so when I saw a name actor was in it, Kelsey Grammer. I watched the trailer and found it used a book written by Greg Laurie, the most well known Calvary Chapel pastor today. Grammer plays Chuck Smith, the pastor of the first Calvary Chapel, who tutored Laurie.
A major character in the story is Lonnie Frisbee, played by the actor who is Jesus in the series, The Chosen. Someone could call that an ironic choice since that’s how Frisbee styled himself. Years ago I wrote a post, “A Modern Revival That Wasn’t,” that would help in understanding. I’ve also witnessed closely The Calvary Chapels and other California spin-offs.
The trailer shows rock music and dressing like a hippie an important part in the Jesus’ Movement. Lonnie Frisbee visits Chuck Smith and Smith must decide he will change the entire aesthetic of his church. As a result, his church explodes with numerical growth and spawns this movement all over the world. Is the Jesus of the Calvary Chapel Movement the Jesus of the Bible? He is different than the one up to that moment in historical Christianity.
Smith accepted a new, different Jesus, an innovative aesthetic, and a novel spirituality to gather and keep massive numbers of people. It also turned away older members. The trailer reveals them to be terribly wrong in not welcoming a new kind of church, dress, people, and culture. The environment for acceptance of this new movement relates to the bifurcation of truth that required turning beauty into a subjective, private notion.
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