Four Views On the Spectrum of Evangelicalism: A Book Review
I recently listened on Audible through the book Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, contributors Kevin Bauder, R. Albert Mohler Jr., John G. Stackhouse Jr., and Roger E. Olson, series editor Stanley N. Gundry, gen eds. Andrew David Naselli & Collin Hansen (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011). The four views presented are:
Fundamentalism: Kevin Bauder
Confessional Evangelicalism, R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Generic Evangelicalism, John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
Postconservative Evangelicalism, Roger E. Olson
When I listen through a book on Audible I usually listen through twice, since it is easier to miss things when listening to a book than it is when reading one.
For most of the book, I was cheering for Kevin Bauder, for reasons which will be clear below.
Let the Wolves In!
Roger Olson’s View
Beginning with the bad people who are fine letting the wolves in: Roger Olson argues that “inerrancy cannot be regarded as necessary to being authentically evangelical. It is what theologians call adiaphora–a nonessential belief” (pg. 165). What is more, “open theists [are] not heretical” (pg. 185). Evangelicals do not need to believe in penal substitution: “there is no single evangelical theory of the atonement. While the penal substitution theory (that Christ bore the punishment for sins in the place of sinners) may be normal, it could hardly be said to be normative” (pg. 183). However, fundamentalism is “orthodoxy gone cultic” (pg. 67). Deny Christ died in your place, think God doesn’t know the future perfectly, and think the Bible is full of errors? No problem. Let a Oneness Pentecostal, anti-Trinitarian “church” in to the National Association of Evangelicals (pg. 178)? Great! Be a fundamentalist? Your are cultic.
Summary: While Christ says His sheep hear His voice, and Scripture unambiguously teaches its infallible and inerrant inspiration (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:16-21) as the Word of the God who cannot lie, and penal substitution is at the heart of the gospel, Dr. Olson thinks one can deny these things and not only be a Christian but be an evangelical. Let in the heretics and the wolves!
Let Some of the Wolves In!
John Stackhouse’s View
John G. Stackhouse, Jr. is only slightly more conservative than Dr. Olson. For Dr. Stackhouse, “open theists are, to my knowledge, genuine evangelicals” (pg. 132). No! But at least anti-Trinitarian Oneness Pentecostals who have a false god, a false gospel, and are going to hell are not evangelicals (pg. 204). Does something so obvious even deserve a “Yay”?
What about penal substitution? “substitutionary atonement is a nonnegotiable part of the Christian understanding of salvation, and evangelicals do well to keep teaching it clearly and enthusiastically” (pg. 136). One cheer for Dr. Stackhouse. But then he goes on:
But suppose somebody doesn’t teach it? Does that make him or her not an evangelical? According to the definition I have been using, such a person might well still be an evangelical. Indeed, the discussion in this section takes for granted that some (genuine) evangelicals are uneasy about substitutionary atonement, and a few even hostile to that idea. But they remain evangelicals nonetheless: still putting Christ and the cross in the center, still drawing from Scripture and testing everything by it, still concerned for sound and thorough conversion, still active in working with God in his mission, and still cooperating with evangelicals of other stripes. Evangelicals who diminish or dismiss substitutionary atonement seem to me to be in the same camp as my evangelical brothers and sisters who espouse open theism: truly evangelicals, and truly wrong about something important. (pgs. 136-137)
So the one cheer quickly is replaced by gasps for air and a shocked silence, as the heretics and the wolves come right back in again. Dr. Bauder does a good job responding to and demolishing these justifications of apostasy and false religion.
Write Thoughtful Essays Showing that the Wolves Need Critique, but
Let the World and the Flesh In and Don’t Be A Fundamentalist Separatist:
Al Mohler’s View
R. Albert Mohler, Jr. calls his view “Confessional Evangelicalism,” although he never cites any Baptist or any other confession of faith in his essay. He thinks you do actually need to believe Christ died in your place, open theism is unacceptable, and an inerrant Bible is something worth standing for (1.5 cheers for Dr. Mohler, led by very immodestly dressed Southern Baptist cheerleaders who know that God made them male and female, not trans). However, Dr. Mohler does not believe in anything close to a Biblical doctrine of ecclesiastical separation. His Southern Baptist denomination is full of leaven that is corrupting the whole lump. His ecclesiastical polity is like the Biden administration on the USA’s southern border–claiming that there are a few barriers that keep out people who are trying to creep in unawares while millions of illegals come pouring in with a nod and a wink.
Dr. Bauder makes some legitimate criticisms of Dr. Mohler, while also being much more cozy with him than John the Baptist or the Apostles would have been. Dr. Bauder says that Mohler is “doing a good work, and that work would be hindered if I were to lend credibility to the accusation that he is a fundamentalist” (pg. 97). That is Bauder’s view of the false worship, the huge number of unregenerate church members, the spiritual deadness, the doctrinal confusion, and the gross disobedience in the Southern Baptist Convention. Hurray? Dr. Bauder’s discussion is not how the first century churches would have worked with disboedient brethren (2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14).
Separate From the Wolves, but Not From Disobedient Sheep:
Kevin Bauder’s “Mainstream Fundamentalist” View
Kevin Bauder is a self-identified “historic fundamentalist.” (But what if there never was a unified “historic fundamentalism”?) He is the only one of the four contributors who actually thinks that ecclesiastical separation needs to take place. So two cheers for Dr. Bauder! Bauder argues: “the gospel is the essential ground of all genuinely Christian unity. Where the gospel is denied, no such unity exists” (pg. 23). Therefore, “Profession of the gospel is the minimum requirement for visible Christian fellowship. The gospel is the boundary of Christian fellowship” (pg. 25). Bauder does a good job showing that people must separate from those who deny the gospel, or those who fellowship with those who deny the gospel. Two more cheers for Bauder.
However, Bauder warns about what he calls “hyper-fundamentalism,” which is actually Biblically consistent separatism (and which gets no voice to defend itself in this book). He has strong words for the “hyper-fundamentalists”–stronger than the way he voices his disagreements with Mohler:
One version of fundamentalism goes well beyond the idea that I summarized earlier in this essay. It could be called hyper-fundamentalism. Hyper-fundamentalism exists in a variety of forms. … [H]yper-fundamentalists sometimes adopt a militant stance regarding some extrabiblical or even antibiblical teaching. For example, many professing fundamentalists are committed to a theory of textual preservation and biblical translation that leaves the King James Version as the only acceptable English Bible. When individuals become militant over such nonbiblical teachings, they cross the line into hyper-fundamentalism. … [H]yper-fundamentalists understand separation in terms of guilt by association. To associate with someone who holds any error constitutes an endorsement of that error. Persons who hold error are objects of separation, and so are persons who associate with them. … [H]yper-fundamentalists sometimes turn nonessentials into tests of fundamentalism. For example, some hyper-fundamentalists assume that only Baptists should be recognized as fundamentalists. Others make the same assumption about dispensationalists, defining covenant theologians out of fundamentalism. Others elevate extrabiblical personal practices. One’s fundamentalist standing may be judged by such criteria as hair length, musical preferences, and whether one allows women to wear trousers. … Hyper-fundamentalism takes many forms, including some that I have not listed. Nevertheless, these are the forms that are most frequently encountered. When a version of fundamentalism bears one or more of these marks, it should be viewed as hyper-fundamentalist. It is worth noting that several of these marks can also be found in other versions of evangelicalism.
Hyper-fundamentalism is not fundamentalism. It is as a parasite on the fundamentalist movement. … Mainstream fundamentalists find themselves in a changing situation. One factor is that what was once the mainstream may no longer be the majority within self-identified fundamentalism. A growing proportion is composed of hyper-fundamentalists, who add something to the gospel as the boundary of minimal Christian fellowship. If the idea of fundamentalism is correct, then this error is as bad as dethroning the gospel from its position as the boundary.
Another factor is that some evangelicals have implemented aspects of the idea of fundamentalism, perhaps without realizing it. For example, both Wayne Grudem and Albert Mohler (among others) have authored essays that reverberate with fundamentalist ideas. More than that, they and other conservative evangelicals have put their ideas into action, seeking doctrinal boundaries in the Evangelical Theological Society and purging Southern Baptist institutions.
Mainstream fundamentalists are coming to the conclusion that they must distance themselves from hyper-fundamentalists, and they are displaying a new openness to conversation and even some cooperation with conservative evangelicals. Younger fundamentalists in particular are sensitive to the inconsistency of limiting fellowship to their left but not to their right. (pgs. 43-45)
By Bauder’s definition, the first century churches would have been “hyper-fundamentalist” parasites. (Note that Bauder also makes claims such as: “Some hyper-fundamentalists view education as detrimental to spiritual well-being” [pg. 44]. There is probably a guy named John somewhere in a “hyper-fundamentalist” church that thinks education is a sin, and there is also probably a lady named Mary in a neo-evangelical church who thinks the same thing, and a big burly fellow named Mat in a post-conservative church who agrees with them, but nothing further about these sorts of claims by Bauder needs further comment. So we return to something more serious.) Do you separate over more than just the gospel? Do you, for example, separate over men who refuse to work and care for their families (2 Thess 3:6-14)? You are a parasite, just as bad, if not worse, than people who do not separate at all. Do you separate over false worship (“musical styles” to Bauder), since God burned people up for offering Him strange fire (Lev 10:1ff)? You are bad–very, very bad. Let the strange fire right in to the New Testament holy of holies (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)!–even though God says He will “destroy” those who do such a wicked thing. Do you take a stand for the perfect preservation of Scripture–as did men like George S. Bishop, one of the contributors to The Fundamentals (see, e. g., George S. Bishop, The Fundamentals: “The Testimony of the Scriptures to Themselves,” vol. 2:4 [Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2005], 80ff.)? You King James Only parasite! Do you seek to follow the Apostle Paul and the godly preacher Timothy, and allow “no other doctrine” in the church–not just “no other gospel,” but “no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3)? Do you repudiate Dr. Bauder’s schema of levels of fellowship to seek what Scripture defines as unity: “that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10)? You are bad–very, very bad. You should be rejected, and we should join hands, instead, with evangelicals like Mohler who write essays that we “reverberate” with while they work in a Southern Baptist Convention teeming with unregenerate preachers and church members which almost never obeys Matthew 18:15-20 and practices church discipline. If you think Scripture is not kidding when it says men with long hair or women with short hair is a “shame” (1 Corinthians 11:1-16), or you do not want the women in your church to be an “abomination” (Deuteronomy 22:5) by wearing men’s clothing like pants, then you are certainly, certainly beyond the pale. Corruptions in our culture do not matter-let them into what should be Christ’s pure bride! Everyone knows that the loving thing to do is to allow half the congregation to be an abomination so that they can fit in with our worldly, hell-bound culture.
Dr. Bauder at least says one should separate over the gospel, and he does a good job proving that Scripture requires churches to do that. He has numbers of effective critiques of positions to his left. He clearly has studied history and is a thinker. But he does not present a Biblical case for consistent separatism-very possibly because consistent ecclesiastical separation is only possible when one rejects universal “church” ecclesiology for local-only or Landmark Baptist ecclesiology, and views the local assembly as the locus for organizational unity, while Bauder believes in a universal “church” and must somehow accomodate Scripture’s commands for unity in the body of Christ to that non-extant entity. As the book A Pure Church: A Biblical Theology of Ecclesiastical Separation demonstrates, churches must separate from all unrepentant and continuing disobedience, not just separate over the gospel. Dr. Bauder’s view is insufficient. Furthermore, his critique of what he labels “hyper-fundamentalism” is inconsistent. If the “hyper-fundamentalists” do things like separate too much and take stands for pure worship, are they thereby denying the gospel? If not, why does Bauder think they should be repudiated and separated from?
One other important point: some of those who would repudiate Dr. Bauder’s view as too weak are themselves to his left, not his right. For example, the King James Bible Research Council and the Dean Burgon Society, prominent King James Only advocacy organizations that would claim to be militant fundamentalists, are willing to fellowship with anti-repentance, anti-Lordship, anti-Christ (for does not “Christ” mean “the Messiah, the King, the Lord”?) advocates of heresy on the gospel as advocated by Jack Hyles, Curtis Hudson and the Sword of the Lord, and the so-called “free grace” movement of Zane Hodges. Fundamentalist schools that stand for gender-distinction and conservative worship, such as Baptist College of Ministry in Menomonee Falls, WI, are willing to fellowship with people who believe the truth on repentance and the gospel as well as with anti-repentance heretics at Hyles Anderson College and First Baptist (?) Church (?) of Hammond, Indiana like John Wilkerson. If you think Kevin Bauder’s Central Baptist Seminary is too weak, but you yourself do not separate even over the gospel, but tolerate false views of repentance or other heresies on the gospel that Paul would not have tolerated for one hour (Galatians 1:6-9, 2:5), you need to reconsider your position.
Take a stand–follow God. Allow “no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3). Separate not just on the gospel, but from all unfruitful works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11). You may be excluded from the book Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, with its more liberal contributors viewing you as “cultic” and the most conservative contributor viewing you as a “parasite” and a “hyper-fundamentalist,” but that is fine-God your adopted Father, Christ your gracious Redeemer, and the blessed Holy Spirit, who has made your body and your congregation into His holy temple, will be pleased. The needy sheep in your flock who had a faithful pastor will embrace you and thank you as they shine like the sun in the coming glorious kingdom, as you led them to faithfulness to Christ and a full reward, instead of compromise. If Christ does not return first, your church may, by God’s grace, continue to pass on the truth and to multiply other true churches for centuries, instead of falling into apostasy because of a sinful failure to consistently practice Biblical separation.
Get off the spectrum of evangelicalism entirely and follow Scripture alone for the glory of God alone in a separatist, Bible-believing and practicing Baptist church. You will be opposed now, but God will be glorified, and it will be worth it all, when we see Jesus.
–TDR
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What About Unconditional Respect?
Unconditional Respect
Men from my era grew up learning unconditional respect. The men before me taught us to respect our parents. Was that right? Sure. “Honor thy Father and thy Mother” (Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16, Matthew 15:4, 19:19, Mark 7:10, 10:19, Luke 18:20, and Ephesians 6:2). Did they base this respect on any prerequisites from the parents? No. You just did it. And you just do it.
People today for sure hear and talk about unconditional love. When scripture commands, Husbands love your wives (Ephesians 5:25), you love your wives. It’s not, love your wives, depending on what they do for you. The example for this is Jesus — “even as Christ also loved the church.”
It comes with a certain disclaimer, but I recommend the book, Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs by Emmerson Eggerichs. The subtitle of the book gives away the main point of the book, “The Respect He Desperately Needs.” Many books on marriage major on unconditional love. I’ve not read a book that had properly represented unconditional respect.
Ephesians 5:31
Eggerichs backs his proposition with Ephesians 5:31 as a theme verse: “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” Yes, Love your wives, not depending on what they do for you. But also, respect (reverence) your husbands, not depending on what they do for you.
Without a doubt a husband helps his wife in her role of respect by loving her. The converse is also true though. Without a doubt a wife helps her husband in his role of love by respecting him. I would contend as Eggerichs does in the book that most couples say they believe in unconditional love but have not considered unconditional respect. He depends on more than Ephesians 5:31 to make this point (Consider 1 Peter 3:1-2). There are others. But it is a scriptural teaching.
Couples would revolutionize their marriages by taking heed to both, unconditional love and unconditional respect. I would say, with special attention to the latter. It’s the one most ignored and that’s patently obvious in our society today.
Men Respecting Men Too
Taking my theme for this post into another application. Men, you won’t do well at helping other men, when you won’t show them the respect God intends either. You should respect the position or office of other men. Men may not show you respect if you won’t give it.
You defraud a man when you operate outside of his authority. This is following the chain of command. Just because you have authority over a man, it doesn’t mean you have authority in a sphere where he holds authority. I’m talking about with his wife and children. If you circumvent a man with his wife and children, don’t be surprised if you lose him as a leader.
You might get the like and maybe even the love of women when you disrespect a man. Do not expect to get the respect of men though.
Sphere of Authority
As men, we also should try very hard not to embarrass a man within a sphere of his authority. Don’t take personal conversations outside the personal without asking his permission. You understand. This shows him respect. This is just a sample of what we should understand as a “man code.”
Scripture also says something about honoring, giving special respect to, older men.
Leviticus 19:32, Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.
1 Timothy 5:1, Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;
Society has become more and more egalitarian. Especially young people want respect with almost never giving respect themselves to others.
I’ve written about the general principle of respect for men. God created men this way. Much more can be said about how to respect a man. First though, may we acknowledge the general principle.
Faith and Resilience for Evangelism
The dictionary of Oxford Languages says that resilience is “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” The American Psychological Association writes: “Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” Everyday Health says: “Resilience is the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events.” Psychology Today says: “Resilience is the psychological quality that allows some people to be knocked down by the adversities of life and come back at least as strong as before.”
Evangelism Is Hard
You get it. True evangelism, where someone preaches a true gospel and doesn’t depend on gimmicks or cut corners, is difficult or hard. So much so, most professing Christians do not evangelize.
Right before the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20, verse 18 says: “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” At least because of the difficulty of evangelizing the lost, Jesus prefaced His command to do it by reminding His followers of how much authority He possessed. “I have all authority to tell you to do anything, especially this difficult thing.”
Evangelism is unlike anything else that you do or will do. It’s not like sales. It shouldn’t be. We’re not selling a product out there. If you are going to sell something, you want it to be something that people want. In general, you can’t earn a living trying to sell things people do not want.
People Don’t Want It
The message of salvation, the gospel, is greater than anything. You can’t find a better “product.” Nonetheless, people don’t want it. You can only offer it. And even that’s not easy, because people very often won’t even give the opportunity.
You want to give the gospel and people say, no. Then you give the gospel, and they say, no. Sometimes, you give the gospel, they say, yes, and then fall away very quickly. Extremely disappointing.
If you are a painter, you get done with your day, and you look at results. You finished room or rooms, maybe a whole house. You get satisfaction or fulfillment out of those results. Same with mowing lawns or a large range of various jobs, almost anything else. Sometimes doing evangelism can feel like digging ditches and filling them. It doesn’t seem like anything is happening.
People Don’t Like It
As a whole, people are not happy even to see you show up, if you are there to evangelize. They put signs on their doors to discourage you. It doesn’t make you more popular.
I went to every door in our neighborhood. I’ve noticed since then that very often people won’t even look at us. They don’t want eye contact. I understand. With my peripheral vision, I look for them to glance my way, so at that very moment, I can wave in a friendly manner. They know I’m doing it so they keep their heads turned away the entire time.
Everything I’ve written so far after the first paragraph undergirds the need for resilience. I have a goal to evangelize every single day if possible. I know how to do it. Good conversations are a norm. I preach the gospel many times. Even with that, a vast number of times I have little to nothing to show for it.
What Provides the Resilience
Yes, the question comes, why do it? Or, why keep doing it? Getting through the hardship of the difficulty in evangelism is the resilience. I want to keep doing it, to keep going back to the well.
The key for me is faith. I believe in what I’m doing. When I say nothing is better than the gospel, that means I believe in the gospel. If I went months with no one receiving Christ, I still believe in how great it is. Heaven rejoices over it. I believe that. My labor is not in vain. I believe that.
I still struggle, but my faith keeps me going. My faith looks up to God. It looks to His Word.
My mind goes to a couple of traditional hymns we sing. In faith I have a resting place. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.
Peter Ruckman, KJV Only Blasphemer
Peter Ruckman, the notorious King James Only advocate, is a blasphemer.
Why do I say this? I have never read a book by Peter Ruckman from cover to cover. I tried reading one years ago but it was too vitriolic for me; I felt defiled reading it, so I stopped. Now recently I had the privilege of debating evangelical apologist James White on the topic of whether the King James Version and the Textus Receptus are superior to the Legacy Standard Bible and the Textus Rejectus. In James White’s King James Only Controversy he painted the moderate mainstream of KJV-Onlyism with such astonishing inaccuracy. James White makes arguments such as (speaking about the translation Lucifer for Satan in Isaiah 14:12): “The term Lucifer, which came into the biblical tradition through the translation of Jerome’s Vulgate, has become … entrenched … [y]et a person who stops for a moment of calm reflection might ask, ‘Why should I believe Jerome was inspired to insert this term at this point? Do I have a good reason for believing this?’”[1] Dr. White argues: “Anyone who believes the TR to be infallible must believe that Erasmus, and the other men who later edited the same text in their own editions (Stephanus and Beza), were somehow ‘inspired.’”[2] Of course, White provides no sources at all for any King James Only advocate who has ever claimed that Jerome, Stephanus, Beza, or Erasmus were inspired, since no such sources exist. As I pointed out in the debate, Dr. White makes bonkers claims like that KJV-only people think Abraham and Moses actually spoke English (again, of course, totally without any documentation of such people even existing).
Thus, James White’s astonishing inaccuracies made me wonder if he is even representing Peter Ruckman accurately. I have no sympathy for Peter Ruckman’s peculiar doctrines—as the godly, non-nutty, serious thinker and KJV Only advocate David Cloud has explained in his good book What About Ruckman?, Peter Ruckman is a heretic. I am 100% opposed to Ruckman’s heretical, gospel-corrupting teaching that salvation was by works in the Old Testament and will be by works in the Millennium. It makes me wonder if Ruckman was truly converted, or if he was an example of what was often warned about in the First Great Awakening by George Whitfield and others, namely, “The Dangers of an Unconverted Ministry.” I am 100% opposed to Ruckman’s disgraceful lifestyle that led him to be disqualified to pastor. I am 100% opposed to his ungodly language, to his wicked racism, to his wacky conspiracy theories, and to his unbiblical extremism on the English of the KJV. At the same time, however opposed I am to him, as a Christian I am still duty-bound to attempt to represent his position accurately. The way Dr. White badly misrepresented the large moderate majority of KJV-Onlyism made me wonder if James also misrepresented Dr. Ruckman.
As a result, I acquired a copy of Ruckman’s response to James White’s King James Only Controversy, a book called The Scholarship Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Professional Liars? (Pensacola, FL: Bible Baptist Bookstore, 2000). The title page claims: “This book exposes the most cockeyed piece of amateur scholarship that ever came out of Howash University.” Based on the title, it was already evident that I would be in for a quite painful and dreary time going through the book, but God is a God of truth, and nobody, not even Peter Ruckman, should be misrepresented by a Christian. Christians must be truthful like their God, who cannot lie (Titus 1:2).
While Christians should not misrepresent anyone, I found it hard to cut through the slander and hyperbole and bloviations in Ruckman’s book as I attempted to get to something substantial. Ruckman can say things such as: “Irenaeus quotes the AV one time and the NASV one time. … Eusebius (later) quotes the King James Bible four times and the NASV once” (pg. 117). Peter Ruckman has an earned Ph. D. from Bob Jones University. He knows that the NASV and the KJV/AV did not exist when Irenaeus and Eusebius lived. He knows that the English language did not yet exist. (I wonder if James White’s completely undocumented affirmation in his King James Only Controversy—which he also declined to prove any support for at all in our debate—that some KJV-only advocates believe that Abraham and Moses spoke English derives from a misunderstanding some Nestle-Aland advocate had with a Ruckmanite who followed his leader in making outlandish verbal statements, and those outlandish verbal statements became, in James White’s mind, a real group of people who actually thought that the Old Testament prophets spoke English, although he has no evidence such a group ever existed, somewhat comparable to Ruckman saying that Irenaeus and Eusebius quoted the Authorized Version and the New American Standard Version.) Of course, at this point I am speculating on something that I should not have to speculate upon, since James White has had decades to provide real documentation of these KJV-only groups who allegedly think English was the language spoken in ancient Israel, but he has not done so.
I did discover something that made me wonder if the statement White quotes about Ruckman and advanced revelation in English were similar exaggerations. Note the following from Ruckman’s book, on the first two pages:
“Scholarship Onlyism” is much easier to define than the mysterious “King James Onlyism.” For example, while “using” (a standard Alexandrian cliche) the Authorized Version (1611), I recommend Tyndale’s version (1534), The Great Bible (1539), The Geneva Bible (1560), Valera’s Spanish version (1596), Martin Luther’s German version (1534), and a number of others. Here at Pensacola Bible Institute, our students “use” (the old Alexandrian cliche) from twenty-eight to thirty- two English versions, including the RV, RSV, NRSV, ASV, NASV, Today’s English Version [TEV], New English Bible [NEB], New World Translation, [NWT], NIV, and NKJV. Our brand of “King James Onlyism” is not the kind that it is reported to be. We believe that the Authorized Version of the English Protestant Reformation is the “Scriptures” in English, and as such, it is inerrant until the alleged “errors” in it have been proved “beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt” to be errors. Until such a time, we assume that it is a perfect translation. No sane person, who was not criminally minded, would take any other position. In a court of law, the “accused” is “innocent until proven guilty” (i.e., O. J. Simpson) … Since not one apostate Fundamentalist (or Conservative) in one hundred and fifty years has yet been able to prove one error in the Book we hold in our hands (which happens to be written in the universal language of the end time), we assume it is the last Bible God intends to give mankind before the Second Advent. God has graciously preserved its authority and infallibility in spite of “godly, qualified, recognized scholars” in the Laodicean period of apostasy (1900-1990), so we consider it to be the final authority in “all matters of faith and practice.” We go a little beyond this, and believe it to be the final authority in all matters of Scholarship. That is what “bugs the tar” (Koine, American) and “beats the fire” (Koine, American) out of the Scholarship Only advocates who are in love with their own intellects.[3]
Notice that Ruckman himself “recommends” Bibles other than the KJV, such as the Tyndale, Geneva, and Textus Receptus based foreign language Bibles. At least in this quotation, he does not say God re-inspired the Bible in 1611, but he says that the translation should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, as is proper in a court of law. That is a much more moderate position than James White attributes to him.
So is it possible that the extreme statements James White quotes on pg. 27 of The King James Only Controversy are hyperbole on Ruckman’s part? (Ruckman has plenty of hyperbole—even in the quotation above, I cut out a weird statement he made about David Koresh.) I cannot prove that James White was deliberately misrepresenting Ruckman—Ruckman’s style is too bizarre for one to easily determine what he actually means (another of many, many reasons why I cannot and do not recommend that you read any of his books). However, from this statement we can see that if one wishes to prove that Ruckman actually believes something it is important to be very careful, as he not only makes large numbers of uncharitable and nutty attacks on others, but many hyperbolic statements.
Unfortunately, as years ago I was not able to finish a Ruckman book because it was bursting with carnality, so this time I was not able to finish Ruckman’s critique of James White’s King James Only Controversy because it was not just carnal, but blasphemous. On page 81 Ruckman takes God’s name in vain, reprinting the common curse phrase “Oh my G—” in his book. A search of its electronic text uncovers that Ruckman blasphemes again on page 269, 308, 312, 452 & 460. He could do so elsewhere as well, but those statements are enough, and I am not excited about searching for and discovering blasphemy. The Bible says: “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person.” (Psalm 101:3-4). If we were living in the Old Testament theocracy, Peter Ruckman would be stoned to death for blasphemy. We are not in the Old Testament theocracy, but His blasphemous language is still disgusting, abominable, and wicked in the sight of the holy God. That someone who claimed to be a Christian preacher would write such wickedness is even more disgusting. Ruckman was a “Baptist” the way Judas or Diotrephes or Jezebel was a Baptist. He would be subject to church discipline if he snuck in unawares and became a member of our church.
So did James White misrepresent Peter Ruckman? White’s representation of the non-wacko large majority of KJV-onlyism was far from accurate, so I wondered if he even got Ruckman right. From what I read of Ruckman’s book before Ruckman started to blaspheme, I thought it was possible that James White did not even get Ruckman right, although with Ruckman’s pages bursting with carnality and total weirdness I could see why getting Ruckman wrong would be easy to do. I am unable to determine definitively one way or the other whether James White was accurate on Peter Ruckman’s position (or if Ruckman himself was even consistent in explaining himself) since I am not going to read a book by someone who breaks the Third Commandment while claiming to be a Baptist preacher. That is disgusting to me, and ineffably more disgusting to the holy, holy, holy God. Ruckman’s critique of James White’s book deserves to go in the trash, where its filthy language belongs.
I do not recommend James White’s King James Only Controversy because it does not base itself on God’s revealed promises of preservation and because of its many inaccuracies. I do not recommend Peter Ruckman’s critique of James White’s King James Only Controvesy because it is not only weird and carnal, but repeatedly blasphemous. Certainly for a new Christian, and possibly for a mature one, the recycle bin could well be the best place for both volumes.
–TDR
[1] James R. White, The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust Modern Translations? (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2009), 180–181.
[2] James R. White, The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust Modern Translations? (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2009), 96.
[3] Peter Ruckman, The Scholarship Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Professional Liars? (Pensacola, FL: Bible Baptist Bookstore, 2000), 1-2.
The Theology of John Wesley and Its Impact on the Methodist and Wesleyan Churches (Part Two)
John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield began their search for the truth within the infrastructure of the Church of England in the early 18th century. John started the formal Christian religious denomination, the Methodists, with a break from the Moravians after having been an ordained Anglican cleric. No one sent him. He operated as a free agent without authority to start what he wanted, maybe listening to a mystical voice-in-his-head. Perhaps he gave up because he thought nothing represented the truth as he saw it. Others have done the same in starting new religions with unique belief and practice.
Holiness
A chief concern for the Wesleys, as seen in their writings and those of others who heard them, was the lack of holiness among those professing Christianity. They expected a more strict lifestyle in accordance with moral law. I understand that assessment. However, what causes this absence of holiness among those who call themselves Christian? Their conclusion was an observable deficiency of discipline, a need of a different method, hence Methodism.
Scripture, however, shows that holiness comes as fruit of the Holy Spirit through true conversion. You can’t whip it up or pull it up by the bootstraps. The Church of England still advocated a false gospel like unto Roman Catholicism from which it proceeded. Unbelief will not produce holy living. The ritual of sacrament and ceremony doesn’t cause holiness.
Nonetheless, the Wesleys wanted more holiness among professing Christians. Under the patch work of disparate theological influences, the Wesleys styled a view of the atonement to generate the greatest personal holiness. They rejected straight judicial, penal substitution with its imputed righteousness for what men now call, “participatory atonement.”
Grace Alone?
Roman Catholicism says grace saves us. Mormonism says grace saves us. Almost every Christian denomination or religion says grace saves us. If you asked the Judaizers in Galatia whether grace saved us, surely they would also answer, “yes.” A unique sect of Christianity could easily say that grace alone saves us. The Wesleys taught that at the moment of the new birth God imparts to someone the power or ability to live holy. This impartation comes through a mystical experience one has in participating with the death of Christ.
John Wesley had a problem with the teaching that imputed righteousness justifies a sinner. He received imputed righteousness, but it pardoned only his past sin. At that point, God imparted righteousness that enabled him to strive for holiness and live a holy life. These good works are required for salvation.
With Methodist or Wesleyan doctrine, someone may receive righteousness by faith, but faith that comes through the experience. The experience includes repentance. In the works of John Wesley, you can read of conversations in 1744 between the Wesleys and a few others to form a catechism of questions and answers. It read:
But must not repentance and works meet for repentance, go before this faith? Without doubt; if by repentance you mean conviction of sin, and by works meet for repentance, obeying God as we can, forgiving our brother, leaving off from evil, doing good, and using his ordinances according to the power we have received.
Baptism and Eternal Security
According to this, a faith that might justify would only do so through works meet for repentance. In addition, concerning baptism John Wesley said:
What are the benefits we receive by baptism, is the next point to be considered. And the first of these is, the washing away the guilt of original sin, by the application of the merits of Christ’s death. . . . . By baptism, we who were “by nature children of wrath” are made the children of God.
The perfectionism of the Wesleys meant that with their view of sin, someone could live a technically sinless life. This theory of participatory atonement required participation. Without it, someone could lose his salvation. In the same catechism referred above, the Wesleys said:
Are works necessary to the continuance of faith? Without doubt, for many forfeit the free gift of God, either by sins of omission or commission. Can faith be lost for want of works? It cannot but through disobedience.
You can find statements where it seems that John Wesley did believe in salvation by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Yet, if you can lose salvation, who is doing the saving? Some of what he wrote seems to agree with judicial, penal substitution. All of that you must also see in the context of everything else he wrote and said that contradicts penal substitution. Then today you look at the fruit in Methodist and Wesleyan belief and practice.
The Unholy Fruit
Holiness doesn’t just happen. It comes the way scripture explains that it comes. Holiness won’t occur through a different means than what God says. That proves itself out too. Methodists and Wesleyans might call themselves holiness, but their deficient and skewed beliefs won’t produce true holiness. This manifests itself over a period, where the trajectory of personal living moves away from holiness.
Holiness is an attribute of God. People don’t live holy without God. The holiness people receive comes through true conversion and the atonement of true conversion is penal substitution. Other views of atonement are not true or scriptural and they do not provide for holiness. The failure to live holy comes from not receiving holiness by grace through faith.
The Wesleys taught faith as the threshold of holiness. It opened for someone the opportunity for a process. If that process did not end in perfection, that person was not saved.
Confusion or Clarity?
If you are reading this post and confused about what Wesley believed, join the club. It’s difficult to sort through what he said, perhaps nothing as so plainly muddled as reading a sermon he preached, “The Scripture Way of Salvation.” I found it almost impossible to understand. His teaching made it very difficult to have assurance of salvation. On many different occasions in his lifetime, through letters he expressed extreme doubt, surely because of his convoluted understanding of salvation.
Salvation is clear in the Bible in contrast to salvation of Wesleyan and Methodist teaching. Paul taught grace and works as mutually exclusive. Romans 11:6 says:
And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
One who adds works to grace, like the Wesleys did, “Christ profits [them] nothing” and they become “debtor[s] to do the whole law.” Jesus is clear. Paul is clear. The Wesleys were not and Wesleyan and Methodist belief, teaching, and practice are the fruit of that.
The Theology of John Wesley and Its Impact on the Methodist and Wesleyan Churches
In my thirty-three years of church planting and then pastoring in the San Francisco Bay Area, I never met a converted or saved Methodist. It was just the opposite. They were some of the most liberal, unsaved people I ever met.
I’m not Methodist. Even when I look at the history, I ask from where do the Methodists get their authority. If I ask about the Methodists, then I definitely ask the same of the Wesleyans. They can’t trace their lineage to a true church. They functioned in and from the state church, taking on some of the characteristics of the apostate denomination from which they came.
The Wesleys and Whitefield
The Wesleys arose within the Church of England. They knew something was amiss there. They changed. When I read Wesley, as have others, I see a heap of contradictions though. They never understood nor broke from the corrupt root from which they sprang.
George Whitefield and John Wesley had their break-up. Whitefield studied and went an orthodox biblical direction. He preached a true gospel the basis of the Great Awakening in the American colonies. Wesley took the Methodists a different direction with a different theology than the true salvation preaching of Whitefield. Every way that Wesley countered Whitefield, he headed the wrong way compared to Whitefield.
Now I look at the fruit of what Wesley taught. Mostly today, Methodism went liberal. Whatever errors John Wesley believed, the Methodists took a trajectory then away and then further away from the truth. The perversion in Wesleyan doctrine interrelates in several points of biblical doctrine. Wesley’s unbiblical errors, even though they leave quite a bit of truth in Wesleyan and Methodist belief, they spoil the whole pot or body.
Wesleyan and Methodist Fruit
While I write on Wesleyan and Methodist error today, I’m working in the Midwest United States in Indiana. With their wrong doctrines, they still associate themselves with Christianity. This dominates my present county and surrounding counties where I serve the Lord. It blinds the population. It produces false doctrine and practice.
I tend to think right away that Wesleyans and Methodists are wrong. However, when I listen to some of them, I hear enough truth that it becomes difficult to sort out where they divert from the truth. There are many subtle errors that massed together they become very significant.
John Wesley and Sin
John Wesley taught a convoluted, unscriptural view of sin. In the Works of John Wesley, Volume 12, p. 394, we read that Wesley wrote:
Nothing is sin, strictly speaking, but a voluntary transgression of a known law of God. Therefore, every voluntary breach of the law of love is sin; and nothing else, if we speak properly.
When you read that first sentence, it might sound good. The next one becomes problematic, especially his saying, “and nothing else, if we speak properly.” Sin is more than just a breach of the law of love. He also says, “voluntary breach,” so that a person must give assent, activate his will, for sin to occur. This definition sets Wesley and his followers up for greater problems.
Perfectionism
If sin is this breach of the law of love, it is easy then to see how that a different view of atonement and salvation occurs. By limiting or twisting the definition of sin, according to John Wesley someone could live without sinning, a theology called “perfectionism.” I might call it, “dumbing down sin.” 1 John 3:8 says:
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Wesley wrote concerning this in Explanatory Notes on the NT (1818) on p. 661:
Whosoever abideth in communion with him, by loving faith, sinneth not – While he so abideth. Whosoever sinneth certainly seeth him not – The loving eye of his soul is not then fixed upon God; neither doth he then experimentally know him – Whatever he did in time past.
Participatory Atonement
Even though Wesley talks an acceptance of substitutionary atonement, he mixes in other various views of atonement that created a doctrinal quagmire. It’s why you hear so much differing and contradictory doctrine from Wesleyans and Methodists. It’s also why they can easily move into theological liberalism. For instance, Wesley communicates what is called “participatory atonement.”
John Wesley did not have a settled theology or doctrine of salvation before he became the head of a major Christian denomination. He was still working it out. He knew something was wrong in the Christianity he observed. Wesley never pinpointed what was wrong with the Church of England to the extent that he provided a separate correction of Anglican soteriology.
This view, participatory atonement, itself blends together various views of atonement. The cross of Christ is the means by which human beings can die with Christ and be reborn in Him. They experience the crucifixion of Christ with him in a mystical way. Many of the Wesley hymns make reference to this view.
The Place of Moral Example
Participatory atonement has strong parallels with the moral example theory of atonement, where Christ’s death on the cross was a kind of exclamation point of a life of love. By dying, Jesus provided a moral example, that if lived, atonement is received. With the Wesleyan participatory atonement, someone by faith subjects himself to the crucifixion that Christ suffered, fulfilling the law of love. God creates new life in the individual who enters solidarity with Christ in the love of His suffering and death.
The idea of dying with Christ sounds right even to someone who believes in penal substitution. However, this participatory atonement is something different than the historical interpretation of Galatians 2:20 (“I am crucified with Christ”). Concerning the defeat of the works of Satan through His death, Wesley wrote: “It is by thus manifesting himself in our hearts that he effectually ‘destroys the works of the devil’.” This mirrors the participatory atonement view. The Wesleys make more reference than other verse in the hymns of their hymnal than they do Galatians 2:20.
Wesley expressed opposition to the view of penal substitution. He saw the imputation of righteousness as a pass for unholy living. Everything is finished, so someone would just rest in that. Wesley had a great concern for the activation of holiness in a person’s life. He expressed a view of atonement that would yield that moral result.
Baptism and the Lord’s Table
Baptism and the Lord’s Table for Wesley become a means of grace by which men experience participatory atonement. In Wesley’s explanation of Romans 6:3, he writes:
In baptism we, through faith, are ingrafted into Christ; and we draw new spiritual life from this new root, through his Spirit, who fashions us like unto him, and particularly with regard to his death and resurrection.
Concerning the Lord’s Table, Charles Wesley wrote this hymn:
O the depth of love divine,
the unfathomable grace!
Who shall say how bread and wine
God into us conveys!
How the bread his flesh imparts,
how the wine transmits his blood,
fills his faithful people’s hearts
with all the life of God!
The Wesleys believed that the real presence of Christ was found in the elements imparting saving grace. Charles Wesley also wrote this:
With solemn faith we offer up,
And spread before thy glorious eyes
That only ground of all our hope,
That all-sufficient sacrifice,
Which brings thy grace on sinners down,
And perfects all our souls in one.
I’m very sure that most of you reading do not sing these Wesley hymns in your services or for worship. Charles wrote them and others like them though.
More To Come
Creationist testimony to the King James Bible: Henry Morris
Henry Morris was the founder of the Institute for Creation Research and has been called the “father of the modern creation science movement.” Did you know that he wrote a work explaining why the King James Bible was the version to use for creationists? If you have never read his argument, please consider and read it by clicking here. If you are a creationist who has given up on the King James Bible, please consider if the father of modern creationism has given some good reasons why you should return back to the KJV.
–TDR
I Don’t Want to Scare You But This Could Scare You
Artificial Intelligence
I was preparing to write about AI (Artificial Intelligence) today, something I started last week, before I even heard about the public interview with Elon Musk. What he said added to what I will write here. In general, I’m following two threads of thought. The first is the potential control of AI or whoever possesses the keys to AI. It relates to eschatology.
Many of you already think about it or thought about it. Maybe you already don’t put very much trust in institutions. I typed “human institutions,” but there isn’t any other kind. Every institution is a human one. How “off the grid” could any one person live and still fulfill his purpose for existence?
Dependence
Would I be wrong to say that something like 99% plus of people today depend on electronic systems? I draw a circle around myself and start working my way out. To start, I’m typing this on a laptop computer connected by WIFI through a router to the internet. As you read this, it started here where I sit and reached you through an amazing pathway at maybe something like the speed of light.
The power grid now depends on massive computers. The decision to bring generators on line or cut off an overloaded portion was not long ago done by people. In congested areas, computers control automobile traffic. Close to 90% use a mobile phone for that communication. These too are powerful computers.
Money
Even if only 40-50 percent of people use mobile banking, me included, all banking is computerized. Like probably all of you, I don’t see my money, if currency is money. Currency isn’t money, when it’s worthless as paper and ink. Some of you reading have gold somewhere, actual physical gold, in what you hope is a safe place. I hope that will work for you if or when everything breaks down. Maybe someone will trade you something you need for the gold you possess.
I hate to say this, but almost all of my money could disappear in less than one second of the time computers started controlling everything. Or, more likely in my opinion, when someone controlling all the computers took control of everything with the computers. I did not earn much in my lifetime, but I did relatively well with stewardship of the small amount. Still, all of that wealth over my entire lifetime could vanquish in one brief moment. How do I or how would I stop it?
Diversification?
The adage, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, I think I follow it. However, I have all of those eggs under the dominion of computers in some fashion. I own property. A computer says I own property. Maybe a piece of paper sits in a file somewhere too, but I’m really not sure on that. When computers take over, can I use a computerized mobile phone to talk to a real person about my ownership of that property?
I was thinking about this subject as it related to college loans. I finished college and graduate school with zero debt. Other people out there have huge money they owe. A few people could in essence push one button and all of that debt disappears. Someone got paid. Instead of the student or his parents paying, everyone shares in the elimination of their debt in a computer. That’s you and me. We’ll pay that modern art professor or critical theory instructor with higher expense for eggs and milk.
How to Prepare?
Much more could be said. What we know from the Bible is that at some future time on earth, a few people will control everything on earth by controlling the power to buy or sell. It’s much easier to see how they can do that. If anything close to that occurs before that future time, like a dress rehearsal, how should I prepare for that?
Programmed to Deceive
This year at Easter time, and I prefer Resurrection time, I prepared a resurrection sermon. In doing so, I read what ChatGPT, an AI, wrote about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I read this article with eagerness, because I thought that the AI would write without bias. AI would take all the information on the internet and tell the truth. It did not.
As a disclaimer, ChatGPT was relatively objective. It said the resurrection of Christ had historical evidence. However, it called it still a matter of faith, differentiating that from, what we might call, a historical event. That part of the ChatGPT’s assessment others programmed into it. They would not allow ChatGPT to call the resurrection true, just function according to all the information out there.
Present powers don’t want an objective AI presence. They want to program parameters and algorhythms for purposeful misinformation, a bias that supports their view of the world. Scripture indicates that in the future deceit will increase to all time proportions. A few people could easily use a ChatGPT to fool more people than the lies already occurring.
Changes in Personal Belief and the Effects on Relationships (part two)
Very often I tell people that I don’t know if I’m done changing in doctrine and practice. As I get older, I am changing less, but I haven’t found that changing ends. I think I’m done and then I encounter something else or another way I might need to change.
Changes
Other people always want me to change. When I evangelize I encounter others every week who want me to change in my beliefs, and I don’t. When I try to help others change, I cannot in good faith attempt to do that without the willingness to change myself. If I was not willing to change in a discussion of doctrine, I would call that, being closed minded. I expect open mindedness from others who I want to change, so I must be willing too.
In all my years of working for the Lord in and through churches, I have watched many changes on the landscape of churches and religious institutions in the United States. As I grew up, I rarely heard an expository sermon. Then I would attend preaching meetings and hear little exposition. Now I hear exposition for half the sermons at the same conference. I see this as a good change.
I have also seen many bad changes, so many that churches are worse today than ever. The worst changes are not doctrinal so much. They are cultural. The culture of church in the United States changed. It sadly followed the world, the spirit of the age. This then affects the whole country in a very negative way.
Changes in doctrine and practice followed the culture in the United States. Many churches don’t even know they changed. It occurred slowly over a long period of time, like watching a toddler grow up to a teenager. It was slow, but the outcome is very noticeable.
Change and Relationships
Because change can be bad, very bad, sometimes any change, especially if it isn’t a more conservative one, can seem bad. As a parent, maybe you have changed the rules or the code of conduct at home. You gave the children more liberty than they had. You had good intentions for loosening up on the standards. That could look like a change for the worse to some people. In fact, a parent may change his approach to teach discernment, so a way of helping his children.
Very often someone won’t change because of its potential effect on his relationships. Others will criticize him for changing. They may threaten him not to change. He doesn’t want to face that. Almost every change I’ve ever made affected relationships and sometimes in a major way.
When someone takes one position and changes to another, it might look like something is wrong. Why did he change? The truth doesn’t change. He believes and practices the truth. Is he forsaking the truth in some way?
Sanctification
I agree that the truth doesn’t change. It doesn’t. We must change though. It’s part of our sanctification. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says:
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit.
You can see that Paul uses the controversial “C” word, “changed.” Jesus doesn’t change. You must though.
It is even harder to change something as a leader. Whenever you change as a leader, people you’ve led will question the change.
Knowledge
When a leader changes in an area that he himself taught or preached, so that people followed, it might be very hard for the followers. This is one reason why as a leader you have to be very sure about something you teach or preach. Nonetheless, it can and will happen. You thought you understood fully. You thought you did. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12:
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
Belief and practice relates to knowledge, something Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 12-14 among the spiritual gifts. Even though God gifts in knowledge, a person on this side of glory still sees through a glass darkly. He has knowledge. He still needs more knowledge until his glorification. Not until he sees Jesus face to face will he not need knowledge anymore.
Replay
Mulligan
I haven’t played golf much, but I understand playing golf and hitting some bad shots. It will happen. Among those who play golf as a hobby or for exercise, they understand the idea of a mulligan. Everyone knows you will hit a tee shot into the woods. You tee up another ball and start over. You give yourself a mulligan.
Even if you try to get everything right as a leader, you still need a few mulligans. You see through a glass darkly. You are trying to see through a glass clearly. If you are a preacher, did you ever preach a sermon, and you had to come back and correct something you said? I have. I hate it when I have to do it. Very much, I would rather not do that. I’m always afraid that I’ll lose the trust of the people if I come back to make the correction.
Editorial Process
Readers probably relate to the editorial process. You edit and find mistakes. When you think you have them all, you read again and find more mistakes. You edit. When you think you’ve got that all done and then give the piece to someone else to read, he finds many more mistakes. You publish the piece. Readers find more errors in the published document, something you hate the worst. It’s too late. Corrections must occur now in the next edition.
Some might say that we don’t get any mulligans in real life. I would say, hopefully we do. We all need mulligans in this life. Christians should understand that better than anyone.
Dress Rehearsals
A statement I often use is this: “Life has no dress rehearsals.” At various times of my life, I directed dozens of plays and programs. I’m not promoting drama as an element of worship. We had dress rehearsals for the plays and programs in our school. I am glad we had them.
It’s true that life doesn’t often have a dress rehearsal. Sometimes I thought I believed exactly right. It wasn’t until later that I found that a particular belief came from a tradition and I didn’t know it. I thought I had studied that myself. Once I did study it, I wondered how I defended that position.
Defending Positions
Tradition
Sometimes what will happen is that we have a belief or practice based upon a tradition and we teach it or preach it. At some point someone challenges the belief or practice. Rather than admit that we got that from tradition, we scrape up some arguments to defend the tradition. The tradition, maybe not a scriptural teaching, becomes more entrenched.
I’m not opposing all tradition. Paul uses the word (2 Thess 3:6) in a positive manner. Tradition isn’t enough for keeping the position though. Bad traditions can continue when we defend all traditions.
Inconsistency or Principled?
I’m fine with the word, inconsistent. It closely relates to another good word, principled. I noticed that some of the same people who attacked the January 6 protestors defended the Tennessee capital protestors. The attack was inconsistent. It wasn’t principled.
If we get further information about some position or issue and it merits a change, it is principled to change. It is not inconsistent. Changing might be easier. It could be harder. Whether it is easier or harder to change may not relate to consistency or principle. It relates to the reaction of other people and your future relationships.
Further Information
Let’s say that in the morning, you tell your children they must go to bed at 9pm. You get home at 9:15pm. Your children are still up. You say, “Get to bed.” The oldest child asks, “Can I ask you a question?” You say, “Yes.” He says, “Mom said we could stay up, because school was cancelled for tomorrow.” That’s new information that you didn’t have. You can change. You can think about what you said before, understand that you didn’t have all the information, and you can change your position. It isn’t inconsistent.
Evaluation of Leaders
Paul saw division in the church at Corinth. One major reason for division was bad evaluation of leaders. When leaders think of the evaluation of others, it can affect what they do in either a good or a bad way. I am not saying that they shouldn’t listen. Paul called the leaders, the “ministers of Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:1).
“Ministers” translates the Greek word for “galley slaves.” The galley slaves work together on the oars, moving the ship forward, because they have one master. He calls out the rhythm of the oars. This simplifies the process for them. They’ve got one person to please. The person most important to please as a leader is Christ Himself.
Social Media and Electronics: Addictive Drugs for Christians?
Are social media and electronics drugs to which Christians are addicted-by the millions?
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Snapchat, Linkedin, Pinterest, Tiktok–mind-numbing, time-wasting distractions, all. Then there is email–Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL (if you are really old-school), as well as texting, blogging, threads, and all sorts of other ways to use up on the Internet the days and hours God has given you to serve Him. Many people spend a lot of time making big bucks trying to figure out ways to keep you on their website longer; scrolling is designed to suck you in, suggested videos on YouTube are there both to keep you on the website longer and to influence what you are thinking about, the “ping” when you get a new text is designed to get you to check it right away. Many of the apps that are hugely popular on smartphones and devices tap into decades of neuroscience and psychology research funded by the casino and gambling industries, which are designed to be addictive. Americans check their phones approximately 344 times a day, and nearly half of them openly admit that they are addicted to their phones. Physical substances are not the only drugs that are addictive and which turn your brain into putty and your conscience into a wreck-social media and electronic devices do as well.
Can some beneficial things be found on the Internet, on social media, etc.? Yes-after all, I have a YouTube channel (and a Rumble channel in case YouTube censors me), a website, and (more than one) email address. I am thankful for the material at Way of Life Literature. I am writing (and you are reading) a blog right now. Occasionally the Internet can save time-making some purchases at home online can save time that would otherwise have to be spent going to a store. In general, however, social media is designed to get you to do the opposite of what God says:
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12)
Our use of time should be intentional–we are to “number” our days so that we can properly apply our hearts to wisdom. Our use of time must not be determined by whatever happens to ping next or whatever thumbnail YouTube has pop up to suck us into spending more of the limited time we have before we go to the grave or before the return of Christ watching a pointless video, or even a somewhat benefical video that is less valuable than an intentional, best use of time.
What can be done? Here are two suggestions.
1.) Make the Lord’s Day a social media fast.
Make it a distinctly different day. Don’t use any social media at least one day in seven. Don’t watch YouTube. Don’t go on Facebook. Don’t check email. Don’t read text messages. Don’t look at your phone, unless it is an important call and someone actually physically calls you. Make an exception for someone who you are texting to give a ride to church, or to a family who you are going to minister to and fellowship with for lunch, or something like that–but otherwise, stay completely off. Let the muscle memory atrophy of looking at the phone whenever ten seconds is available, at least one day in seven. Instead, use that time to practice the greatly-neglected duty of conscious meditation on God and His Word, a duty which is too often swallowed up by being on social media day and night:
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (Joshua 1:8)
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. (Psalm 1:2)
While the Lord’s Day is not a Christian Sabbath, the principles of the Westminster Larger Catechism for your use of time on the Lord’s Day are still valuable:
The … Lord’s day is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, (Exod. 20:8,10) not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; (Exod. 16:25–28, Neh. 13:15–22, Jer. 17:21–22) and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy (Matt. 12:1–13) ) in the public and private exercises of God’ s worship: (Isa. 58:13, Luke 4:16, Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:1–2, Ps. 92, Isa. 66:23, Lev. 23:3) and, to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day. (Exod. 20:8,56, Luke 23:54, Exod. 16:22,25-26,29) … The sins forbidden in the fourth commandment are, all omissions of the duties required, (Ezek. 22:26) all careless, negligent, and unprofitable performing of them, and being weary of them; (Acts 20:7,9, Ezek. 33:30–32, Amos 8:5, Mal. 1:13) all profaning the day by idleness, and doing that which is in itself sinful; (Ezek. 23:38) and by all needless works, words, and thoughts, about our worldly employments and recreations. (Jer. 17:24,27, Isa. 58:13) (The Westminster Larger Catechism: With Scripture Proofs, Questions 117, 119)
Consider abstaining from even a lawful use of social media on the Lord’s Day.
2.) “Number” your days (Psalm 90:12): specifically plan and limit the time you spend on social media the other six days of the week.
Maybe make it a rule that you only check your email once a day, or perhaps only once in the morning and once in the evening. If someone needs you right away, he can use the voice that God gave him to call you on the phone or use his legs to actually walk up to you and speak to you face to face. Make a rule on how often you check text messages and stick to it. Make a rule that, unless you have already spent adequate time in seeking God’s face in the reading and study of Scripture, in prayer, and in meditation, you don’t use social media at all, and when you use it you consciously decide ahead of time how long God would be glorified by your being on TikTok or Twitter instead of reading Scripture or an edifying book, and spend that amount of your life up on social media–no more, only less. If, as a family, you “don’t have time” to have family devotions, or to regularly preach the gospel to your community, or to memorize Scripture, then you certainly don’t have time, as a family, to have any social media accounts. Have someone keep you accountable to live by your “numbering” (Psalm 90:12) of your life. How many Christian homes have “addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints” (1 Corinthians 16:15) in comparison to those who have addicted themselves to the slavery of the cell-phone? Are you loving your children by giving them a cell phone, or by resisting the societal pressure and not giving them one? Are you loving God and spiritually benefiting yourself by your phone and social media use?
Your life is a stewardship from God for which you must give an account. Don’t waste it on social media. Overuse of social media is a tremendous contributing factor to spiritual immaturity in the Lord’s churches, and among people old and young people in professedly Christian homes. Under-use of social media is a contributing factor to-well, probably, to spiritual maturity, greater intelligence, real Christian friendships, and the ability to do such increasingly rare things as concentrate on something for a long period of time. After all, neuroscience research shows that smartphones make people stupider, less social, more forgetful, more prone to addiction, sleepless and depressed, and poor at navigation. The phone may be smarter, but you are not.
What do you do to resist the mind-numbing, soul-sapping, intelligence-eliminating drugs of social media and electronics? Feel free to share your suggestions below. If you don’t have any, because you aren’t doing anything to stay off or wean yourself off from these addictions, maybe it is time to start.
–TDR
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