15 April 2018

Four types of Christian, Four Gospels and the Adulteration of the Visible Church (Part 1)


Nominal Christianity and the Lordship Controversy
What is a Christian? How is that term to be defined? It may seem like an easy and straightforward question but apparently it isn't because there seems to be a lot of confusion.


Listening to the voices coming from the often overlapping circles of Conservative Protestantism, Evangelicalism and the Christian Right I've identified four definitions, types or uses of the term Christian that seem to be regularly used and more or less assumed. For the most part these are false categories stemming from a combination of theological assumptions and errors.
First we have Nominal Christians, or Christians that make an open profession and probably attend church on occasion. They definitely consider themselves to be Christian but for some reason don't seem that serious about it. They are slack in terms of personal piety, indifferent to Church attendance and they lead worldly lives, often reflected in their interests, use of time and in how they approach the ordering of their families and the raising of children. They may profess allegiance to the Scripture and yet are largely unfamiliar with it and it doesn't seem to shape their thinking. Depending on one's theology these folks may be reckoned either a little backslidden, carnal or in some cases their Christian profession might be doubted and yet they would still be reckoned 'Christians' in a general socio-cultural sense.
In the course of discussion this group is usually followed by what are called Serious or Devout Christians who are identified by the same beliefs and outward profession, but this profession is backed up by a certain degree of zeal and conduct that seem to be more dedicated to life within the Church. Their profession is certainly reflected in how they use their time and order their households. There are of course many variations and different takes on this.
For some, serious devotion ends up being tied to particulars of dress, diet and various taboos. This will be accompanied by very carefully defined concepts of household roles, education etc...
For most circles another basic identifying mark of this 'serious' group would be church membership and regular attendance of meetings and studies. Basically unless they are working or otherwise hindered these folks are involved in church activities not only Sunday but even during the rest of the week.
For others serious Christianity involves not just regular church attendance but a determined attempt to spend time in the study of Scriptures, theology and prayer. Often they will utilise free time for distinctly Christian pursuits and to prioritise worship and fellowship over and against day-to-day concerns which are sometimes reckoned secular and mundane.
Conservative and Confessional critics of this distinction will sometimes argue this dichotomy is largely false and is a manifestation of Pietism, and indeed there's something to that accusation. Confessional Protestant critics of Pietism argue that an ordinary life of Word and Sacrament is sufficient.  In other words, regular attendance and participation in Church life is sufficient. They would argue the enthusiasm of the Pietists in the 17th and 18th centuries led to emotionalism and in adding a subjective element to defining Christianity, it was ultimately subversive to orthodox theology.
Pietists of course countered that Orthodoxy, (the scholastic oriented system wed to regular attendance in the Established Confessional Churches) had created a type of nominalism, an orthodoxy that was in fact dead, in which people went through the motions of Christianity and did so out of social obligation but possessed little in the way of actual fire and conviction. To the Pietist, orthodoxy generated light but no heat. Life in the Spirit was all but lost. Faith had been reduced to a kind of basic rational formula and being a Christian became equated with being a normal respectable member of society, part of which entailed the ritual of attending church on Sunday. Faith under this reality risks becoming token or trivial. The Pietists wanted to attend church and worship but they sensed that under the orthodox/Confessionalist system, the Christian life had become all form and no substance.
Additionally, the Church and the society became conflated and confused and this too contributed to the watering down of Christianity and rendered the Gospel, let alone the Church's conflict with the world as meaningless. The Pietists had a valid critique and yet their solutions were not always helpful. They sometimes fell into ultra-subjectivism on the order of mysticism. In other cases they fell (and still fall) into forms of legalism, a binding system of laws and rules that go beyond what the Scriptures require.
There are problems with the serious/nominal divide but all too often the Confessional critique is lacking. This will be elaborated when we look at some of the other 'types' of Christian and ways in which the term is used and defined. The acceptance of nominal Christianity can sometimes result from a socio-cultural concept of the Church but it can also stem from an overemphasis on Free Grace and Justification by Faith Alone what I have sometimes referred to as Hyper-solafideism. In their zeal to eliminate works as being a necessity to the Christian life, some have fallen into antinomianism... a type of Christianity that requires no transformation and is in effect lawless.
This brings the modern Lordship Controversy to mind. The debate all but raged throughout Evangelical circles in the late 1980's and into the 1990's.
Many Evangelicals have under the influence of CG Finney and other Semi-Pelagian forms of soteriology embraced what is often described as Easy Believism. This is fueled by what has often and rightly been called a concept of Cheap Grace. The Gospel of faith and reconciliation is practically speaking turned into something of a gimmick, a 'get out of jail free' card or as it is sometimes described, fire insurance. Exacerbated by the 'invitation system' and the 'anxious bench/altar call' methods of Finney, DL Moody, Billy Sunday and in more recent years Billy Graham, salvation is equated with having a moment-in-time decision and involves little else in the way of transformation. Or to put it another way, the transformation of life and the notion of knowing and walking with God are certainly preferred and should be desired but technically are relegated as 'optional', something beyond the basic gospel message. To insist on sanctification and transformation of life is to (from their standpoint) introduce works into the Gospel and ultimately to subvert it. The student of Scripture, let alone historical theology can say with confidence that the Cheap Grace/Easy Believism understanding of the gospel represents a very shallow and often superficial understanding of conversion and regeneration.
It is in one sense a coherent theology and yet it is patently unbiblical and out of accord with both the general ethos of the New Testament and certainly its overall teaching. Nowhere is this Cheap Grace gospel to be found and in fact such notions are repeatedly warned against.
This doctrine was further buttressed throughout the 20th century by the outworking of Dispensational doctrine which emphasised the Age of Grace over and against the Dispensation of Law. While this distinction is by no means erroneous it must be understood in its proper Redemptive-Historical sense, something Dispensationalism fails to do. There are distinctions that need to be made and clearly the New Testament teaches we are not in any way shape or form under the Mosaic Law. But just because the Law of Moses has been abrogated (as the New Testament teaches) it does not follow that the Christian is free from moral and ethical obligation. In fact it could be argued the requirements of New Testament obedience are of a higher order.
This issue is further confused by the fact that many Confessionalists still adhere to portions of Old Testament law and will critique Dispensationalism on that flawed basis. This tends to muddy the waters of debate. The Confessionalists (in particular the Reformed variety) will agree that Ceremonial and to a degree Civil Laws are abrogated but still utilise the Mosaic formula when framing what they term the Moral Law. The Ten Commandments become the hallmark and this leads to debates over Sabbath and to what extent the so-called First Table is applicable to society and so forth.
The problem is, this division of the Mosaic order is uncalled for, without exegetical support and only generates confusion. The order stood and was fulfilled in toto, functioning as a unified covenant. The distinctions they would make in order to retain portions of the Mosaic order and its functioning are like many Dispensational categories, i.e. without warrant vis-à-vis the doctrine of the New Testament.  The Jerusalem decrees of Acts 15 alone settle this matter, let alone the wealth of relevant doctrine found in the epistles. It is a major theme in the book of Hebrews and the language is unequivocal and absolute.
And of course there are also sharp differences within Confessionalist circles on these points. Lutherans and Anglicans will differ and they both are at odds with some of the Reformed formulations. And even within Calvinistic and Reformed circles there are sometimes rather heated debates and even bitter discord.
The Lordship Controversy generated a divide even among Confessionalists. Some saw the point John MacArthur and others were trying to make regarding the necessity of Lordship and they recognised the danger and potential antinomianism at work in the Anti-Lordship faction represented by Dallas Theological Seminary among others. To be fair the Dallas camp did not define themselves in negative terms. Anti-Lordship (while an accurate description) is certainly not the term they would prefer. They would support Christians surrendering their lives to Christ, they simply do not believe such a full surrender is part of the Gospel message. They believe (erroneously) that they are supporting Biblical Free Grace.
The Dallas position received little or no support among Confessionalists and yet some were also quite critical of MacArthur and the Lordship camp. They believed that such a position flirted with both legalism and pietism. Rather than cast the fruits and demands of the gospel in terms of Christian vitality and an ongoing life of faith and repentance they preferred to focus on 'the ordinary means of grace' found in Church attendance and participation in Word and Sacrament. Lutherans in particular are very critical of the Lordship position and view it as something of a threat to the gospel, almost as dangerous as the Cheap Grace antics of the many Evangelical and Fundamentalist factions and their altar call methods.
By the time the controversy had run its course there was almost a triangulated debate at work in Protestant and Evangelical circles. And while Confessionalists were concerned with the Antinomian harvest of the Dallas Theology, they nevertheless were wary of anything that smacked of Pietism or drew the lines of gospel antithesis in a too stark fashion. In effect they too retained if not embraced a type of nominal Christianity. Church attendance and membership were sufficient. The perceived 'extras' demanded by historical Pietism and the modern Lordship camp were viewed as potentially harmful and certainly superfluous requirements. In part this is in keeping with the Ecclesiastical Establishment impulse of Confessionalism. Though many Confessional denominations and factions lost their battles to control an Established Church, they were and in many cases remain adherents of the concept and the cause.
This push for some variety of Establishment is at the heart of the success  of the Magisterial Reformation and its narratives regarding modern Western civilisation. It was built on the paradigm of the newly aspirant Protestant Churches working with and under the protection of the state. Their success (at least in part) was built on the legislation of Protestantism and the fact that is was now backed up by some form of magisterial sword. The Reformation was not born of a separatist ethos or impulse. Though it had been present in some of the proto-Protestant bodies which existed centuries before Luther and would return in the Free Church and Restitutionist movements in the 19th century, it was all but absent among the Reformers. During that epoch the resistance to the idea of an Established Church was found among Hussite descended Czech Brethren (Unitas Fratrum), what was left of the Waldensians and of course the Anabaptists.
The Confessionalists would never want to sanction a nominal type of Christianity that is in reality little more than a veneer and yet in order to think in terms of an Established Church and a Christian Society they necessarily must hold to a type of latitudinarian Christianity. By latitudinarian I do not refer to the creed or liturgy of the movement within 17th century Anglican theology. On the contrary Confessionalists have always been rather militant and exacting when it comes to the specifics and distinctives of their formulae. Rather I refer to latitude in the realm of ethics and social conduct.
The Puritan model of an authoritarian theocratic state along the lines of New England or Calvin's Geneva were but experiments, necessarily small and fairly localised. The model was never successfully applied to a nation and indeed had it been attempted it would have been a cross between a prison state and slaughterhouse. But it would have never reached that point. Long before such real and fervent application, a civil war would certainly ensue. The closest attempt at this was the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. He favoured the Independents and in many ways was a Puritan himself and yet he was criticised by Puritans and conspiring Presbyterians for his latitude and laxity. And of course once he was gone the public all but clamoured for the Restoration. They had not found his regime to be latitudinarian or lax in any way, shape or form. They were glad that his harsh authoritarian and indeed Puritanical regime was at last gone. With the Restoration, the frolic was rekindled, the Maypole erected and loose-living and worldly revel once more were permitted... and the majority of people loved to have it so. The Puritan experiment in England was all but ended.
The same is true of Roman Catholic attempts to force these types of regimes on Protestants. In the cases of 17th century France and Bohemia there was mass slaughter and subsequent flight but apart from brief periods of harsh crackdown and purge, Rome has rarely attempted to force puritanical laws and ethics on society. Few nations took on the zealotry of Spain and yet even Spain was lax in certain ways. Rome is happy to wink at sin and loose living as long as the diocesan population submits to their hierarchy, participates in the liturgy, confesses and provides financial support.

Continue reading part 2