I was eager to read ES Williams' Ecumenism: Another Gospel (Lausanne's Road to Rome) which was
published in 2014. It was in certain respects a 'good read' and at times
helpful, even insightful. But in the end I wouldn't recommend the book to
anyone.
Alongside a rightly guided Biblical critique of the movement
which has become the international platform of post-war Evangelicalism, there
was an unfortunate Right-wing aspect or angle which seems to govern Williams'
thought.
There's plenty to criticise when it comes to Lausanne but I
balked at the notion that Billy Graham and John Stott were Leftist-Socialist
types. Williams apparently chose to ignore Graham's historical relationship
with right-wing politics and causes and his especially close relationship with
Richard Nixon.
Did Graham 'soften' in the 1980's and 1990's? Perhaps. As
I've written elsewhere, Graham never fully endorsed the Christian Right's
social agenda and theologically as an Evangelical he not only rejected the
separatist ethos of old fundamentalism but he came to embrace less than
Biblically faithful views with regard to women and feminism.
Since Graham's social and political views seemed to migrate
and change over time as did his theology, and since I've written about Graham
elsewhere it might be more helpful to look at Williams' interaction with and
critique of John Stott. As one who greatly appreciates Martyn Lloyd-Jones (and
for some other reasons) I have never been a fan of Stott and yet I found
Williams' treatment of him to be highly problematic and extremely flawed.
Williams dwells extensively on Stott's focus on poverty and
the influence of Anabaptist/Evangelical Ron Sider. Sider became well known in
Reformed circles during the 1980's and 90's as he became the whipping boy of
American Theonomists and other Dominionist theologians. Derided as a socialist,
Sider has actually backtracked on some of his ideas. Sider's well known book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger was
well meant and by no means worthless, even today. It contains some solid
information and helpful insight but at the same time Sider is unable to grasp
the larger picture. This is not to vindicate his Theonomist critics but rather
demonstrates Sider's unwillingness to follow through and develop a thorough and
absolute critique of the Western system.
Like Sider, John Stott (who genuinely wished to aid the poor),
danced about the issues, addressed symptoms but seemed unwilling to levy a
comprehensive (and thus thoroughly rejecting) critique of the system.
Succumbing to pragmatism, Stott fell prey to internationalist and often
pseudo-humanitarian politics and institutions with their corrupt bureaucracies
and connections to finance. For people on the far right, those who engage and
interact with UN-type hunger programmes are globalist liberals and even
socialists. But to those on the actual Left, these organisations are all too
often plugged in with finance capital and are politicised programmes controlled
and manipulated by the reigning powers. They represent humanitarianism and
philanthropy but with strings (or perhaps chains) attached to them that bind social
institutions. Receiving government aid, these NGO's and non-profits burden
themselves with obligations that in the end erode autonomy. What's the end
result? More power is granted to the reigning First World powers and their
financial institutions and in the end the people receiving 'aid' are reduced to
greater poverty through austerity programmes designed to service debt. The
NGO's and charities have a mitigating function but rather than challenge the
system and its evils, they perpetuate it by pushing the point of crisis further
into the future and ameliorating the consequences of official policy.
So in other words, given that Stott worked with these groups,
he wasn't actually much of a Leftist and while well meaning I think it can be
questioned as to how much his efforts (and those of Lausanne and other
movements) have actually helped the poor. It has become all too common for
those on the Right and Far Right to excoriate Centrists and even Centre-Right
people as being 'Left wing' in their sympathies. And of course anyone who might
be Centre-Left is reckoned an out and out communist.
The Right-wing critique is in the end just as (if not more)
problematic in that it relies on the immoral (not amoral) forces of the market
and a heavy dose of narrative manipulation in order to make its case. Despite
the arguments presented by some Christian Rightist's and Libertarians, the
so-called Invisible Hand of Adam Smith was not a theological reference to
Providence but rather to natural mechanisms, natural laws set in motion that
supposedly self-govern economic markets. In reality this (Deistic at best) view
relies on a deeply false assumption... that men will do what is right and will
seek a fair playing field for their competition and willingly submit to the
ethics and results of supply and demand.
On the contrary men will almost always do what is wrong and
they will do everything they can to manipulate the circumstances, the message
and information that's out there in order to get ahead. Smith's view is in
accord with the Pelagian assumptions that govern most Enlightenment thought. It
remains a marvel that conservative Bible believing Christians have been seduced
by this patently unbiblical ideology. Their forebears certainly were not. The
Puritans are others were horrified by the idea of a free market and its
proclivity to reward selfishness and foster individualism. Most of them also
heartily rejected all interest as usury and viewed such basic foundation stones
of capitalism as immoral and an unethical and exploitative way to generate
income. It is strange indeed that the heirs of Calvinism have embraced a
near-Pelagian view of economics and culture. Just the other day I was listening
to a Theonomist describe market capitalism as an expression of 'loving your
neighbour'. He sounded more like a naive disciple Norman Vincent Peale or
Milton Friedman than a claimant to the legacy of John Calvin.
Sider's thesis regarding Third World Poverty is flawed but
not fatally so. Poverty is not generated solely by rich Western Christians.
Such a statement would represent a grave case of reductionism. But at the same
time there is more than an aspect of truth to the statement. The Western system
plays no small part in exacerbating poverty and manipulating markets which can and
often does drive up food prices. Western finance and its political arm work to
drive governments into debt and consequently to seek a series of loans. As
mentioned previously these loans drive poverty as states have to direct a great
deal of their resources to debt payments. The natural resources which could be
utilised to aid society are instead effectively plundered by outside interests
that have twisted the arms of weaker states. Or in other cases they have
installed political lackeys who are willing to sell out their own people for a
cut of the action. Resource strain breaks cultures, generates not market
competition but existential competition as society begins to break down. It
also promotes displacement. All of these factors and many more create
instability, generate poverty and foment violent conflict.
Capitalists and especially Libertarians will discount these
arguments because according to their models the state shouldn't 'own' or
control any property or resources and shouldn't be providing any services
anyway and thus a lack of spending on infrastructure and basic services means
the market is truly free and therefore the market should flourish and generate
wealth. But of course that's not how it works. Why? The model is flawed on
almost every level but they won't hear it and so they turn to other
explanations.
Stott apparently had some understanding of these issues. Does
this make him a socialist? Only in the minds and imaginations of those on the
far right. Stott to my knowledge never talked about nationalising industry,
seizing the means of production or some kind of vast redistribution of wealth.
I think these ideas are sometimes imposed on people like Stott and Sider but
one is hard pressed to demonstrate that they actually held these positions.
Stott does suggest a voluntary pay out on the part of Western Christians and
suggests debt should be paid off... but I see nothing to suggest the system
itself should be jettisoned or foundationally challenged. Largesse and
patronage are not socialism.
Stott at times seems to embrace some of the language of
activist ethics, the idea that Christians should be labouring to change the
political and social order to help the oppressed and of course this
politicisation of Kingdom life and the Church's mission is rightly critiqued.
But how can it be critiqued on a Right-wing basis? These same
critics (such as Williams) defend the old Western order and the idea of
Protestant empires. Those that devote themselves to serving these state and
financial entities and promoting their power are deemed moral. In fact their
labours are often viewed as expressions of piety, an outworking of the
Christian life and application of Christian ethics to the public square. As
Williams would have it, to argue that Christian government should be used to
help the poor is evil. But to argue that Christian government should be used to
expand empire and amass riches at the expense of others is somehow good? What
is empire but theft and murder on a grand scale?
The one view is 'activist' and corrupts the Gospel, Church
and Kingdom but the other view is somehow exempt from this same charge?
Defenders of the status quo, they can deny any activist impulse but that's
hardly honest is it? They're hardly advocating separatism or some form of
quietism.
Williams scoffs at the notion that God is 'on the side of the
poor'. Well, again it would depend on what is meant by this. If the statement
is unqualified and rendered in absolute terms it must certainly be challenged.
But a simple read of both the Old and New Testaments reveals that God is quite
unhappy with those who exploit the poor and take advantage of them. When His
people are guilty of this, it's especially egregious. There are dangers in
poverty and in sloth but most of the Scripture's attentions are directed toward
the rich and the perils of riches and the evil that is generated by the quest
for wealth. When applied on a geopolitical level, nations become empires...
beasts as described by the New Testament. And the pseudo-Christendom that
Williams celebrates is not exempt from this label... in fact the Christian
version is worse and far more pernicious.
I was actually a little startled to see Williams employ the
statements of David Chilton, one of the better known (if controversial)
Theonomists of the 1980's up until his untimely death in 1997. Chilton's
theology was often aberrant even by the standards of many Dominionists and
Theonomists. He attacked Sider in his once popular Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators by employing
a mishmash of Judaized and erroneous hermeneutics combined with capitalist
apologetic. Chilton accuses Sider of being a Marxist and of following the
dictates of communism more than following Deuteronomy.
That kind of says it all, doesn't it? First, Sider was (and
is) no Marxist and secondly as New Testament Christians, we're not looking to
Deuteronomy to solve contemporary (and extra-covenantal at that) social and
political problems. Following an oft-repeated pattern and driven by numerous
theological and philosophical fallacies, Theonomists (like Chilton) demonstrate
a complete misunderstanding of Redemptive-History and the place of a book like
Deuteronomy. Rather than understand the Pentateuch and the Mosaic Order in
terms of Gospel history and the Person of Christ, they believe it to be a
blueprint for social transformation and political activism. Sadly they are
guilty of misreading the Bible on a massive scale.
These impulses of transformation and activism are the very
things Williams and today's opponents of Social Justice criticise and yet all
too often they (by defending the status quo and advocating for 'Christian'
Right-wing positions) are doing the very same thing and cite their favourite
authors who make a similar case. The debate is not really over ideology, principle
or theologies of social engagement. Both camps believe deeply in Christian
politics and the Dominionist assumption that the Kingdom encompasses culture.
The disagreement is over form and is largely a smokescreen for political
agendas. Chilton and other more or less uninspiring critics like Pulpit and
Pen's JD Hall have no problem with social activism, the politicisation of the
Church's mission or the Kingdom being defined in socio-political terms and
being advanced through those means. The problem is that they're Right-wing and
they are violently opposed to anyone who isn't... even those who hold to a
Centrist position, or those on the basis of Separatism reject politics (and
nationalism) altogether. All opposition and criticism of the current and
historical system is immediately decried as Marxist and identified with the
crimes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the rest.
Critics of the system are (we're told) driven by hatred and
envy but the brutal avarice and rapacious accumulation of power and wealth at
the expense of others is given a pass by the likes of Williams and Chilton.
Williams then invokes Gordon Clark disciple John Robbins.
This literally made me laugh out loud. Where to begin? Those familiar with
Robbins will know that he had a tendency to make sweeping and often absurd
statements about theology and history, the former always cast in deeply (if
facile) rationalistic terms. Aside from dubious commitments in the realm of
philosophy and theological prolegomena, Clark and his progeny are also well
know to be zealous advocates of free market capitalism. Robbins is known to
have worked for the right-wing, certainly activist (and frankly evil) Heritage
Foundation and with the libertarian Texas congressman Ron Paul back in the
1970's and 1980's, around the time he founded the mis-named Trinity Foundation
which sought to perpetuate and apply the ideas and philosophy of Gordon Clark.*
Williams quotes the following from Robbins concerning Sider:
(Sider) 'prefers to
believe and teach the Marxist mythology that other countries are poor largely
because America has exploited them and become rich. It is not widespread hunger
that distinguishes this age; it is unprecedented prosperity. Sider is hostile
to that prosperity and to the political-economic system that produced it –
capitalism. He dreams of prosperity without the rich, food for all without the
food producers. God promises to prosper those who obey him, and the prosperity
of the West is obvious evidence of God's faithfulness. Sider regards it as evidence
of our immorality.'
Once again, where to begin? We could wish Williams had not
employed such a dubious and deeply flawed quotation and yet its utilisation
reveals not only a great deal about Robbins but something of Williams' own
understanding of this issue.
As mentioned above, it would be reductionistic and an
over-simplification to put the blame of Third World poverty solely upon the
shoulders of the First World. The poor nations have done a great deal to harm
themselves but unlike the myth that Robbins promotes, there is in fact a great
deal of blame. Are Third World societies and governments corrupt? Of course
they are, as are the Western ascendant powers. The difference is the Third
World has never fully recovered from the period of colonisation and in some
respects it has never actually ended. From the countries that were created in
the colonial retreat, the lines on maps that have created conflict, to the
destruction of old societies and the continued manipulation of economies and
politics, the West has a lot to answer for.
A huge factor for today's stresses is one of population and
strained resources but the apologists for Christendom and capitalism refuse to
discuss the issue in honest terms. There are deep and largely irresolvable
problems in the world but many would-be culture warriors have chosen to ignore
or gloss over certain issues which are not convenient to their social agenda
and narratives. Once again, a divorcing of the Church from these issues allows
us to step back and take a somewhat different view. While we as Christians
certainly live by Biblical ethics, the world will most certainly not and indeed
cannot. And so while we cannot go along with the world's efforts and solutions,
a New Testament-obedient politically-disengaged pilgrim-prophetic stance allows
us to be salt and light, bearing witness to the Kingdom that is not of this
world.
Robbins on the contrary blatantly professes and portrays the
ugly reality that few Dominionists and Christendom-advocates are willing to
openly admit. They hold to a prosperity gospel which is every bit as heretical
as the social gospels, liberation theologies and quack Charismatic 'Name it and
Claim it' teachers they attack. These errors flow from the same polluted font
of Kingdom-related heresies. The problem with Robbins, John MacArthur, ES
Williams and the like is that they cannot see the positions they advocate are
in fact forms of socio-political Christianity and they advocate a view of the
Kingdom that while not necessarily rooted in a full blown triumphalist utopian
vision (as we find in Chilton's Theonomic Reconstructionism) they nevertheless
embrace a soft version of this and in some cases advocate what might be called
a personal (or sometimes societal-national) utopian view in terms of wealth,
success and prosperity. They certainly don't fall into the 'health' aspect of
the 'health and wealth' false gospel promoted by some, but there is
nevertheless a strong prosperity element to their understanding of the
Christian life as Robbins exclaims with such apparent candor. While his
statements are grossly unbiblical, perhaps tragic and certainly demonstrate a
Judaized hermeneutic we are nevertheless thankful for his honesty even if it
condemns him.
I say Judaized because as is so often the case with
Dominionists, their concepts of wealth and power, society and politics are
rooted in Old Testament understandings and models. They have literally no New
Testament data to support their views and the false philosophically driven
premises and inferences upon which they found their thought and so they turn to
the Old Testament as a theologically supportive model but must necessarily read
it in non-Christocentric terms. So rather than understand Israel and questions
of wealth (and the examples of Abraham and Solomon) in Christocentric and Kingdom-prophetic
terms they view them as normative for New Testament life. This shows a
misunderstanding of Redemptive-History and its grounding in Christocentric
typology and fulfillment. It also represents a rejection of Apostolic
hermeneutics, the nature of the New Testament age and certainly a repudiation
of New Testament ethics.
Briefly, the New Testament teaches that every typological and
promissory aspect of the Old Testament pointed to Christ as either Saviour
(Prophet, Priest and King) or as Judge. Additionally the land promises, the
political and legal order of Israel, the Temple etc. were all types and symbols
pointing to the coming Kingdom and the role of Christ as King, Saviour and once
again, Judge. To go back and cherry-pick aspects of these roles and try to apply
them ad hoc to aspects of modern
nations and societies or even in terms of ecclesiology destroys the holistic
picture and message. The symbols are corrupted and the context is lost. The
gospel imagery becomes deformed as it is syncretised with non-covenantal
culture, political orders and philosophic assumptions. It is quite literally a
sacrilegious way to treat the Old Testament and the larger Biblical text.
The Apostles teach us how to understand prophecy and these
symbols... always in terms of Christ. The Dominionist-Sacral theology advocated
by Williams, Robbins, Chilton and others utterly fails to grasp this and instead
focused on worldly power, wealth and success, it misappropriates and certainly
abuses some of the symbols which point to Christ. That's a serious charge but
one that must be maintained.
Continue Reading Part 2
Continue Reading Part 2
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*It's misnamed because Clark's rationalism had led him to
embrace Christological error. In his final work he was actually making a case
for a type of Neo-Nestorianism and I would argue that his basic theological
prolegomena undermines and at best produces a reductionist understanding of
both the Incarnation and the Trinity. It is no surprise that Clark's work has
resonated in equally rationalistic Hyper-Calvinist circles and is compatible
with the antinomian theology that results from it.