Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XV)
The time is now. Dominionism and the reactionary re-casting
of Sacralism in the wake of 19th and 20th century
secularism is on the verge of swallowing up the remaining (if paltry) testimony
of the First Reformation, its lifeline to the Early Church and New Testament
Christianity.
What is being advocated here is made all the more difficult
by the current milieu. Despite all the tools available to us, there is a
general dearth of Biblical knowledge and this ignorance is dwarfed by the
large-scale and even stunning lack of knowledge when it comes to history and
Church history in particular. Frankly at this point in time there's little to
work with apart from the hope that people are frustrated with the state of the
Church and intuitively sense (from reading their Bibles) there must be some
other way. But we trust in Providence and in the working of the Holy Spirit. If
reform or some type of revival is to take place, then ultimately it's in His
power.
But in the meantime we're called to fidelity and to bear
witness to the truth.
Because of the present trajectory and even due to current
events, the Church in America (and increasingly in the rest of the world) is
facing unique dilemmas.
Because of the worship wars and the confusion and breakdown
of Church identity we're seeing several trends. By breakdown in identity I
refer to a confusion of the Church and the culture, the Church as an arm of
politics, a type of co-opted patriotic expression or for some a larger
connection to Western Christendom so-called.
Some 'Christian conservatives' who see the Church as an
expression of cultural values and even pop culture have (for pragmatic reasons)
pushed their worship and ecclesiology into the Evangelical realm and likewise
these congregations and denominations have also been greatly affected by the
Charismatic Movement, its approach to worship and in particular the prioritisation
of contemporary music as a form of worship experience. Indeed for many the
music has become the central focus of worship and for not a few it has attained
a kind of sacramental status that trumps all else. At one time viewed as a fad
or trend at work within contemporary Evangelical Christianity, it has not
become a fixture and in some cases has been virtually institutionalised as for
many people church cannot be imagined without a sound system, musicians and the
like. It is the sine qua non of worship,
the church gathering, and the Christian life.
Reacting to this unfortunate and unbiblical development
others have conscientiously sought to re-engage history and the Western
ecclesiastical tradition and more and more congregations are drifting toward traditional
liturgy and High Church styles of worship and polity.
This is doubly frustrating as both models represent
departures from the simplicity of New Testament worship. The liturgical model
certainly has a lot of historical weight behind it and is in accord with a
proper (if sometimes artificial) reverence and yet it too represents an
innovation and departure from both the New Testament and the early
extra-Scriptural testimonies.
For those that would argue for the necessity and desirability
of doctrinal development and the evolution of liturgical practice I would once
again insist upon the sufficiency of Scripture. And if sufficiency is but a
starting point or foundation stone for a large superstructure to be built by
ideas of men – then the expression of the doctrine which uses Scripture as a mere
baseline must be abandoned. It's not Sola Scriptura anymore and under that
structuring is unsustainable. But with that abandonment, the door is left wide
open as many more doctrines could be jettisoned in like manner – it truly
becomes a theological Pandora's Box. This has to be wrestled with as many at
this very hour are building massive ecclesiastical edifices on mere sand and
they will not stand in the face of challenge. In seeking to respond to the Evangelical-Charismatic
wave and its faddish sacrilege these High Church liturgy advocates have turned
to the vain and empty traditions of centuries of corrupted Christianity.
And though the one camp is more historically minded, the
Protestant tradition (and the Evangelical sphere in particular) represents an
Enlightenment understanding of not just doctrine in general but in terms of how
worship and the sacraments are understood. The Lutherans and Anglicans
represent something of an exception on this point, though in many respects they
too have imbibed the Scholastic impulse which seeks to understand the mysteries
in terms of limited human concepts. The Lutherans in particular fell prey to
Scholasticism and it was within their context that the cancer of Higher
Criticism arose. And yet the Lutherans cannot be wholly blamed. The new
movement also found very fertile ground in the Calvinistic sphere and would
eventually spread and today (to some degree) influences even the most
conservative Confessional circles.
And while Lutherans and Anglicans would be affected by the
Enlightenment in the realm of theology and the framing of mystery, other
Protestants virtually or actually strip these same mysteries (such as the
Sacraments) of all spiritual content – either making them empty symbols or
subordinating their meaning and potency under the aegis of scholastic-driven
soteriology.
In other words while contemporary worship models are odious,
the growing numbers of churches that flirt with High Churchism stripped of its
supernaturalistic content are doubly vacuous and vapid.
In addition to the pragmatics of liturgy and worship and the
Sunday to Sunday ethos of the meeting, we also have at least two pernicious
cultural influences at work.
On the one hand the Social Justice or 'Woke' theologies
represent Enlightenment syncretism and an almost absolutising of the already
present fusion of Classical Liberalism and Biblical (often Judaized) doctrine.
Their enemies paint them as Leftist but at best they are like the Pseudo-Leftists
associated with the American Democratic Party who utilise identity politics as
a cover for their otherwise Right-wing values which are completely supportive
of Wall Street, the Pentagon and the American global system in general. These
Evangelicals are more or less the same. They represent no serious or
existential challenge to the existing order. At best they're looking for token
patronage or some kind of quota system in schools and boardrooms. They're not
genuinely Left in any sense as they are not challenging the system and none of
their values would seek to break or dismantle the nature of the Establishment
or the social order. In many respects the movement represents (within the
framework of Dominionism) a natural (and perhaps even expected) knee-jerk reaction
to the Right-radicalism that appeared in response to Obama and culminated in
Donald Trump.
This brings us to the growing numbers of Trumpites who
continue to flirt with ultra-Right wing ideologies and in other cases some kind
of Libertarian hybrid. Subject to Bircherite myths, these are the people
obsessed with a largely tribalistic nationalism, gold, guns and 'rights'. They
believe their Christianity is a reflection of the New Testament but clearly
they are deluded, as they are so far removed from it, it's hard to know where
to begin. Many of these people are in blatant sin as expressed in their
attitudes and rhetoric concerning the state, taxes, personal liberty and
violence – and sometimes race. Some are flirting with fascism but given that
they ignorantly associate fascism with the Left, they are blind to their own
plight and think they are on safe ground. They are in fact on the edge of cliff
– a spiritual cliff and not a few have already fallen off and seem to be given
over to a reprobate mind. That's a serious thing to say but it must be said. It
needs to be said. Some of these people have strayed that far from New Testament
doctrine and ethics.
We are faced with churches that have failed to even understand
what we meet for. One faction thinks it's a show, a pop concert/pep rally/therapy
session and for others it's some kind of socio-political expression of the
grand old traditions of Christendom. Judeo-Christian Westernism is their true religion
and the purpose of Church is to celebrate and re-affirm this heritage. Pop
psychology and entertainment or politics dressed up in the garb of Christian
tradition. Take your choice. Any Christian grounded in the New Testament must
whole-heartedly reject them both.
We have tepid, milquetoast, Laodicean Evangelicalism
energised by dance, and vacation-mission trips, a group that is little more
than a vehicle for world affirmation. For them Church is therapy, entertainment
and a little Establishment politics – hopefully with a dash of mercy so they
can feel good about themselves and how well their stock portfolios are doing.
And they might recycle their paper products and drive a hybrid so they can be
good 'stewards' as they live in their decadent mini-mansions.
And on the other hand we have an increasingly militant,
violent, self-obsessed, myth-oriented sword and mammon worshipping lot that has
likewise substituted an alternate set of ideas and values for genuine New
Testament Christianity.
I'm not sure which is worse but increasingly I want nothing
to do with the latter as I think they are going to invite persecution but it
won't be Christian persecution. It will be retribution and in terms of Romans
13, it will be judgment.
Factor in denominationalism and its more extreme forms found
in the polity of Confessionalist circles and the options for a Biblically
minded person appear to be slim indeed.
With regard to Confessionalists I see them growing ever more
isolated and rigid in their distinctives as they will seek to block (to some
extent) all of these outside influences and retain their own narrative, even if
it is largely a-historical. They will fear both the wider Evangelical influence
of the Social Justice factions as well as the radicalism of Trumpism and as
these forces already risk tearing them apart, they will increasingly focus on
strict Confessionalism as the only solution.
What does this leave us with? We have three groups (Social
Justice Evangelicals, Trumpites, and Traditionalist-Confessionalists) that all
profess adherence to the authority of Scripture but in reality all have (at
various critical points) denied it. The one group is quickly succumbing to
worldliness and within a generation they will face a full onslaught of sodomy
and feminism. It's already knocking at their door. The other group has given
itself to other forms of worldliness and is already entertaining political
violence, resistance to the state, militarism and paramilitary-type activism.
There are both nascent and actual fascists among them. And then of course we
have the rank factionalists who wed their understanding of the Bible to a Confessional
tradition and their contemporary interpretation and framing of its doctrines.
And it is within this framework that we have the admixture of both pop culture
and high liturgical ecclesiology. These are interspersed among these camps. And
some Confessional bodies such as the PCA are broad enough that they have all of
these factors at work within their circle and many have all realised the
present arrangement isn't going to hold together.
The Trumpite groups have to be rejected outright. We can't
have anything to do with them. They're dangerous, heretical and in some cases completely
evil.
The broader Evangelicals groups (which would include some
conservatives and New Calvinists) remain an option in some cases – for the
present. Assembling with them is a compromise and most of the trends are
negative.
The Confessionalists might have in some respects the best
'worship experience' on a Sunday morning. But that's not a given. That said,
it's all the other baggage that becomes a problem. They are highly protective
of their organisations to the point of being secretive, manipulative and even
deceitful. At the end of the day unless you're one of them – fully on board
with their narrative – you'll always be an outsider and eventually this will
lead to abrasiveness and resentment on all sides.
The time is now. Twenty years ago I shuddered to think what
things would be like as my kids entered adulthood. We're at that moment and in
some respects things are better than might have been imagined – New Calvinism
has brought some benefit and kept some congregations viable. But on the other
hand things are much worse than I imagined and upon closer examination New
Calvinism is revealed to be not nearly as great as it seemed to be and may
prove to be little more than a passing fad. Its roots are both very shallow and
deeply flawed.
What will things be like in another twenty years? Obviously
we don't know and as always there will be some bright spots amid the gloom. But
looking at the present state of things and the way things are trending I expect
there will still be a Confessional witness in suburbia. There may be some urban
pockets of moderately faithful Christianity.
I tremble when I consider the countryside. Already large
swathes of land across America and indeed the globe are devoid of Church
witness and in many cases what does exist is in steep numerical and doctrinal
decline. Twenty years ago I did a thorough survey of the churches in my region.
A few years ago I revisited them both in person and by means of research and
the results were somewhat shocking. Congregations have collapsed. In some cases
groups that were once comprised of one hundred people are down to ten or are
completely gone. In most cases the churches that have 'survived' have done so
by means of compromise. They modernised and brought in the sound and light show
so to speak. This has allowed them to retain some numbers but even many of
these have stagnated. And likewise those I visited have all experienced
doctrinal and disciplinary decline. Sin is openly tolerated because the leaders
live in mortal fear of lost numbers and the revenue that comes with them.
Women have taken over in once conservative settings. They may
not be officially 'ordained' in some cases but they dominate and several
churches have officially crossed that line and now have women pastors – only
further demonstrating their departure from New Testament authority.
Again, a professed Sola Scriptura minus sufficiency is in the
end pretty meaningless. For them, the Scriptures are insufficient when it comes
to the Christian life – thus they need the world's wisdom in terms of
education, psychology and the like. The Scriptures are insufficient in terms of
ecclesiology and thus they need all the Madison Avenue techniques and the
latest strategies and entertainment gimmicks. And even in terms of soteriology
one finds they don't take the Scriptures serious as one's sanctification is
often dependent on contrived programmes, faddish practices and increasingly
they are reliant upon pop-culture re-castings of old Roman Catholic practices.
And in terms of ethics, the Scriptures are far too radical so they temper its
imperatives by means of slippery logic and slick teachers that through sophistry
dress up the world's ethics in the trappings of Scripture.
In other words, things are bad and getting worse. The
churches that have already compromised on so much are simply slipping into both
practical and actual theological liberalism. Other think they're standing firm
but have (sometimes with rock guitars, sometimes with robes and candles) moved
into a kind of absolutised Christendom mindset. In other words their
Christianity is about culture, politics, money, status, and power. These take
precedent and for some the distinctions between Confessionalism, wider
Evangelicalism and even Catholicism have grown pretty fuzzy. The
Confessionalists remain an option for some and they too have their serious
problems, their internal politics, and in some cases the mythologizing of their
own tradition. Those that can function in those circles probably had better
stay there because there isn't much else anymore though even these circles are
penetrated by the other aforementioned factors.
For more than two decades I have hoped that a remnant would
arise from all of these circles, that people would break with cultural
conceptions and expectations of Church and returning to the New Testament, they
would be willing to reconsider and revisit basic truths even if that resulted
in meeting with a handful of people in a living room or some alternative
'unconventional' locale.
I must confess that I've been disappointed. The twists and
turns of the ecclesiastical landscape have perpetuated the present models and
generated new alternatives and in some respects it feels like we're farther
away from such an exodus – more than ever. I hope I'm wrong but it is for these
reasons that I'm compelled to make this dire appeal. The time is now and if New
Testament Christianity is not restored, the consequences may be dire as I
already said. We're on the cusp of great apostasy and a new dark age. This is
also why the lessons of First Reformation Christianity are more pertinent than
ever.