25 November 2020

The First Reformation and the Present Ecclesiastical Crisis

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.

Continue reading Part 16