Long term readers will recall my posts citing evangelicals of the 19th and 20th Centuries who were concerned about the decline in evangelicalism - the introduction of arts into the church service, the ecumenical movement embraced by leading evangelicals and so on.
In more than one post I identified the concerns of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones about the direction of the Lausanne Conference. I also commented on the dangers of the latter day Lausanne ie the Cape Town conference.
Just released is the Cape Town Commitment and it can be found at lausanne
There is much to be concerned about. Critics I referred to previously would be grieved at the state of evangelicalism today and some extracts of commitments I provide hereunder:
We long to see the Church in all cultures energetically engaging the arts as a context for mission by:
1.Bringing the arts back into the life of the faith community as a valid and valuable component of our call to discipleship;
2.Supporting those with artistic gifts, especially sisters and brothers in Christ, so that they may flourish in their work;
3.Letting the arts serve as an hospitable environment in which we can acknowledge and come to know the neighbour and the stranger;
4.Respecting cultural differences and celebrating indigenous artistic expression.
When earnest and lively preaching in the Spirit of God is beyond so-called evangelical churches here is the recommended recourse. Don't expect multitudes to turn to the Lord. Don't even expect the church to survive.
Also, notice the subtle reversal of the traditional rendering of "brothers and sisters" when referring to both sexes. Why should there be any separation anyway? Why not just use the term "Christians" unless there is an agenda?
We lament over the widespread abuse and destruction of the earth’s resources, including its bio-diversity. Probably the most serious and urgent challenge faced by the physical world now is the threat of climate change. This will disproportionately affect those in poorer countries, for it is there that climate extremes will be most severe and where there is little capability to adapt to them. World poverty and climate change need to be addressed together and with equal urgency.
Here is the highly dubious socialist agenda being adopted by the so-called evangelical church without question.
A divided Church has no message for a divided world. Our failure to live in reconciled unity is a major obstacle to authenticity and effectiveness in mission.
A) We lament the dividedness and divisiveness of our churches and organizations. We deeply and urgently long for Christians to cultivate a spirit of grace and to be obedient to Paul’s command to ‘make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
B) While we recognize that our deepest unity is spiritual, we long for greater recognition of the missional power of visible, practical, earthly unity. So we urge Christian sisters and brothers worldwide, for the sake of our common witness and mission, to resist the temptation to split the body of Christ, and to seek the paths of reconciliation and restored unity wherever possible.
The broad sentiment here expressed is also a precursor for what follows:
A) We stand together as church and mission leaders in all parts of the world, called to recognize and accept one another, with equality of opportunities to contribute together to world mission. Let us, in submission to Christ, lay aside suspicion, competition and pride and be willing to learn from those whom God is using, even when they are not from our continent, nor of our particular theology, nor of our organization, nor of our circle of friends.
B) Partnership is about more than money, and unwise injection of money frequently corrupts and divides the Church. Let us finally prove that the Church does not operate on the principle that those who have the most money have all the decision-making power. Let us no longer impose our own preferred names, slogans, programmes, systems and methods on other parts of the Church. Let us instead work for true mutuality of North and South, East and West, for interdependence in giving and receiving, for the respect and dignity that characterizes genuine friends and true partners in mission.
Here is a foundation statement of discouragement of evangelical churches from drawing people out of the darkness of Roman Catholicism. It would go even further to discourage the drawing of people out from the errors of so-called evangelical denominations/churches.
All of us, women and men, married and single, are responsible to employ God’s gifts for the benefit of others, as stewards of God’s grace, and for the praise and glory of Christ. All of us, therefore, are also responsible to enable all God’s people to exercise all the gifts that God has given for all the areas of service to which God calls the Church. We should not quench the Spirit by despising the ministry of any. Further, we are determined to see ministry within the body of Christ as a gifting and responsibility in which we are called to serve, and not as a status and right that we demand.
A) We uphold Lausanne’s historic position: ‘We affirm that the gifts of the Spirit are distributed to all God's people, women and men, and that their partnership in evangelization must be welcomed for the common good.’ We acknowledge the enormous and sacrificial contribution that women have made to world mission, ministering to both men and women, from biblical times to the present.
B) We recognize that there are different views sincerely held by those who seek to be faithful and obedient to Scripture. Some interpret apostolic teaching to imply that women should not teach or preach, or that they may do so but not in sole authority over men. Others interpret the spiritual equality of women, the exercise of the edifying gift of prophecy by women in the New Testament church, and their hosting of churches in their homes, as implying that the spiritual gifts of leading and teaching may be received and exercised in ministry by both women and men. We call upon those on different sides of the argument to:
1.Accept one another without condemnation in relation to matters of dispute, for while we may disagree, we have no grounds for division, destructive speaking, or ungodly hostility towards one another;
2.Study Scripture carefully together, with due regard for the context and culture of the original authors and contemporary readers;
3.Recognize that where there is genuine pain we must show compassion; where there is injustice and lack of integrity we must stand against them; and where there is resistance to the manifest work of the Holy Spirit in any sister or brother we must repent;
4.Commit ourselves to a pattern of ministry, male and female, that reflects the servanthood of Jesus Christ, not worldly striving for power and status.
C) We encourage churches to acknowledge godly women who teach and model what is good, as Paul commanded, and to open wider doors of opportunity for women in education, service, and leadership, particularly in contexts where the gospel challenges unjust cultural traditions. We long that women should not be hindered from exercising God’s gifts or following God’s call on their lives.
So-called evangelicals who emphasise the authority of Scripture and who declare themselves to be Apostolic are here urged to abandon their stance on the role of women in the church.
This places many, especially the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney, in a very awkward position should they attempt to honour the Cape Town Commitment. They have already abandoned the authority of Scripture on Creation thus betraying hypocrisy in holding out against the role of women over men in the church. In time they will wilt. They must submit to the worldly agenda on the role of women in the church as they have done with interpretation of Scripture on Creation.
Thus is the degeneration of evangelicalism in the past three centuries to gather pace unless the Lord intervenes. It is not within the capacity of men to reverse it. It will be something akin to Josiah's reading of the Book of the Law or Luther's finding a Bible and reading what had not been taught him - all at the inspiration of God's Spirit to bring about great change.
Sam Drucker
Showing posts with label Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Show all posts
Monday, January 31, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Engaging With Eyes Closed
I now bring to a close excerpts from Iain Murray's helpful biography on Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - The Fight of Faith 1939-1981 with the following excerpt from pages 715 & 716:
"Yet, saying nothing of his condition, ML-J reappeared in his usual chairman's seat at the Westminster Fellowship on July 2 and, though looking pale and aged, he led a valuable discussion on homosexuality which extended over the morning and afternoon sessions. It was typical of the freshness of his mind that on what he called 'the approach to the question' he differed from all the early contributors to the discussion who believed that the Scriptures had to be the starting point for what was now being so frequently debated in public. ML-J surprised everyone by arguing that in the wider, public discussion we would get nowhere if we began by denouncing homosexuality from Scripture. The majority of people already rejected the Bible and, if they were to be won, a different starting point was necessary. Preparatory to introducing the Bible he advocated an appeal to 'nature' ('Doth not even nature itself teach you . . . ?) (1 Cor. 11:14), that is to say, to the physical and psychological evidence that male and female are essentially different. That female attracts male and that the production of families is dependent upon that attraction are facts of nature. Homosexual practice is patently abnormal and unnatural. This is not to deny that there are biological variations — there are 'masculine' women and 'effeminate' men—but these variations no more justify the practice of sin in an individual with homosexual tendencies than they do in the case of those whose physical constitution inclines them to be highly sexed or hot tempered. Biological factors do not put the homosexual in a special category with a peculiar problem. 'The practising of homosexuality is sin, in exactly the same way as any other sin is sin.'"
How perceptive of the good doctor. When many of his well meaning colleagues sought to respond to quote Scripture against the push in the 1970s for acceptance of homosexual practice he recognised the changed world view and unlikelihood that people would accept simple quoting of Scripture as valid argument.
It seems that little has be learned in the broader evangelical circle some thirty years later. A world some further three decades indoctrinated in the theory of the evolution of the species is less likely to regard any quotes from a book allegedly invalidated on origins by the theory of evolution.
The Church needs to take the doctor's prescription and demolish the theory of evolution through presentation of the real observations of nature and the better interpretation of those observations which the Bible offers. At that point is the "soil" better prepared for evangelical harvest.
Sam Drucker
"Yet, saying nothing of his condition, ML-J reappeared in his usual chairman's seat at the Westminster Fellowship on July 2 and, though looking pale and aged, he led a valuable discussion on homosexuality which extended over the morning and afternoon sessions. It was typical of the freshness of his mind that on what he called 'the approach to the question' he differed from all the early contributors to the discussion who believed that the Scriptures had to be the starting point for what was now being so frequently debated in public. ML-J surprised everyone by arguing that in the wider, public discussion we would get nowhere if we began by denouncing homosexuality from Scripture. The majority of people already rejected the Bible and, if they were to be won, a different starting point was necessary. Preparatory to introducing the Bible he advocated an appeal to 'nature' ('Doth not even nature itself teach you . . . ?) (1 Cor. 11:14), that is to say, to the physical and psychological evidence that male and female are essentially different. That female attracts male and that the production of families is dependent upon that attraction are facts of nature. Homosexual practice is patently abnormal and unnatural. This is not to deny that there are biological variations — there are 'masculine' women and 'effeminate' men—but these variations no more justify the practice of sin in an individual with homosexual tendencies than they do in the case of those whose physical constitution inclines them to be highly sexed or hot tempered. Biological factors do not put the homosexual in a special category with a peculiar problem. 'The practising of homosexuality is sin, in exactly the same way as any other sin is sin.'"
How perceptive of the good doctor. When many of his well meaning colleagues sought to respond to quote Scripture against the push in the 1970s for acceptance of homosexual practice he recognised the changed world view and unlikelihood that people would accept simple quoting of Scripture as valid argument.
It seems that little has be learned in the broader evangelical circle some thirty years later. A world some further three decades indoctrinated in the theory of the evolution of the species is less likely to regard any quotes from a book allegedly invalidated on origins by the theory of evolution.
The Church needs to take the doctor's prescription and demolish the theory of evolution through presentation of the real observations of nature and the better interpretation of those observations which the Bible offers. At that point is the "soil" better prepared for evangelical harvest.
Sam Drucker
Friday, December 31, 2010
The Fight of Faith (Part 2)
This is the final blog on the subject introduced last week. I reproduce the words of Iain Murray in his biography of "Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - The Fight of Faith 1939-1981" - pages 668 to 671 refer.
"Few voices were to be heard in support of ML-J's contention that the drift within evangelicalism was following the mood of the age but two testimonies from a few years later are worthy of note. In the opinion of Francis Schaeffer: 'A significant section of what is called evangelicalism has allowed itself to be infiltrated by the general world view or viewpoint of our day."¹ What he called 'The Great Evangelical Disaster' was the acceptance of the mentality of accommodation: 'in the most basic sense, the evangelical establishment has become deeply worldly'.²
A second testimony comes from a less expected source. Dr Carl Henry was Editor of Christianity Today and a leading figure in the Billy Graham organization during the period when that organization was commonly regarded as the epitome of the new evangelical strength. ML-J, as we have seen, spoke alone in that period when he expressed to fellow ministers his conviction that the Graham programme was actually weakening historic evangelicalism. Carl Henry's book Confessions of a Theologian is a revealing book in this connexion. Henry saw the image building and the concern for influence with non-evangelicals at close quarters and came at last to the conclusion that 'the evangelical movement looks stronger than in fact it is'.³ 'While evangelicals seek to penetrate the culture, the culture simultaneously makes disconcerting inroads into evangelical life.'4 The truth, as he wrote in 1986, was that evangelicalism was no longer definite about its own message:
The term evangelical during the past fifteen years has become ambiguous through deliberate distortion by critics and needless confusion invited by some of the movement's leaders ... Many evangelicals now measure growth mainly in terms of numbers; distinctions of doctrine and practice are subordinated in a broad welcome for charismatic, Catholic, traditional and other varieties of evangelicals. Theological differences are minimized by evangelical publishers and publications reaching for mass circulation, by evangelists luring capacity audiences and even by evangelism festivals seeking the largest possible involvement. Church growth seminars have even embraced 'miracle-growth' churches that claim to raise the dead and to reproduce all other apostolic gifts. Numerical bigness has become an infectious epidemic.5
This brings us to Dr Lloyd-Jones' second reason for the drift in evangelicalism. The compromise with worldly standards of thought had occurred because of the basic spiritual weakness within evangelical churches themselves. In other words, it was ultimately the old problem upon which we have heard him speak repeatedly in these pages. 'Evangelism' and 'influence' had become ends in themselves instead of being seen as the results of the church being true to her calling: the acceptance of expediency and compromise could only mean that prayer, confidence in Scripture and dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit were no longer the great priorities. Evangelicals had ceased to say 'that, if we are faithful, the Holy Spirit has promised to honour us and our testimony, however small our numbers and however despised by "the wise and prudent"'.6
Carl Henry's book gives indisputable evidence on this point. It confirms that the overall policy of the Graham organization (closely parallel to the policy taken up by Anglican evangelicals at Keele) was to attain 'prestige' and influence for evangelicals.7 To do this there had to be a successful image and that would not be possible, it was believed, unless every effort was made to avoid a division with those who did not believe the Bible. Henry speaks of the church's credibility being 'compromised by an evaporation of discipline' and regrets that Graham did not call evangelicals to 'a long, hard look at their need of more comprehensive unity and at the neglected issue of evangelical ecclesiology'. But Graham could not do this because it 'would have seriously complicated relationships of his crusades to ecumenically oriented churches, since he exacted their endorsement as the price of city-wide meetings'.8 The Graham organization, for precisely the same reason as the Anglican evangelicals, was unready to 'forfeit dialogue with the ecumenical leaders and churches'.9 It feared a loss of influence. So it also said one thing and did another. The Berlin Congress of 1966, says Henry, 'exposed the speculative philosophy that underlay pluralistic ecumenism' but, simultaneously, the Graham Crusades were committed to such ecumenism. The direction was set long before the American Festival on Evangelism of 1981, where the participants, writes Henry, included everyone from 'partisans of traditional papal Catholicism' and '150 Protestant denominations' to 'charismatics and establishment conservatives'. In a major understatement, he concludes, the Festival 'did little to clarify the identity of evangelicalism'.10
So ends my citation of Iain Murray's helpful study of the climate within evangelicalism observed by Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Dr Carl Henry late last century.
Well, things have not improved to the present day. Indeed, going beyond Dr Henry's point we are left to say that evangelicalism does not penetrate the culture but the culture penetrates evangelicalism. It is all a one-way street with a dark and murky end.
This is a sorry state. It is death. It is death like that of Adam's when he sinned against God, he seemed alive but was estranged from the source of life and, eventually, he was no more. The day fast approaches when the present remnant of evangelicalism still holding to its its original tenets will be a valley of dry bones. What is needed is regeneration, for God to call and empower men to preach to open hearts, hearts receptive to the Word of God to the exclusion of the world's seductions, hearts abounding in number that the culture is overwhelmed by the authority of the Word of God. There has been such activity of God in times and places past. Let us pray earnestly for God to so act now. Lest us pray for an increase in faith - faith in God as he has revealed himself in Word written and Incarnate.
Sam Drucker
References
1. The Great Evangelical Disaster, 1984, p. 51.
2. Ibid, p. 142. 'What is the use,' he asks, 'of evangelicalism seeming to get larger and larger if sufficient numbers of those under the name evangelical no longer hold to that which makes evangelicalism evangelical?'
3. Confessions of a Theologian, 1986, p. 390.
4. Ibid, p. 388. See also Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism, p. 275.
5. Confessions of a Theologian, p.387.
6. Puritans, p. 147.
7. In the years when 'the new evangelicalism' was first being heard, Edward
Darnell of Fuller Seminary wrote to Henry: 'I want to command the attention of Tillich and Bennett; then I shall be in a better place to be of service to the evangelicals. We need prestige desperately.' Marsden's book, op. cit., details the effects which this priority came to have in the history of Fuller Seminary, where Dr Graham was a prominent member of the board of trustees.
8. Confessions of a Theologian, p. 384.
9. Ibid,p. 293.
10. Ibid ,p. 351
"Few voices were to be heard in support of ML-J's contention that the drift within evangelicalism was following the mood of the age but two testimonies from a few years later are worthy of note. In the opinion of Francis Schaeffer: 'A significant section of what is called evangelicalism has allowed itself to be infiltrated by the general world view or viewpoint of our day."¹ What he called 'The Great Evangelical Disaster' was the acceptance of the mentality of accommodation: 'in the most basic sense, the evangelical establishment has become deeply worldly'.²
A second testimony comes from a less expected source. Dr Carl Henry was Editor of Christianity Today and a leading figure in the Billy Graham organization during the period when that organization was commonly regarded as the epitome of the new evangelical strength. ML-J, as we have seen, spoke alone in that period when he expressed to fellow ministers his conviction that the Graham programme was actually weakening historic evangelicalism. Carl Henry's book Confessions of a Theologian is a revealing book in this connexion. Henry saw the image building and the concern for influence with non-evangelicals at close quarters and came at last to the conclusion that 'the evangelical movement looks stronger than in fact it is'.³ 'While evangelicals seek to penetrate the culture, the culture simultaneously makes disconcerting inroads into evangelical life.'4 The truth, as he wrote in 1986, was that evangelicalism was no longer definite about its own message:
The term evangelical during the past fifteen years has become ambiguous through deliberate distortion by critics and needless confusion invited by some of the movement's leaders ... Many evangelicals now measure growth mainly in terms of numbers; distinctions of doctrine and practice are subordinated in a broad welcome for charismatic, Catholic, traditional and other varieties of evangelicals. Theological differences are minimized by evangelical publishers and publications reaching for mass circulation, by evangelists luring capacity audiences and even by evangelism festivals seeking the largest possible involvement. Church growth seminars have even embraced 'miracle-growth' churches that claim to raise the dead and to reproduce all other apostolic gifts. Numerical bigness has become an infectious epidemic.5
This brings us to Dr Lloyd-Jones' second reason for the drift in evangelicalism. The compromise with worldly standards of thought had occurred because of the basic spiritual weakness within evangelical churches themselves. In other words, it was ultimately the old problem upon which we have heard him speak repeatedly in these pages. 'Evangelism' and 'influence' had become ends in themselves instead of being seen as the results of the church being true to her calling: the acceptance of expediency and compromise could only mean that prayer, confidence in Scripture and dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit were no longer the great priorities. Evangelicals had ceased to say 'that, if we are faithful, the Holy Spirit has promised to honour us and our testimony, however small our numbers and however despised by "the wise and prudent"'.6
Carl Henry's book gives indisputable evidence on this point. It confirms that the overall policy of the Graham organization (closely parallel to the policy taken up by Anglican evangelicals at Keele) was to attain 'prestige' and influence for evangelicals.7 To do this there had to be a successful image and that would not be possible, it was believed, unless every effort was made to avoid a division with those who did not believe the Bible. Henry speaks of the church's credibility being 'compromised by an evaporation of discipline' and regrets that Graham did not call evangelicals to 'a long, hard look at their need of more comprehensive unity and at the neglected issue of evangelical ecclesiology'. But Graham could not do this because it 'would have seriously complicated relationships of his crusades to ecumenically oriented churches, since he exacted their endorsement as the price of city-wide meetings'.8 The Graham organization, for precisely the same reason as the Anglican evangelicals, was unready to 'forfeit dialogue with the ecumenical leaders and churches'.9 It feared a loss of influence. So it also said one thing and did another. The Berlin Congress of 1966, says Henry, 'exposed the speculative philosophy that underlay pluralistic ecumenism' but, simultaneously, the Graham Crusades were committed to such ecumenism. The direction was set long before the American Festival on Evangelism of 1981, where the participants, writes Henry, included everyone from 'partisans of traditional papal Catholicism' and '150 Protestant denominations' to 'charismatics and establishment conservatives'. In a major understatement, he concludes, the Festival 'did little to clarify the identity of evangelicalism'.10
So ends my citation of Iain Murray's helpful study of the climate within evangelicalism observed by Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Dr Carl Henry late last century.
Well, things have not improved to the present day. Indeed, going beyond Dr Henry's point we are left to say that evangelicalism does not penetrate the culture but the culture penetrates evangelicalism. It is all a one-way street with a dark and murky end.
This is a sorry state. It is death. It is death like that of Adam's when he sinned against God, he seemed alive but was estranged from the source of life and, eventually, he was no more. The day fast approaches when the present remnant of evangelicalism still holding to its its original tenets will be a valley of dry bones. What is needed is regeneration, for God to call and empower men to preach to open hearts, hearts receptive to the Word of God to the exclusion of the world's seductions, hearts abounding in number that the culture is overwhelmed by the authority of the Word of God. There has been such activity of God in times and places past. Let us pray earnestly for God to so act now. Lest us pray for an increase in faith - faith in God as he has revealed himself in Word written and Incarnate.
Sam Drucker
References
1. The Great Evangelical Disaster, 1984, p. 51.
2. Ibid, p. 142. 'What is the use,' he asks, 'of evangelicalism seeming to get larger and larger if sufficient numbers of those under the name evangelical no longer hold to that which makes evangelicalism evangelical?'
3. Confessions of a Theologian, 1986, p. 390.
4. Ibid, p. 388. See also Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism, p. 275.
5. Confessions of a Theologian, p.387.
6. Puritans, p. 147.
7. In the years when 'the new evangelicalism' was first being heard, Edward
Darnell of Fuller Seminary wrote to Henry: 'I want to command the attention of Tillich and Bennett; then I shall be in a better place to be of service to the evangelicals. We need prestige desperately.' Marsden's book, op. cit., details the effects which this priority came to have in the history of Fuller Seminary, where Dr Graham was a prominent member of the board of trustees.
8. Confessions of a Theologian, p. 384.
9. Ibid,p. 293.
10. Ibid ,p. 351
Sunday, December 26, 2010
The Fight of Faith (Part 1)
We press on with understanding drift evangelicalism into demise and advise that we have to look back at past events to see how the decline has taken effect. Earlier blogs went back to the Nineteenth Century but more recent blogs draw from events surrounding a key figure in the evangelical church in the Twentieth Century.
Such a figure was most certainly Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and the excellent biography of Dr Lloyd-Jones by Iain Murray (subtitled 'The Fight of Faith 1939-1981)gives important insights into why the evangelical church in England and even as far away as the Sydney Episcopalian Church is today in such poor health. I provide an extract from pages 665-668 in Part 1 now and Part 2 from pages 668-671 shortly. I shall not provide my own comments until Part 2:
"When major changes occur in the history of the church such as the doctrinal slide in England of the 1960's and 70's there are always major reasons. In ML-J's view two things principally explained why this occurred as it did.
First, it happened because of the degree to which the spirit and attitudes of the world had penetrated the church. It was no accident that evangelicalism began to favour openness and to repudiate 'exclusiveness' at the very period when the prevailing climate of opinion was against dogmatism in every field of knowledge: even science had lost its one-time near infallibility. The contemporary mood was against all absolutes. Almost all beliefs in society at large had become of only 'relative' value, none could be said to be definitely right or wrong. Religion was acceptable in terms of human experience, not in terms of any revelation from heaven. 'Experience', not truth, was now central. Describing the general situation as he saw it in 1971, Dr Lloyd-Jones said:
There is a very obvious reaction at the present time against intellectualism. .. This is found among the students in America, and increasingly in this country. Reason is being distrusted and set on one side. Following D. H. Lawrence many are saying that our troubles are due to the fact that we have over-developed our cerebrum. We must listen more to our 'blood' and go back to nature. And so turning against intellectualism, and deliberately espousing the creed of irrationality, they yield themselves to the desire for 'experience', and place sensation above understanding. What matters is feeling and enjoyment; not thought. Pure thought leads nowhere.¹
Instead of seeing the danger, evangelicals accommodated themselves to the change as though it could serve the interests of their own cause. The popular culture was openly appealed to for justification of major change in the life and witness of the church. The old 'written culture', it was said, was dying. There had to be a new appeal to the eye and to the senses: 'It is surely the job of this generation of Evangelicals to recreate the dramatic and poetic means of passing on guidance in the spiritual, ethical and social life of man.'² The leading role in the introduction of this change was taken by David Watson of York who saw 'the potential for marvellous communication' in music, dance and drama. 'The reason why I travel with a team,' he later wrote, 'gifted as they are in the performing arts, is that they are able to communicate the Gospel much more effectively than I could with mere words.' He criticized 'much western Christianity' for concentrating 'almost exclusively upon the mind'. 'Most churches rely heavily on the spoken or written word for communication and then wonder why so few people find the Christian faith to be relevant.'³
There were many variations in this new emphasis. In the groups where tongues-speaking was prominent the anti-intellectual approach disarmed any criticism of the widespread use of 'language' which no one understood. Hocken represents a common view in regarding 'baptism with the Spirit' as of divine origin because its reception bypassed the mind: 'Not being first mediated through human understanding, it involves a directness of encounter with the living God'.4
This same influence not only switched attention from preaching to 'sharing', it came to justify a massive change in what was now considered warranted in the singing and music of services and evangelistic meetings. Worship was 'liberated'. It was plausibly proposed that sound, rhythm and the form of lyrics be brought closer to what was popular in the everyday world. The early development of this change drew some critical comment in the Christian press. 'Countryman' wrote of how the Filey Christian Convention in 1967 had become 'Swinging Filey', 'with a Sunday afternoon sacred concert; a fresh beat to the music and a drum-roll in the middle of "Praise my soul, the King of heaven".'5 At the Evangelical Alliance Assembly meetings in London the following year, the platform was given one evening to the youth who presented the 'Why Generation'. Commenting on this event, Tim and Doreen Buckley, instructors in music at the London Bible College, wrote in The Life of Faith of the impression gained by friends who had attended: 'The programme was intended to show how to communicate in the '6o's, but the decibels of sheer noise made it impossible to distinguish either the tune or the words of the first three items. If this is '68 communicating, our friends, who are not "squares", were not communicated to . . ."6
But criticisms such as these were few and far between and the 1970's saw changes in the content and conduct of public worship on a scale scarcely imaginable a few years earlier. ML-J traced this same change to the effect of a popular culture which wants 'sensation' and feeling and is against stress 'on the intellect and the understanding'. Speaking on one occasion of how this spirit 'militates very much against the kind of thing for which we stand in the Evangelical Library' he went on:
In this country the form which it takes, perhaps most of all, is what is known as the charismatic movement. . . The emphasis is upon experience and feeling, and a type of service with much singing, but not the singing of the kind of hymns that are to be found in the Evangelical Library, nor the hymns written by the men whose biographies are in the Evangelical Library! They have their own hymns and choruses . . .7
Making a similar point about the way in which Christians were being influenced by the spirit of the world, he said at another Library meeting:
The days in which we live are characteristic of superficiality, the cry is for entertainment and endless meetings, music, drama, dancing, etc. but a solid life and witness cannot be built up that way."8
References
1. The State of the Nation, BEC Address, 1971, p.16.
2. Evangelicals Today, p.101.
3. David Watson, I believe in the Church, 1978, and You Are My God, 1983, where these themes are pursued at length. For ML-J's opposition to this see his address on 'Preaching' in Puritans, p. 373.
4. One Lord, One Spirit, One Body, 1987, p. 44
5. English Churchman, October 13, 1967.
6. The same writers urged readers to obtain the WR for October 1968 v8 v
contained ML-J's sermon, 'Melody and Harmony' on Ephesians 5:19 (preached
in 1959); it 'leaves one in no doubt as to where this preacher stands as regards modern trends in music'.
7. The Evangelical Library Bulletin, Spring 1978, pp.9-10.
8. Ibid, Spring 1975, p.6.
Such a figure was most certainly Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and the excellent biography of Dr Lloyd-Jones by Iain Murray (subtitled 'The Fight of Faith 1939-1981)gives important insights into why the evangelical church in England and even as far away as the Sydney Episcopalian Church is today in such poor health. I provide an extract from pages 665-668 in Part 1 now and Part 2 from pages 668-671 shortly. I shall not provide my own comments until Part 2:
"When major changes occur in the history of the church such as the doctrinal slide in England of the 1960's and 70's there are always major reasons. In ML-J's view two things principally explained why this occurred as it did.
First, it happened because of the degree to which the spirit and attitudes of the world had penetrated the church. It was no accident that evangelicalism began to favour openness and to repudiate 'exclusiveness' at the very period when the prevailing climate of opinion was against dogmatism in every field of knowledge: even science had lost its one-time near infallibility. The contemporary mood was against all absolutes. Almost all beliefs in society at large had become of only 'relative' value, none could be said to be definitely right or wrong. Religion was acceptable in terms of human experience, not in terms of any revelation from heaven. 'Experience', not truth, was now central. Describing the general situation as he saw it in 1971, Dr Lloyd-Jones said:
There is a very obvious reaction at the present time against intellectualism. .. This is found among the students in America, and increasingly in this country. Reason is being distrusted and set on one side. Following D. H. Lawrence many are saying that our troubles are due to the fact that we have over-developed our cerebrum. We must listen more to our 'blood' and go back to nature. And so turning against intellectualism, and deliberately espousing the creed of irrationality, they yield themselves to the desire for 'experience', and place sensation above understanding. What matters is feeling and enjoyment; not thought. Pure thought leads nowhere.¹
Instead of seeing the danger, evangelicals accommodated themselves to the change as though it could serve the interests of their own cause. The popular culture was openly appealed to for justification of major change in the life and witness of the church. The old 'written culture', it was said, was dying. There had to be a new appeal to the eye and to the senses: 'It is surely the job of this generation of Evangelicals to recreate the dramatic and poetic means of passing on guidance in the spiritual, ethical and social life of man.'² The leading role in the introduction of this change was taken by David Watson of York who saw 'the potential for marvellous communication' in music, dance and drama. 'The reason why I travel with a team,' he later wrote, 'gifted as they are in the performing arts, is that they are able to communicate the Gospel much more effectively than I could with mere words.' He criticized 'much western Christianity' for concentrating 'almost exclusively upon the mind'. 'Most churches rely heavily on the spoken or written word for communication and then wonder why so few people find the Christian faith to be relevant.'³
There were many variations in this new emphasis. In the groups where tongues-speaking was prominent the anti-intellectual approach disarmed any criticism of the widespread use of 'language' which no one understood. Hocken represents a common view in regarding 'baptism with the Spirit' as of divine origin because its reception bypassed the mind: 'Not being first mediated through human understanding, it involves a directness of encounter with the living God'.4
This same influence not only switched attention from preaching to 'sharing', it came to justify a massive change in what was now considered warranted in the singing and music of services and evangelistic meetings. Worship was 'liberated'. It was plausibly proposed that sound, rhythm and the form of lyrics be brought closer to what was popular in the everyday world. The early development of this change drew some critical comment in the Christian press. 'Countryman' wrote of how the Filey Christian Convention in 1967 had become 'Swinging Filey', 'with a Sunday afternoon sacred concert; a fresh beat to the music and a drum-roll in the middle of "Praise my soul, the King of heaven".'5 At the Evangelical Alliance Assembly meetings in London the following year, the platform was given one evening to the youth who presented the 'Why Generation'. Commenting on this event, Tim and Doreen Buckley, instructors in music at the London Bible College, wrote in The Life of Faith of the impression gained by friends who had attended: 'The programme was intended to show how to communicate in the '6o's, but the decibels of sheer noise made it impossible to distinguish either the tune or the words of the first three items. If this is '68 communicating, our friends, who are not "squares", were not communicated to . . ."6
But criticisms such as these were few and far between and the 1970's saw changes in the content and conduct of public worship on a scale scarcely imaginable a few years earlier. ML-J traced this same change to the effect of a popular culture which wants 'sensation' and feeling and is against stress 'on the intellect and the understanding'. Speaking on one occasion of how this spirit 'militates very much against the kind of thing for which we stand in the Evangelical Library' he went on:
In this country the form which it takes, perhaps most of all, is what is known as the charismatic movement. . . The emphasis is upon experience and feeling, and a type of service with much singing, but not the singing of the kind of hymns that are to be found in the Evangelical Library, nor the hymns written by the men whose biographies are in the Evangelical Library! They have their own hymns and choruses . . .7
Making a similar point about the way in which Christians were being influenced by the spirit of the world, he said at another Library meeting:
The days in which we live are characteristic of superficiality, the cry is for entertainment and endless meetings, music, drama, dancing, etc. but a solid life and witness cannot be built up that way."8
References
1. The State of the Nation, BEC Address, 1971, p.16.
2. Evangelicals Today, p.101.
3. David Watson, I believe in the Church, 1978, and You Are My God, 1983, where these themes are pursued at length. For ML-J's opposition to this see his address on 'Preaching' in Puritans, p. 373.
4. One Lord, One Spirit, One Body, 1987, p. 44
5. English Churchman, October 13, 1967.
6. The same writers urged readers to obtain the WR for October 1968 v8 v
contained ML-J's sermon, 'Melody and Harmony' on Ephesians 5:19 (preached
in 1959); it 'leaves one in no doubt as to where this preacher stands as regards modern trends in music'.
7. The Evangelical Library Bulletin, Spring 1978, pp.9-10.
8. Ibid, Spring 1975, p.6.
Monday, December 20, 2010
"You travel over land and sea to win a single convert ..." To What?
This blogspot is critical of Moore Theological College - the theological seminary of the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney. Our concern is the College's handling of Genesis on Creation but, primarily, the problem is deeper than that. That erroneous teaching is a symptom of the Cancer that has eroded the evangelical church in Western culture for more than a century. It is a pursuit of the same error found in Higher Criticism and Liberal Theology which places the thoughts of man above the Word of God.
It is not as if the evangelical church has not had sufficient warning in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We have publicised some of the warnings that people concerned for Christ's Church broadcast last century. The Cancer continues with little abatement. Closer to home Moore Theological College lures students from many parts of the world, proselytizes via its distance studies course - PTC - and spews its converts into evangelical churches around the globe.
We publicise here now more sampling of earlier warnings of the Cancer diagnosed last century and, despite proud protestations about its purity, is manifest in 'evangelicalism' today - no less evident in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney via it's theological seminary.
Upon hearing of the proposed retirement of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones in 1968 a Suffolk pastor wrote to the doctor and thanked him for the help received when he and his once fellow students of Richmond College wrestled with the compromised teaching at the college. He said, in part:
"I have just seen the notice of your resignation as minister of Westminster Chapel. At such a time I feel that I must tell you what a very great help your ministry was to me and to several other theological students while we were studying for the Methodist ministry at Richmond College. Often, at the end of a week of lectures which sometimes left us wondering just what we could believe, we would go up to the [Westminster] Chapel, as we called it, and there we would receive food for our souls, and would catch a fresh vision of the power and relevance of the gospel we had been called to preach. We came to see that God was greater than we had ever imagined before, and that the Bible was indeed His Word to us, inspired and wonderful in all its teaching."
It would not have been Richmond College alone which has compromised the Word of God because there was a broad departure from the Reformers and their principle for understanding the Word of God. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones alludes to this when he wrote his 1967 annual letter to the members of Westminster Chapel on January 1, 1968. I cite part of his letter hereunder:
"When one turns to the more general position however, the situation is very different. Here, the main impression is one of confusion, uncertainty, and divided opinions. This is true not only in this country but throughout the world. This is something that one expects in 'Christendom', but in the past it has not been true of those calling themselves evangelical. This is the new feature which is so disturbing. No longer can it be assumed that to be evangelical means to accept the authority of the Scriptures on matters of history, and on the creation of the world and man, and at the very lowest to be sceptical about the theory of evolution. In the same way there has been a recrudescence of denominationalism and an entirely new attitude towards Romanism.
It is, alas, a time of conflict and of trial, indeed a time of tragedy when old comrades in arms are now in different camps. It is not that one in any way questions the honesty or the sincerity of such friends. There is only one explanation and that is, 'an enemy hath done this'. Never has that enemy been more active or more subtle . . .
What the outcome of the present upheaval will be no one can tell. Our duty is to be faithful knowing that the final outcome is sure."
Well, the upheaval has continued inasmuch as 'evangelicalism' is being turned on its head. As in the past, where certain institutions commenced with sound biblical principles but later turned to an opposite principle, 'evangelicalism' is abandoning its primary principle founded on trust in the Word of God.
Ecumenism may have lost momentum but just as Israel longed to return to Egypt when faith in the Word of God waned so it is likely that many who call themselves evangelical today will, one day, desire to return to Rome as loss of faith in the Word of God runs its course. The disease is there, all that is awaited is its consequence.
The lost of the world are in desperate need of a strong evangelical church but all they have tottering before them is a diseased and ever diminishing church.
Sam Drucker
It is not as if the evangelical church has not had sufficient warning in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We have publicised some of the warnings that people concerned for Christ's Church broadcast last century. The Cancer continues with little abatement. Closer to home Moore Theological College lures students from many parts of the world, proselytizes via its distance studies course - PTC - and spews its converts into evangelical churches around the globe.
We publicise here now more sampling of earlier warnings of the Cancer diagnosed last century and, despite proud protestations about its purity, is manifest in 'evangelicalism' today - no less evident in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney via it's theological seminary.
Upon hearing of the proposed retirement of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones in 1968 a Suffolk pastor wrote to the doctor and thanked him for the help received when he and his once fellow students of Richmond College wrestled with the compromised teaching at the college. He said, in part:
"I have just seen the notice of your resignation as minister of Westminster Chapel. At such a time I feel that I must tell you what a very great help your ministry was to me and to several other theological students while we were studying for the Methodist ministry at Richmond College. Often, at the end of a week of lectures which sometimes left us wondering just what we could believe, we would go up to the [Westminster] Chapel, as we called it, and there we would receive food for our souls, and would catch a fresh vision of the power and relevance of the gospel we had been called to preach. We came to see that God was greater than we had ever imagined before, and that the Bible was indeed His Word to us, inspired and wonderful in all its teaching."
It would not have been Richmond College alone which has compromised the Word of God because there was a broad departure from the Reformers and their principle for understanding the Word of God. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones alludes to this when he wrote his 1967 annual letter to the members of Westminster Chapel on January 1, 1968. I cite part of his letter hereunder:
"When one turns to the more general position however, the situation is very different. Here, the main impression is one of confusion, uncertainty, and divided opinions. This is true not only in this country but throughout the world. This is something that one expects in 'Christendom', but in the past it has not been true of those calling themselves evangelical. This is the new feature which is so disturbing. No longer can it be assumed that to be evangelical means to accept the authority of the Scriptures on matters of history, and on the creation of the world and man, and at the very lowest to be sceptical about the theory of evolution. In the same way there has been a recrudescence of denominationalism and an entirely new attitude towards Romanism.
It is, alas, a time of conflict and of trial, indeed a time of tragedy when old comrades in arms are now in different camps. It is not that one in any way questions the honesty or the sincerity of such friends. There is only one explanation and that is, 'an enemy hath done this'. Never has that enemy been more active or more subtle . . .
What the outcome of the present upheaval will be no one can tell. Our duty is to be faithful knowing that the final outcome is sure."
Well, the upheaval has continued inasmuch as 'evangelicalism' is being turned on its head. As in the past, where certain institutions commenced with sound biblical principles but later turned to an opposite principle, 'evangelicalism' is abandoning its primary principle founded on trust in the Word of God.
Ecumenism may have lost momentum but just as Israel longed to return to Egypt when faith in the Word of God waned so it is likely that many who call themselves evangelical today will, one day, desire to return to Rome as loss of faith in the Word of God runs its course. The disease is there, all that is awaited is its consequence.
The lost of the world are in desperate need of a strong evangelical church but all they have tottering before them is a diseased and ever diminishing church.
Sam Drucker
Monday, December 13, 2010
On Understanding - The Difference is Chalk and Cheese.
Quotes a) Iain Murray (biographer) b) Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones found on pages 546 & 547 of the former's biography on the latter:
"At the next meeting of the Westminster Fellowship on July 3, I 1967, he also gave an address which concentrated on the nature of the unity to be sought among those who were agreed in their opposition to ecumenism. At this point they faced, he believed a danger which was the very opposite of the threat from ecumenism. Ecumenical leaders worked on the principle of minimum doctrinal statement, they sought to say something so loosely that no one is excluded. 'Among us, on the other hand,' he went on, 'in our desire to safeguard orthodoxy we tend to become too precise. We go to the opposite extreme of the ecumenical mentality. Even the detailed statements of the 16th and 17th centuries have not been able to safeguard the faith. You can never safeguard the truth by statements on paper or guarantee continuing orthodoxy by paper declarations.'
Two main things, he proceeded, should govern our attitude:
First, it is spiritual life, the experience of the grace of God, which creates the desire for fellowship (Acts 2:46). This was primary in the unity of the early church. If we do not say this we are in danger of scholasticism. An interest in theology which is not based on life is dangerous . . . Such was the position of the Pharisees and of many since. Sound theology can be taken up as a great system in the same way that some people take up crossword puzzles.
Second, the seriousness of schism, rightly defined and understood. Schism means separations among those agreed on fundamentals on account of secondary matters. It is constantly condemned in the New Testament. Unless we have a burning desire to preserve unity we are in a dangerous position.
He believed that the crux of the present position had to do with the recognition of the distinction between truths which are essential and those which are not essential. To be anti-ecumenical was essential because the ecumenical movement was deliberately guilty of doctrinal indifferentism. Its chief concern was a kind of organisational fellowship.
'Ecumenical thinking is to take the churches as they are and to bring them all together. So they take up a minimal statement of faith and even that they do not apply .. . The first thing we want to know with regard to a man who comes to us for fellowship is. What is his attitude to this. To have fellowship with men who deny the truth is to deny the truth by implying that the truth does not matter.'
Foremost among the doctrines he listed as 'absolutely essential' was the sole authority of Scripture in faith and practice. We do not receive tradition as being a subsidiary authority. There must be a full acceptance of revelation: 'We have no fellowship with a man who does not submit himself as a little child to Scripture. It is no use for a man to profess he believes in the "supreme authority of Scripture" in general and then question the foretelling aspect of prophecy or the historicity of creation and of Adam as the first man.' A new tendency to do this among evangelicals he described as 'one of the saddest things I have known in my ministry'. Then among the chief doctrines taught in Scripture he specified: the Trinity; the devil and evil powers; the plan of redemption; the person and work of Christ; man (born spiritually dead, having died in Adam); regeneration by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit; justification and sanctification, with the necessity of good works.
He then turned to non-essentials, which he did not understand to mean truths which are unimportant, 'but they are not so important as to divide us'. 'You notice that I did not put in my list of essentials the doctrine of election. I believe the doctrine of election. I cannot interpret Scripture without it and I preached it last night as one of you has ever done, but I cannot say that a man who does not believe it is not a Christian, or that I cannot have fellowship with him. I say he is seriously defective in his understanding. I do not say that Arminianism is "another gospel". It is rather another understanding of the mechanism of how salvation is given to us.' Among other subjects upon which Christians differed in their understanding he instanced views on baptism, assurance, church polity, unfulfilled prophecy and charismatic gifts. 'On such issues we may hold to our convictions, but with love and patience towards others. We must not break fellowship. We must condemn all wrangling. We all realize that we are saved in spite of ourselves. Not one of us is perfect in our understanding of these matters.' He concluded:
I have never proposed a united evangelical Church. What I have believed in is fellowship for mutual edification and encouragement and perhaps certain other activities. There may be groups of churches even in such fellowship who are disagreed on some of these non-essential matters: I cannot see the impossibility of a loose fellowship including those who are Presbyterian, those who are independent, and those with varying views on baptism."
Note the distinction between the man used mightily of our Lord in bringing glory to Himself in the salvation of sinners compared to the diluted opinion of moderates within the current Episcopal Diocese of Sydney on essential understanding of the historicity of creation. The latter regard the issue as secondary.
Sam Drucker
"At the next meeting of the Westminster Fellowship on July 3, I 1967, he also gave an address which concentrated on the nature of the unity to be sought among those who were agreed in their opposition to ecumenism. At this point they faced, he believed a danger which was the very opposite of the threat from ecumenism. Ecumenical leaders worked on the principle of minimum doctrinal statement, they sought to say something so loosely that no one is excluded. 'Among us, on the other hand,' he went on, 'in our desire to safeguard orthodoxy we tend to become too precise. We go to the opposite extreme of the ecumenical mentality. Even the detailed statements of the 16th and 17th centuries have not been able to safeguard the faith. You can never safeguard the truth by statements on paper or guarantee continuing orthodoxy by paper declarations.'
Two main things, he proceeded, should govern our attitude:
First, it is spiritual life, the experience of the grace of God, which creates the desire for fellowship (Acts 2:46). This was primary in the unity of the early church. If we do not say this we are in danger of scholasticism. An interest in theology which is not based on life is dangerous . . . Such was the position of the Pharisees and of many since. Sound theology can be taken up as a great system in the same way that some people take up crossword puzzles.
Second, the seriousness of schism, rightly defined and understood. Schism means separations among those agreed on fundamentals on account of secondary matters. It is constantly condemned in the New Testament. Unless we have a burning desire to preserve unity we are in a dangerous position.
He believed that the crux of the present position had to do with the recognition of the distinction between truths which are essential and those which are not essential. To be anti-ecumenical was essential because the ecumenical movement was deliberately guilty of doctrinal indifferentism. Its chief concern was a kind of organisational fellowship.
'Ecumenical thinking is to take the churches as they are and to bring them all together. So they take up a minimal statement of faith and even that they do not apply .. . The first thing we want to know with regard to a man who comes to us for fellowship is. What is his attitude to this. To have fellowship with men who deny the truth is to deny the truth by implying that the truth does not matter.'
Foremost among the doctrines he listed as 'absolutely essential' was the sole authority of Scripture in faith and practice. We do not receive tradition as being a subsidiary authority. There must be a full acceptance of revelation: 'We have no fellowship with a man who does not submit himself as a little child to Scripture. It is no use for a man to profess he believes in the "supreme authority of Scripture" in general and then question the foretelling aspect of prophecy or the historicity of creation and of Adam as the first man.' A new tendency to do this among evangelicals he described as 'one of the saddest things I have known in my ministry'. Then among the chief doctrines taught in Scripture he specified: the Trinity; the devil and evil powers; the plan of redemption; the person and work of Christ; man (born spiritually dead, having died in Adam); regeneration by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit; justification and sanctification, with the necessity of good works.
He then turned to non-essentials, which he did not understand to mean truths which are unimportant, 'but they are not so important as to divide us'. 'You notice that I did not put in my list of essentials the doctrine of election. I believe the doctrine of election. I cannot interpret Scripture without it and I preached it last night as one of you has ever done, but I cannot say that a man who does not believe it is not a Christian, or that I cannot have fellowship with him. I say he is seriously defective in his understanding. I do not say that Arminianism is "another gospel". It is rather another understanding of the mechanism of how salvation is given to us.' Among other subjects upon which Christians differed in their understanding he instanced views on baptism, assurance, church polity, unfulfilled prophecy and charismatic gifts. 'On such issues we may hold to our convictions, but with love and patience towards others. We must not break fellowship. We must condemn all wrangling. We all realize that we are saved in spite of ourselves. Not one of us is perfect in our understanding of these matters.' He concluded:
I have never proposed a united evangelical Church. What I have believed in is fellowship for mutual edification and encouragement and perhaps certain other activities. There may be groups of churches even in such fellowship who are disagreed on some of these non-essential matters: I cannot see the impossibility of a loose fellowship including those who are Presbyterian, those who are independent, and those with varying views on baptism."
Note the distinction between the man used mightily of our Lord in bringing glory to Himself in the salvation of sinners compared to the diluted opinion of moderates within the current Episcopal Diocese of Sydney on essential understanding of the historicity of creation. The latter regard the issue as secondary.
Sam Drucker
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The Gathering of the Mob at Lausanne
Interesting to see in the December 2010 edition of Southern Cross (Sydney Episcopalian Newspaper) that Bishop Glenn Davies returned from the Lausanne Conference on Evangelism with some pluses and minuses for what he observed. His positive mark for the conference was the broad commitment to evangelism. His negatives were not identified.
The Lausanne Conference is a periodic event having the stamp of Dr Billy Graham. Dr Graham had approached Dr Lloyd-Jones around the middle of last century for his involvement in a similar type conference in Rome but Dr Lloyd-Jones declined. In considering the later Lausanne conferences it is difficult to see what benefit it provides other than as an opportunity to 'back-slap' and encourage one another in the great commission we ought to be doing anyway compelled by love for our Lord Jesus Christ, to see God glorified and a concern for the lost.
Reading Part 2 of Iain Murray's autobiography of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones has given me some insight into the good doctor's concerns about an aspect of Dr Billy Graham's ministry and aspirations for the Church in the 20th Century. By and large the Church was on the slide in that century and it was a time when Evangelicals were failing on many fronts to the extent that the Church lost its impact and influence of society generally (I posted blogs a little while back citing - "The Decline of Evangelicalism in Nineteenth-Century England" by R. J. Sheehan in Issue 278, November 1986, of The Banner of Truth). Obviously the rot had set in during the 19th Century and it continued to eat away in the following century.
The great concern for Martyn Lloyd-Jones was the strong push toward ecumenism in the United Kingdom and, one after another, Evangelicals were being seduced into embracing Liberals for the cause of unity at the expense of the authority of the Scripture. Such an outcome was to show the soft underbelly of those who professed to be Evangelical and, in effect, it showed they were not truly Evangelical. The same situation applies today and I suspect what Bishop Glenn Davies was reluctant to comment upon has its nexus in the same bondage of Evangelicals and non-Evangelicals that Martyn Lloyd-Jones had concerns about last century.
That said, the Sydney Episcopalian Diocese is not without question as to what side of the fence it rests. I am certain Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones would have problems with the Diocese based on his address to the Westminster Fraternal at Welwyn on 19 June 1963. Quoting Haggai Ch 1, Dr Lloyd-Jones raised a series of issues for the Church and I cite them from point 5 to quantify my charge:
"(5) The blatant unbelief in the official churches is coming into the open. And there is evidence of a subtle change of emphasis in evangelical thinking — an acceptance of looser views of the early chapters of Genesis and of miracles, a new atmosphere in book-reviewing, a disinterest in doctrine and a tendency to gloat in scholarship. (6) There is the whole moral condition of the country. There is need of prophetic statement but we seem to be living in our 'cieled houses' [sic]. (7) There is an appalling need of evangelical preaching. Evangelicalism is concentrated in the Greater London area. We forget the appalling conditions that prevail in the great bulk of the country.
This is a great challenge and unique opportunity. It is we alone who can give the message. But we seem to be ineffective and silent. . . Our Statements are tepid and harmless. Evangelicals in all the major denominations are in the same position." (see page 413 of the autobiography)
Because of the current failure of Moore Theological College (the Diocesan school of thought) to uphold the Word of God on origins it places itself and the Diocese in the same camp as the wilting band of so-called Evangelicals of the 19th and 20th Centuries which Dr Lloyd-Jones had concerns about.
Rev Michael Jensen counts regard for integrity of God's Word in Genesis Ch 1 (and, by extension, Exodus 20:11 and 31:17-18) as a secondary issue and is thus prepared to allow Jesus Christ, Creator, to be robbed of his glory in creation. Given that Bishop Glenn Davies is of the same school of thought he ought not be pointing out the splinter in the eye of non-Evangelicals at the Lausanne Conference without taking the plank out of his own.
It remains for me to find the plank resident in my own eye.
Sam Drucker
The Lausanne Conference is a periodic event having the stamp of Dr Billy Graham. Dr Graham had approached Dr Lloyd-Jones around the middle of last century for his involvement in a similar type conference in Rome but Dr Lloyd-Jones declined. In considering the later Lausanne conferences it is difficult to see what benefit it provides other than as an opportunity to 'back-slap' and encourage one another in the great commission we ought to be doing anyway compelled by love for our Lord Jesus Christ, to see God glorified and a concern for the lost.
Reading Part 2 of Iain Murray's autobiography of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones has given me some insight into the good doctor's concerns about an aspect of Dr Billy Graham's ministry and aspirations for the Church in the 20th Century. By and large the Church was on the slide in that century and it was a time when Evangelicals were failing on many fronts to the extent that the Church lost its impact and influence of society generally (I posted blogs a little while back citing - "The Decline of Evangelicalism in Nineteenth-Century England" by R. J. Sheehan in Issue 278, November 1986, of The Banner of Truth). Obviously the rot had set in during the 19th Century and it continued to eat away in the following century.
The great concern for Martyn Lloyd-Jones was the strong push toward ecumenism in the United Kingdom and, one after another, Evangelicals were being seduced into embracing Liberals for the cause of unity at the expense of the authority of the Scripture. Such an outcome was to show the soft underbelly of those who professed to be Evangelical and, in effect, it showed they were not truly Evangelical. The same situation applies today and I suspect what Bishop Glenn Davies was reluctant to comment upon has its nexus in the same bondage of Evangelicals and non-Evangelicals that Martyn Lloyd-Jones had concerns about last century.
That said, the Sydney Episcopalian Diocese is not without question as to what side of the fence it rests. I am certain Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones would have problems with the Diocese based on his address to the Westminster Fraternal at Welwyn on 19 June 1963. Quoting Haggai Ch 1, Dr Lloyd-Jones raised a series of issues for the Church and I cite them from point 5 to quantify my charge:
"(5) The blatant unbelief in the official churches is coming into the open. And there is evidence of a subtle change of emphasis in evangelical thinking — an acceptance of looser views of the early chapters of Genesis and of miracles, a new atmosphere in book-reviewing, a disinterest in doctrine and a tendency to gloat in scholarship. (6) There is the whole moral condition of the country. There is need of prophetic statement but we seem to be living in our 'cieled houses' [sic]. (7) There is an appalling need of evangelical preaching. Evangelicalism is concentrated in the Greater London area. We forget the appalling conditions that prevail in the great bulk of the country.
This is a great challenge and unique opportunity. It is we alone who can give the message. But we seem to be ineffective and silent. . . Our Statements are tepid and harmless. Evangelicals in all the major denominations are in the same position." (see page 413 of the autobiography)
Because of the current failure of Moore Theological College (the Diocesan school of thought) to uphold the Word of God on origins it places itself and the Diocese in the same camp as the wilting band of so-called Evangelicals of the 19th and 20th Centuries which Dr Lloyd-Jones had concerns about.
Rev Michael Jensen counts regard for integrity of God's Word in Genesis Ch 1 (and, by extension, Exodus 20:11 and 31:17-18) as a secondary issue and is thus prepared to allow Jesus Christ, Creator, to be robbed of his glory in creation. Given that Bishop Glenn Davies is of the same school of thought he ought not be pointing out the splinter in the eye of non-Evangelicals at the Lausanne Conference without taking the plank out of his own.
It remains for me to find the plank resident in my own eye.
Sam Drucker
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