Tag: emergent

Albertus Pieters, C.I. Scofield and “Homiletical Certainty”

~ Bob Hayton ~ 10 Comments

Recently, I read a fascinating review of the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible by Albertus Pieters, written in 1938. The book is small, since it was actually a lecture delivered to the Ministerial Association of the Christian Reformed Church at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI.

One of the points which most struck me, was Pieters’ objection to “the oracular and authoritative tone employed throughout” Scofield’s work. I see the same tendency among conservative pastors and teachers. I call the problem “homiletical certainty”.

In matters where a variance of opinion exists among Bible-believing evangelical Christians, I think pastors ought to be somewhat tentative in affirming their own position. Instead, the mere existence of differing interpretations is rarely even acknowledged, let alone mentioned. There is a sense that ministers have a duty to be dogmatic on every point they address behind the pulpit. I’m not so sure that this dogmatism really serves the church in the end.

I am not postmodern or emergent by any stretch, mind you. But a certain amount of theological and homiletical uncertainty is healthy. What is wrong with saying, “this is my opinion for these reasons, but other good Christians disagree”? In fact, finding out why others think the way they do, helps us to truly understand the opposing view. And even when we disagree, we can appreciate differing perspectives. We shouldn’t fear the truth, and if our position really is true, it will withstand any test.

So with this in mind, let me provide some excerpts from Albertus Pieters’ speech about the Scofield Bible. This isn’t so much a rant on Scofield as it is a corrective for the homiletical practices of many preachers today.

Another thing that goes far to explain the widespread use and great influence of this work, is the oracular and authoritative tone employed throughout. Here we come to something we can not praise, although we admit its effectiveness with superficial Bible students — as most people are. Dr. Scofield never by any chance intimates that he may be mistaken, or that any other view is possible but the one he lays down. In one place I did find him presenting three possible alternative explanations, without deciding which was right, but this is a rare exception. For the most part, no infallible Pope could speak with greater certainty and authority than he; and this is true no matter what the subject under discussion. Whether dealing with the great doctrines which are the common confession of all Christendom, or with obscure and doubtful points of eschatology, where the most learned and competent expositors confess themselves at a loss, everywhere it is the same “ipse dixit” style….

In line with this authoritative attitude, and necessitated by it, is the fact that Dr. Scofield never argues, never explains, never apologizes, and never assigns any reasons for asserting that this or that is true…. Had he given his reasons, the intelligent reader would have begun to judge whether these reasons were convincing: by withholding all reasons he gives the impression that, if he did give them, they would be found satisfactory….

Now there are certainly times, places, and circumstances where this is the correct procedure. In teaching small children one can speak thus. The man who proclaims the great Christian doctrines is entitled to speak positively and with authority. He has the Holy Scriptures and the consensus of the Christian church from the beginning with him and behind him as he preaches these truths…. Besides this, any one called to the office of a Christian pastor in a given denomination has both the right and the duty to affirm, in his own pulpit, the distinctive doctrines of his own denomination, without qualification or apology. That is what he is there for; what he has been called to do; what his people want him to do, and understand that he is doing. He speaks not as an individual, but as an official teacher, the mouth-piece of his denomination….

In the case of the Scofield Bible, however, these considerations do not apply. He is not dealing with children, nor is he speaking in any sense in an official and representative capacity. In his presentation of the great central doctrines, he has the whole church behind him, but in a large part of his teachings he represents a minority of a minority, teaching a millennialism which no Christian church has ever admitted to its creed, and of that millennialism a special form which many of the wisest millenarians repudiate. Yet in all of this, as also in his remarks on chronology, and general Bible knowledge, he maintains the same oracular “I know it all” attitude. As a method of inspiring confidence among ignorant people, the method has merits, its effectiveness can not be denied; but from a moral standpoint it deserves severe condemnation. Dr. Scofield had no right thus to assume superiority over his brethren, to whom the Holy Spirit was given as well as to him, and many of whom had qualifications of scholarship far beyond anything he could claim.

In the field of Systematic Theology he is good, for there he utilizes the fruits of the standard Protestant and Calvinistic thinking; but in general Bible knowledge he makes many mistakes, and in his eschatology he goes far astray from anything the church has ever believed. Undoubtedly this oracular and authoritative manner has been effective, but it is not to be excused for that reason. It seems like a harsh judgement, but in the interests of truth it must be uttered: Dr. Scofield in this was acting the part of an intellectual charlatan, a fraud who pretends to knowledge which he does not possess; like a quack doctor, who is ready with a confident diagnosis in many cases where a competent physician is unable to decide. (pg. 7-11)

Read Pieter’s lecture online, and you can reference the 1909 Scofield Reference Bible online too, via Google Books.

Generational Patricide

~ Bob Hayton

In a recent forums discussion at Sharper Iron, I came across some insightful and I thought quite helpful comments on what I call “generational patricide”. We were discussing Phil Johnson’s recent post explaining the demise of Neo-Evangelicalism. He wrote off the entire movement with nearly the same fervor he showed when declaring that the independent fundamentalist (mostly Baptist) movement is dead.

Now, it is common for former fundamentalists, like myself, to write off our former movement completely, just as Johnson dismisses Neo-Evangelicalism as just a mistake. I do grant Phil much more academic credentials than the average young fundamentalist (or reforming fundamentalist). Still, the tendency to write off the previous generation seems to be a normal human reaction. This is evidenced by how the emergent movement disdains the evangelicalism that birthed it.

Anyway, I think the following comments by Joseph are spot on. They should give us all pause, and encourage us to think more deeply about the movements we have left. Hopefully it can help us carefully step out into the future in a more charitable spirit toward our forebears.

First, it is a common historical occurrence that one group will emerge or coalesce as a reaction to a set of concerns, and when those concerns seem less relevant or are a matter of history, many within that group will criticize the group itself as being a mistake, as having serious problems, etc.. What happens here is that people ignore the fact that much of their criticism is only possible because of the successes of the original reaction.

Fundamentalism was, truly, a disaster for a robust, more-than-merely-orthodox Christianity; having a powerful intellectual and social testimony is not something unusual in Christianity. From the witness of the early church’s social practices to the likes of theologians like Augustine, it has historically not been that case that orthodox Christianity has to place itself within a cultural and intellectual ghetto. So, Fundamentalism, itself an important reaction to modernism with many successes, truly had the weaknesses New Evangelicals saw in it.

Now, a couple generations later, it’s easy for Fundamentalists and people like Johnson to criticize New Evangelicalism, even though, if we imagine it away, the vast majority of our textbooks in conservative seminaries and colleges as well as some of our best theological and historical thinking as conservative Christians gets imagined away as well.

So, like the New Evangelical reaction to Fundamentalism, this reaction to the New Evangelicalism is predicated on the inadequately acknowledged successes of New Evangelicalism. In that sense, it’s no better off, structurally, than Emergents or anyone else, for all these groups, in their failure to properly acknowledge their debt to those things that they criticize, react in an unbalanced way, and therefore produced equally if not more narrow slices of the Christian pie that only appeal to an equally narrow constituency. I think most of the criticisms of New Evangelicalism are sound; but I think they are also wrong in that they often them stem from a profoundly imbalanced conception of their significance and meaning, when the fact of the matter is that the clarity of the intellectual hindsight that produces such cogent criticism is often enabled by the successes of that which is being criticized (e.g. David Wells, sitting in his perch at Gordon-Conwell, issuing some of the best and most powerful criticisms of evangelical Christianity as a whole, is a good example; he’s right, but if you’re not balanced, you miss the obvious implications of his being paid to study and write by Gordon-Conwell and other funding institutions).

…

The tendency of every group and generation is to kill its father, which it can only do after it has been nourished and supported by and gained some independence from that which it later attacks. The only way such patricide can be mitigated is through the balanced integration of sharp, necessary criticism with a profound acknowledgement of its indebtedness — and the implications of such indebtedness — to that which it criticizes. That is something too often lacking in criticisms of any movement, in this case New Evangelicalism. And this imbalanced criticism comes down on our heads when the generation following us rises up, as the Emergents and many others have done, to decry a lack of balance, etc. in those groups that fostered them and to repudiate them with a breathtaking recklessness and ungratefulness. If we wish to avoid that, we must model the better way. [from this comment]

I’ve been thinking about what I wrote for a long time, and Phil’s comments were the occasion for putting them down. What you highlight is really important, I think, especially as a critique or warning for anyone who founds their identity on a movement; generally speaking, that’s just not a good idea – it will only maintain itself for a generation, and in order to survive it naturally institutionalizes; but the institutions that result are often reflective of concerns, emphases, and modes of expressions that passed with the original founders of the movement, and thus they often represent a kind of rigid, narrow, a provincial outlook if they fundamentally seek to ground their identity in the original movement.

If I ever wrote on either Fundamentalism or New Evangelicalism, my titles wouldn’t be about how they are dead, they would be: “After Fundamentalism” or “After New Evangelicalism.” Not stark repudiations, but recognitions that history has changed, new problems have emerged, and what we should gain from these movements is not a rigid commitment to their historically particular expressions, but to the fruit they bore and to the commitment they manifested to the principles, truths, and the one institution (the Church) that don’t pass away with history. Anything more than this and we’ll inevitably lapse into (unnecessary) provincialism and undercontextualization to our current context, a problem that, as Keller as noted, is no better than over-contextualization, for it simply means one is contextualizing to a different era or culture than the current one. [from this comment]

“Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Isn’t Enough” by Michael E. Wittmer

~ Bob Hayton ~ 11 Comments

DontStopBelievingAuthors: Michael E. Wittmer
Format: Soft cover
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Zondervan
Publication Date: 2008
ISBN: 9780310281160
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m guessing that many who will read this review will be younger evangelicals who are aware of the Emerging Church movement. Many are intrigued with the idea of doing church differently. We’ve awakened to inadequacies in the church our parents raised us in. For people like us, the generational appeal of the Emergent movement is strong. Polarizing doctrines along with the conservative-liberal divide turn us off. A welcoming community of large-hearted lovers of Jesus sounds both authentic and attractive.

This desire for authentic Christian fellowship is not wrong by itself. Doing church in new and tantalizingly different ways isn’t either. Luther, Wesley and Moody attest to that. Yet the newness of the Emergent movement is often all that is needed for it to earn sharp and stinging conservative rebukes. Such smug dismissals only prove the point of these “postmodern innovators” , as Michael Wittmer dubs them. Conservative Christians today are infected with a rampant modernism that assumes it has arrived. With everything figured out, conservative Christianity has no room for postmodern Emergent craziness.

Put me down as one conservative who doesn’t think we’re above criticism. I tend to see the Emergent movement as reacting against some very real deficiencies in some versions of conservative Christianity. Before reading Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough, I wouldn’t have been able to articulate all of this exactly. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was that seemed right about the Emergent phenomenon. With Michael Wittmer’s book, however, I’m much more equipped to think through the all the ramifications of the postmodern innovations so popular today.

Wittmer isn’t afraid to listen to the postmodern innovators. Listen and learn. From what I can gather from reading the book, Wittmer hails from a staunchly conservative background. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is intimately familiar with independent Baptist fundamentalism like I am. From such a background it is easy to see how many of the Emergent criticisms would hit home.

Post-moderns claim we conservatives often love the sinner’s soul more than his body. We aim for conversions more than lasting social change. We care more about deathbed conversions than good works and justice. Our churches are not welcoming and inviting to the unchurched, and our world-view comes off too cocky and self-confident. We have everything figured out and don’t struggle with doubt or pain. We care more about scientific and logical proofs for inerrancy than we do for the Bible’s overarching themes and meta narrative. We’re too quick to distance ourselves from the world than be friends to publicans and sinners.

There’s more. Must you believe something to be saved? Are people good or bad? Is Homosexuality acceptable biblically? Doesn’t penal substitution turn the cross into divine child abuse? Does Hell really last forever, and would a loving God really send anyone there? Is it really possible to know anything for certain? These questions and more are raised, and carefully dealt with in Wittmer’s book.

As one can see, with the Emergent movement, valid criticisms and sincere questions often get muddled together with a more radical revision of the fundamentals of the faith. In light of how many postmodern innovators are quick to embrace full fledged inclusivism (the idea that people will likely be saved apart from faith in Jesus Christ), and their lack of owning up to virtually any non-negotiable beliefs, it is easy to see why many dismiss the movement as a whole, out of hand.

The strength of Wittmer’s approach lies in his patient hearing out of both sides. He sketches the conservative view and the postmodern reaction. Then he paves a middle ground that holds to a high (conservative) view of Scripture while appreciating insights from the postmodern position. He argues for a both/and approach which often does more justice to the Bible than either extreme. While he ends up defending conservative doctrines, he is not afraid to challenge conservative methods and motifs.

Such a discussion could easily become tedious and overly philosophical or theological. Wittmer’s writing style is so clear and lucid that with the help of illustrations and personal anecdotes, he makes the discussion fun to read. His many charts help convey his point even more clearly. The diagrams capture the discussions well, summarizing the perspectives of each side along with his middle ground approach.

Postmodern innovators and Emergent church leaders are not likely to change course as a result of this book. What I hope happens, is many a young evangelical is equipped and encouraged to opt for a conservative Christian approach that aims to both believe and live life here on earth well. As Wittmer puts it: “Genuine Christians never stop serving because they never stop loving, and they never stop loving because they never stop believing.”

If you are looking for a helpful introduction to the postmodern/Emergent church discussion, look no further than Don’t Stop Believing. And if you are concerned for a friend, or even for yourself, about the doctrine-is-optional appeal of postmodernism, pick up this book. You will be challenged, and encouraged in the faith.

Disclaimer: this book was provided by the publisher for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

This book is available for purchase at the following sites: Amazon.com or direct from Zondervan.