A day or so ago I made a comment at Mundabor’s. To make what I am saying clear how the conversation went, I will have to mention the context. A commentator, Jack, had said that when the church history of this age is written the peak period of liberalism will be dated to the canonisation, on one day, of Pope John (of Vatican II fame) and John Paul, the Pole. This has horrified Mundabor, who is a good catholic, and as such wants the ancient and historical practices.
I love to read those massive tomes on Catholic Church history. One of the most important things they help cultivate in the mind is just how vast the history of the Church is – from the beginning of human history really, with the Protoevangelium. We see today the problems of the Church close up; we’re in the middle of the whirlwind and feel the full force of it. In Church time however, this is blip. I can even picture the tiny paragraph these past two generations of Church history will get 200 years or so from now. The chronicler will write something like the following:
“The last gasp of the failures of Vatican II occurred when Pope St. John XXIII and Pope St. John Paul II were both raised to the altars in the same mass on April 27th, 2014. The Modernism that had begun some 50 years earlier had reached its zenith, unable to sustain itself as war, hard economic times, and a culture of death turned in on itself, fueling a massive rebirth in traditional teaching and strong families across the globe. Pope Francis’ attempt to ‘canonize’ the ‘spirit of Vatican II’ quickly lost steam after his death, and continued its long historical slide into disrepute, as evidenced by the constitutions of Third Vatican Ecumenical Council.”
Something I have sympathy with. I want the book of order services, or the book of common prayer, with reformed theology. In short, I want to sit under someone like Francis Schaeffer or John Stott (one was Presbyterian, the other Anglican). But both are now dead. We have to deal with the issues of this age.
I then commented that among Protestants peak liberalism has happened and the liberal churches are dying, while the fundamentalists — those who preach the gospel — are growing. Mundabor then said.
It would be good news indeed if heretics would at least recover some sense of Christianity. But my impression is that general episodes do not a trend make. The way I see it, the broad “evangelical” factions will keep promoting Christianity, and the more traditional heretical outfits, so they still exist, will die, slowly and deservedly.
I see “Methodist” churches in this country, but never anyone coming in or out of them. I don’t even want to think what their “services” are.
Now, I thought about commenting that the Methodists are a very good example, at least locally, of the principle here. The principle is that the church is Christs, and if we remain in Christ, we have life, and growth, and we are pruned. If we are not in Christ we are accounted as dead. God ignores us. We may have less pain, for the dead feel no pain: but we are damned while living.
We have to therefore individually cling to the gospel, and corporately preach the gospel. The gospel is true. It is our traditions that are full of errors.
1“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. 9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
Now, a slight deviation into ‘the history of the church I have seen’. I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. That was the first period of peak liberalism within the church, and it broke the moral suasion of the church within the community. The two issues within the church I recall were a trial for heresy of the professor of theology at my employer, and a project to unite all the Protestant denominations. Both failed. The liberals managed to get Geering to accept a compromise, and he became a person preaching the gospel of liberalism from that day forward: the Methodist church (which has generally lacked creeds) became infested with liberal preachers and then died. The process is described by Geering himself.
The liberal Protestantism in which I was being trained affirmed that Christianity, unlike many religions, is the historical religion par excellence; it is built into history, and its foundation was not to be found chiefly in revealed truths, but in historical events. It was in historical events such as the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, the resurrection of Christ – as well as, of course, the crucifixion of Christ – that divine revelation was to be found, rather than in any dogmatic system, or in the exact words of the bible. And its central figure, Jesus Christ, was a historical figure, testified to by historical reliable testimony. The Incarnation was a historical event, which divided history into two: into B.C. and A.D., so that the God worshipped by Christians could be called “the Lord of history”.
But how did I relate to God in all this? As I look back now, after sixty years, I realise I was still simply accepting the being of God as part of a total Christian package. It certainly seemed to make some sense to say that God was the Creator of the world, but this God was distant, beyond all human understanding. I realise now that I was more of a deist than a theist – to distinguish between the terms of a God who is simply the Creator, and a God who is a personal being with whom one communes. Indeed, in those days I was rather suspicious of the evangelicals, who loved to ask me “do you believe in a personal God?” – for they seemed to treat God as a kind of friendly protector. But I never thought of God in that way.
So thereafter, I was happy to leave God simply as the name of the ultimate mystery of life. I rarely ever preached about God as such in my ministry; I always felt I was on much more solid ground preaching about Jesus Christ as portrayed in the Gospels. And even then, I steered clear of al the so-called miracles – they didn’t make much sense to me, nor did I find them historical. But I found plenty of material in the bible as a whole, in both Old and New Testaments, that I had sufficient to draw upon for all the preaching that I ever did. For I saw my task as one of expounding the bible in a way that provided insights on how to live the Christian way of life.
At this point two things happened among the Presbyterians. Some embraced emotionalism and the teachings of the Pentecostals. This did increase the joy within the church, but it led to a lack of rigor. Others rejected this, and became very legalistic in their Calvinism. And the liberal Presbyterian church shrank. Over time, the liberal congregations became smaller, and the men of Geering’s generation retired: to their horror they were replaced (with the exception of the most overtly liberal congregations, who continued to employ first the divorced, then those living in de facto relationships, and then gay ministers living with their partners — a scandal that is now ending as many of these people have gone to that bastion of liberalism, the uniting church in Australia) with people who believed the gospels.
The Catholics had their own turbulent priests, particularly Felix Donnelly, who also accepted secular employment and also preached free love.
For society had changed. The church was no longer a pillar of society: the political elite had decided God was dead and one needed to be a Christian as much as one needed to have marriage for life. The liberal project happened in New Zealand at around the same time as the war on poverty started in the US, and with very similar results.
As the church lost power, and became unfashionable, it was no longer seen as a career. The people who were “called into the ministry” became two types: one were those who are evangelical in the true sense of the word: they want to preach the gospel. The best of these people are quite well educated and before ordination have also had successful ministry projects within the congregations they are in.
The second is a rump group of liberals, generally women, frequently liberal, who see the church (incorrectly) as an institution of power and want that power. Liberal parishes have these ministers all too often, and they are lethal. For they geld the gospel, disavow any masculine aspects of worship as warmongering or sexist, and preach some kind of watered down pablum that even babies would reject. But most of the time, these women do not get posts (unless they are in a hierarchical church that directs ministers to congregations: that includes both the Anglican and Methodists). Presbyterian congregations tend to reject those who are not abiding in Christ. And most Presbyterian congregations know that without male leadership, things go horribly wrong — for if it has not happened in their congregation, it has happened in one close by.
I am quite relaxed about liberalism, because they may have won battles in my life, but they are losing the war. They have forgotten there is a living God, who knows the church as his bride, and is quite jealous for her. And the presbyterian church is becoming more evangelical — it is concentrating on doing good and preaching the gospel.
I pray that the same thing will happen among the Catholics, particularly as the Vatican II generation start pushing up daisies, and they purge the church from priests who predate on other men, particularly young men. But it will happen. For Christ knows his own.
What we have to do is stand firm. There are Antichrists within the church. There have always been antichrists within the church. When they exist, we need to correct their teaching, remove them from leadership and membership, and pray for godly repentance.
For we need, individually and as congregations, to remain in relationship with Christ, who saves us.