This is the fourth and final part of a series on hell. (Read parts 1, 2 [which incorporates 1] and 3.)

More than most theological subjects, the doctrine of hell raises a high number of pastoral concerns. If hell is a real place, ruled by God, where all who are found outside of Christ at death or at his return experience the eternal conscious pain of punishment, banishment and destruction, then a number of issues present themselves to us immediately. This article discusses these in no particular order.

1. How we speak about hell

Firstly, hell should change the way we speak about it. In our culture, ‘hell’ is a swear word, other people's music (according to Wired), or, as Jean-Paul Satre once said, “other people”.¹ For some, hell is an experience in this life: the Victoria bushfires of 2009 were described as “Hell's fury”.²

Without wanting to diminish for a moment such horrific events that some people experience in this life, our study of the reality of hell and all that it entails should at least provide pause for thought on how we use the word ‘hell’. If what has been said about hell in these articles is true and accurate, then how we speak about hell ought to change radically. Is it really appropriate for a Christian to use ‘hell’ as a swear word (“Oh hell!”, “What the hell?”) or even as part of an idiom (“She's been through hell!”)? I know that those who speak like this are not consciously referring to the actual place or the state of eternal punishment; nevertheless, as Christians, our language should be above the world's sloppy speech. I believe that, in the light of our study, the only time ‘hell’ should ever appear on a Christian's lips is in apologetic discussions about it or when we are pleading with someone not to go there.

There is also a reverse side to how we speak about hell. Sadly, there have been abusive descriptions of hell by some evangelicals, going far beyond the sober truthfulness of the Scriptures.³ At times, some of these portray an appalling insensitivity—even a malicious joy or gloating over those who suffer in hell. Such abuses must be avoided at all costs. There is no place for talking harshly about hell or talking about it in exaggerated ways that go beyond scriptural limits. It is a subject that demands careful and sensitive treatment.

2. The end-time judgement

Secondly, the issue of how we speak about hell is appropriate for Christian preachers in particular. Given the specific scriptural descriptions of hell, Christian preachers ought to speak with clarity on the end-time judgement, not in vague and general terms. One is reminded of the (true?) story of a preacher who warned his hearers that they would face “eschatological ramifications”.⁴ However, conditional immortality and annihilation are “eschatological ramifications”. But what should it to mean for the preacher? And what ought it mean for our listeners after the sermon? Will they come away any clearer on what lies ahead?

In this regard, preachers should not just talk about hell; they should preach hell. Lesslie Newbigin once remarked that “It is one of the weaknesses of a great deal of contemporary Christianity that we do not speak of the last judgement and of the possibility of being finally lost”.⁵ If I may take this one step further, it is one of the great weaknesses of modern evangelicalism that we do not actually preach hell with the clarity, precision and boldness with which Jesus preached it. I remember a sermon series on hell in one church where the minister delivered a sermon on how so many people want to duck the thorny issue of hell, and how, as evangelicals, we can't; hell exists and we must face it. That he, at least, flagged the issue was commendable; that, in many respects, he didn't preach it himself was inadvertently ironic. It is one thing to talk often about how you and your church believe in hell—even putting it on the sermon program on a yearly basis; it is quite another to actually preach hell on a regular basis—furthermore, to preach it like we really believe it.

For example, Jesus' “weeping and gnashing of teeth” metaphor is not meant to serve as simply a diversion point in the sermon to justify the preaching of hell to the unbeliever; it is meant to stun and shock—to sting and startle—to fill the hearer with dread, not just to relate to their head with an intellectually argued apologia for why it's good and right to speak of hell. Hell should be preached in such a way that it is like cracking open smelling salts right beneath our listeners' noses.

Moreover, if we are prepared to tease out the picture of what a ‘feast’ in the “kingdom of God” will be like (Luke 13:29) by playing on the many delightful aspects that such an occasion brings with it (the sound of music and dancing; the smell and taste of great food and fine wine; the joy of friendship, laughter and singing; the company of loved ones) and encouraging people not to miss out, is it not reasonable to expect a preacher to draw out the metaphor of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” in order to stir the sensibilities of postmodern people to flee from the wrath to come? A faithful preacher should aim for both—a passionate, winsome stirring of the desires of the unregenerate to come and join the biggest eschatological party that will ever be, and a sombre, clear, urgent pleading with the blind to escape the most dreadful eschatological tragedy that will ever occur.

Interestingly, Tim Keller reflects that, in his experience, simply pressing home the symbols of hell without actually explaining their referents has proved ineffective.⁶ He tells of how one person told him that the “fires of hell” didn't scare him at all, but when Keller explained what ‘disintegration’ might look like in a person—being reduced to a monotonous grumbling sound of a machine going on forever—his friend went immediately quiet.

In short: once we have given the apologia for why it is reasonable to speak about hell (and the apologia is necessary in a postmodern world that has lost its bearings when it comes to justice and judgement), we should not stop short of actually preaching hell.

3. Hell's insufficiency

Thirdly, in preaching hell, we ought to preach not only the stark reality of it, unpacking the variety of images and pictures, but we should also speak of hell's insufficiency. Hell itself is not able to save people from hell; only Christ can—a Christ testified to by the Scriptures. This is underlined in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, who ends up in hell (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man's request for someone to go and tell his brothers of the torments of hell in order to warn them not to go there (vv. 27-28) is met with a surprising answer: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (v. 31). In other words, fear of the reality of hell does not save people from hell; only the Scriptures that point to Christ save people. Hell must be proclaimed in conjunction with a Christ who saves people from hell, for only Christ can save.

4. People and death

Fourthly, hell should change the way we think about people and death. Let me deal with each of these in turn.

a) People

In his essay ‘The Weight of Glory’, CS Lewis writes of the amazing, potential future glory that awaits a human being in the new creation. It is worth quoting the essay at length, with little comment in response:

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of the sinner—no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies life as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him Christ vere latitat—glorifier and glorified, Glory Himself—is truly hidden.⁷

We may have a quibble over Lewis' sacramentalism, but besides that, this is one of the most profound and helpful statements written about relating to people in light of heaven and hell. Lewis is correct: “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

b) Death

While listening to the bells of St Giles Church, Oxford, as he awaited an operation, Poet Laureate John Betjeman wrote:

Intolerably sad, profound
St. Giles' bells are ringing round …
Swing up! and give me hope and life,
Swing down! and plunge the surgeon's knife.
I, breathing for a moment, see
Death wing himself away from me
And think, as on this bed I lie,
Is it extinction when I die?⁸

Bertrand Russell's answer was simple: “Yes”. “When I die I shall rot.”⁹ For the Christian believer, the answer is binary and far graver: when we die, we either go to heaven or hell. CS Lewis said that “to a Christian the true tragedy of Nero must be not that he fiddled while the city was on fire but that he fiddled on the brink of hell”.¹⁰ The reality of hell and the fact that millions of people pass from this life every year into a lost eternity should lead us to gospel urgency in order to warn people that death is not the end; hell is—and it does not end. A moving illustration by John Blanchard helps to underline the need for urgency:

On 12 December 1984 dense fog shrouded the M25 near Godstone, in Surrey, a few miles south of London. The hazard warning lights were on, but were ignored by most drivers. At 6.15 a.m. a lorry carrying huge rolls of paper was involved in an accident, and within minutes the carriageway was engulfed in carnage. Dozens of cars were wrecked. Ten people were killed. A police patrol car was soon on the scene, and two policemen ran back up the motorway to stop oncoming traffic. They waved their arms and shouted as loud as they could, but most drivers took no notice and raced on towards the disaster that awaited them. The policemen then picked up traffic cones and flung them at the cars' windscreens in a desperate attempt to warn drivers of their danger; one told how tears streamed down his face as car after car went by and he waited for the sickening sound of impact as they hit the growing mass of wreckage farther down the road.

Blanchard concludes: “The plight of the lost is so terrible, the power of sin so great and the horror of hell so fearful—how can you possibly do nothing to warn people of their danger and to point them to the Saviour?”¹¹

Great God, what do I see and hear?
The end of things created!
The Judge of all mankind appears,
On clouds of glory seated.
The trumpet sounds, the graves restore,
The dead which they contained before!
Prepare, my soul, to meet Him …

But sinners, filled with guilty fears,
Behold His wrath prevailing.
In woe they rise, but all their tears

And sighs are unavailing.
The day of grace is past and gone;
Trembling they stand before His throne,
All unprepared to meet Him.¹²

So maybe it is time to have that chat with your neighbour, work colleague or friend at university. If what I have said is true—if they are outside of Christ—then they are heading for hell, and we may be the only Christian they know. Rather than seeing it as a burden, we ought to view it as a privilege: we have incredibly good news for them.

5. Bold to proclaim

Fifthly, hell should make believers bold to proclaim. Understanding the context of a number of texts on hell provides helpful resources for the believer in their Christian life. For example, in both Matthew 10:28 and Luke 12:5, Jesus' talk of hell arises out of commissioning his disciples to go and preach: “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” The idolatry of pleasing other people and fearing what they think, which we are all so prone to, is best remedied by a wholesome fear of the one who rules hell. What do we think our work colleagues or fellow students are going to do when we tell them about Christ? Laugh at us? Talk behind our backs? Not sit with us at lunchtime? When we compare this sort of ‘persecution’ to that which our brothers and sisters in, say, Indonesia face (beatings, torture, jail and even death itself), our caving into peer pressure or pleasing others really does appear feeble.

This is not to say that for a shy Christian girl at university, talking to her non-Christian friends about Christ should feel easy and normal. God has made us all different in this regard: some of us have more confidence as people than others, depending on our personality and family upbringing. But whoever it is God has made us to be, and whatever pressure or persecution we fear, when asked to give a reason for the hope within us (1 Pet 3:15), let Jesus' words stir you to boldness: “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

6. Confidence to persevere

Sixthly, hell should make believers confident to persevere. In Revelation 14, the prospect of God's future judgements on all who have worshipped the beast “call[s] for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus” (v. 12). In other words, the eschatological judgement in hell that awaits those who worship the beast serves as a warning to not fall away from serving Jesus Christ faithfully. Similar logic is used in Hebrews, where the writer encourages Christian believers to persevere, since “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31).

New Testament writers use the reality and prospect of hell to warn believers about not falling away. According to Jesus in Mark 9:43-50, if his disciples don't do radical surgery on their sin, then they will end up in hell.¹³ Sin is, therefore, serious for believers. This key point is, in my view, often terribly neglected: we no longer take sin seriously, and subsequently, don't teach the full force of biblical texts such as Romans 8:13: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die”. The texts of Scripture on eschatological judgement warn us to persevere and endure to the end, helping us to fight sin, so that in the end we do not fall short (Heb 3:12-14, 4:11).

7. Comfort for believers

Seventhly, God's final just punishment of the ungodly should comfort persecuted believers. In 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10, Paul writes of hell in the context of Christians suffering persecution and trials. He assures believers that God will pay back trouble to those who have troubled them. Before we think that this is some sort of vindictive polemic on Paul's part, or contrary to aspects of Jesus' teaching, Paul prefaces his comments with a declaration of God's right and just judgement (1:5-6). What the persecutor of Christians will receive on that last day is only what they will deserve. The Belgic Confession (Article 37) articulates the point well:

And therefore the consideration of this judgement is justly terrible and dreadful to the wicked and ungodly, but most desirable and comfortable to the righteous and elect; because then their full deliverance shall be perfected, and there they shall receive the fruits of their labour and trouble which they have borne. Their innocence shall be known to all, and they shall see the terrible vengeance which God shall execute on the wicked, who most cruelly persecuted, oppressed, and tormented them in this world …

The cry of the martyrs in Revelation resonates with this: “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Rev 6:10).

8. Tears

Eighthly, the inevitability of death and the eternal fixity of hell should lead us to tears. The doctrine of hell is a painful topic, and those who do not respond with some emotional pain have simply not understood it. Jesus anguished over Jerusalem's stubborn resistance to his message:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Matt 23:37).

Paul wrote with emotional angst over the lost state of his Jewish brethren, wishing that he himself might be sent to hell instead of them (Rom 9:3)! God still pleads with sinners: “Why will you die? … turn, and live” (Ezek 18:31-32). John Stott writes: “I long that we could in some small way stand in the tearful tradition of Jeremiah, Jesus and Paul. I want to see more tears among us. I think we need to repent of our nonchalance, our hard-heartedness.”¹⁴ When was the last time you wept over someone you know who is heading for hell?

9. Right perspective

Ninthly, the doctrine of hell should be kept in the right perspective. This point relates to hell and living now as we await Christ's return. The thought that people are heading to hell should lead us to tears and to urgent efforts of gospel mission. When the church loses such urgency, the church loses a part of its soul. Hopefully these articles on hell will at least serve as an electric shock to stun you out of the triviality of your life and help you get things back in perspective: there is a heaven and hell, and the destination of every person on earth is binary. Moreover, perhaps for some who read these articles, the topic of hell may be another step along the way to pursuing the path of full-time paid Christian ministry. Certainly it was one of the things that sparked my desire to be a preacher of the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus. When the gospel is viewed against the backdrop of hell, “who, having been called to be a preacher, would stoop to be a king”?¹⁵

Does this mean, however, that every Christian should give up their normal job and stand on the street corners of our cities, pleading with every passer-by to accept Christ before the coming judgement? Should we blitz every letterbox in the world with a gospel tract? Can you really justify trimming the hedge when your neighbour is going to hell? I am, of course, speaking in the extreme. But then, isn't hell extreme? Should we not do everything we possibly can to keep people out of hell while we have breath in our lungs? As Charles Wesley put it,

Happy, if with my latest breath
I may but gasp His Name,
Preach Him to all and cry in death,
“Behold, behold the Lamb!”

In short, if hell is real and eternal, how then shall we live before the terrible and awful day of God's judgement? Or, as CS Lewis put it, more practically (in the university context), the Christian

must ask himself how it is right, or even psychologically possible, for creatures who are every moment advancing either to heaven or to hell, to spend any fraction of the little time allowed them in this world on such comparative trivialities as literature or art, mathematics or biology.¹⁶

In other words, if hell is real, what should I do tomorrow? Indeed, what should I do with the rest of my life?

In his brilliant essay ‘Learning in War-Time’ (which repays careful reading), CS Lewis comments, “Before I became a Christian I do not think I fully realized that one's life, after conversion, would inevitably consist in doing most of the same things one had been doing before: one hopes, in a new spirit, but still the same things”.¹⁷ Lewis remarks that when he went to fight in the Great War, he thought that it would be “all war”, but the nearer he got to the front line, the less everyone spoke about the campaign.¹⁸ Why? Because it is fantastical to think that a soldier's life consists of nothing else but ‘active service’ for one's country and fighting the enemy 24/7. Normal life continued on the frontline, albeit under difficult circumstances. In the trenches, soldiers still read books, wrote letters, enjoyed the simplicities of hot meals and warm clothes, told jokes, cried and laughed together. In other words, life, even in a war, is more than the war; and the Christian life is more than just saving people from hell—as vital and essential as such an endeavour is. The Christian religion, even though it occupies our concentration, time, energy, money and the best of our resources, does not do so to the exclusion of natural human activities. Certainly God's claims on our lives are infinite and inexorable, and every part of our lives should be lived in full submission to the Lord Jesus. But to think it necessarily follows from this that the only thing that matters in life is thinking about or doing ‘gospel ministry’ 24/7 is to have a truncated Christian worldview. To live as if the ‘sacred’ (as opposed to the ‘secular’) must occupy the whole of one's concentration, time, energy, money, resources and so on is not only to have a distorted view of the Christian life (the Bible presents no such divide between ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’), it is to aim for the impossible. No matter how hard one tries, devoting one's ‘active service’ to evangelism 24/7 is simply not possible, even for the full-time paid Christian worker.

Moreover, the reason no war or hell can suppress these natural human activities is because they are God-given in the first place, and are to be received with thanksgiving and enjoyed as things that are good in themselves (cf. Gen 1:31; 1 Tim 4:3). Eating and drinking—two activities that we think so little about in many ways—are to be performed for God's glory (1 Cor 10:31), and not primarily as a ‘means to the end’ of doing more evangelism so that people can be saved from hell, as is sometimes insinuated. Certainly, at one level, eating and drinking are a means to this good end, but that is not Paul's point in 1 Corinthians 10:31: food and drink exist primarily for the glory of God. All this is to say that the doctrine of hell does not mitigate or even suppress the natural human activities that God has blessed his world with, nor should it necessarily change what you were doing before you became a Christian (1 Cor 7).

This means that the Christian minister can take a day off or go on holiday, and enjoy these things as something good in and of themselves (not just to recharge the batteries for ‘more evangelism’). The Christian can remain in the job they are already in and do it “heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Col 3:23). The Christian student can read English literature at university for the love of good writing. The Christian teenager can go out for an evening with friends, enjoy a movie and not worry about evangelizing everyone on the way there or on the way home; that night, he or she can go to sleep with a clear conscience, and sleep for the glory of God. It is okay to mow the lawn, clean the pool, read the newspaper, walk the dog, play the guitar, do the shopping, bath the kids. It really is God-honouring and gospel-loving to do all those things and to enjoy them as good things in themselves to be received with thanksgiving from our good and gracious Father, even while hell exists: “An appetite for these things exists in the human mind, and God makes no appetite in vain”.¹⁹ Moreover, Jesus rose bodily with normal human desires for food and drink, and in so doing, reaffirmed God's physical world and natural human desires as things that would be an essential part of the new creation. The Christian hope is a realistic one—a new heavens and a new earth. Understanding God's affirmation of his physical world and the order he has ordained for it is a helpful framework in which to deal with hell.

Alongside understanding the normal human (Christian!) life, observing the way God made the world to operate also helps to keep hell in perspective. At some point “in the beginning”—perhaps after the Fall (we don't know)—God created hell. Yet, despite its existence, God established a working order to the world that neither the Fall nor hell mitigate. In Genesis 9, God reaffirmed his rhythmical order to the physical world: day and night, summer and winter, springtime and harvest. After the Fall and in the age of redemption, there is still day and night, a time to work and a time to sleep. As Ecclesiastes 3 states, “there is a time for everything under the sun”—yes, everything. There is a time to talk about hell and a time to go to the beach; a time to evangelize and a time to sweep the driveway; a time for tract distribution and a time for games with the kids; a time to pray for the unsaved and a time to watch the World Cup.

Furthermore, if we think that this is somehow ‘out of touch’ with the ‘last days’, then we must remember how Jesus lived: for him, there was a time to study the Torah and a time to work with wood; a time to heal the crowds and a time for dinner with friends; a time for a wedding and a time for a sermon; a time to go away, ‘rest a while’ and pray, and a time to observe the lilies of the field. Just as God in the Old Testament moved with majestic leisureliness through history (why did he take so long to bring about his promises?), so Jesus never ran anywhere (that we know of), and, on the one occasion where he should have ran (when Lazarus was about to die), he delayed two days. You may say, “Yes, but he was God and he knew that he would raise him from the dead”. Exactly; that's why he was able to keep hell in perspective, and so should we.

In relation to this, I want to say that in my experience of modern evangelicalism, there is a certain kind of ‘evangelical busyness/activism’ in which marriages are compromised, kids are neglected and people with real issues are forgotten. This busyness has more to do with an insipid Arminianism than with a robust Calvinism. Christ is on his throne; he has sent his Spirit into the world to call his elect irresistibly and apply the benefits of his saving death, so that on the last day, he will lose none of those whom the Father has given him. It is this kind of Reformed theology that should lead to a vibrant and active gospel ministry in our churches and lives. But at the same time, it does not create an either/or fallacy with the many other good things God calls on us to do and enjoy—for example, loving our wives, playing with our kids, working hard, receiving our food and wine with glad hearts, and then, at the end of the day, going to bed and sleeping to his glory—all while hell exists.

10. Heaven

Tenthly and finally, hell shall not mar heaven. JAT Robinson has stated that “In a universe of love, there can be no heaven which tolerates a chamber of horrors, no hell for any which does not at the same time make it a hell for God”.²⁰ Evangelicals have perhaps downplayed the aspect of Christ's death that accomplishes in no uncertain terms the ‘restoration of all things’ (cf. Col 1:20). In this regard, John Wenham is right to warn against the snare of some sort of eschatological ‘symmetry’,²¹ or even an implicit dualistic ‘stalemate’ between God and evil. So what do we then do with an eternal hell in the new creation? Our first port of call is, of course, Scripture. Jesus said to the thief on the cross that he would experience “Paradise” (Luke 23:43), yet Revelation speaks explicitly of the smoke of torment that arises forever and ever, and of the eternal lake of fire (Rev 14:11, 20:10). While in our minds we might find the two incompatible, we should be cautious of teaching our Lord lessons on compatibilism: there is nothing in Scripture that hints in any way that hell will somehow disturb or spoil the enjoyment of heaven.

WGT Shedd may provide some help by viewing hell as only a ‘corner’ in the universe.²² But perhaps JI Packer is more on target when he considers the issue theologically:

… it is said that the joy of heaven will be marred by knowledge that some continue under merited retribution. But this cannot be said of God, as if the expressing of his holiness in retribution hurts him more than it hurts the offenders; and since in heaven Christians will be like God in character, loving what he loves and taking joy in all his self-manifestation, including his justice, there is no reason to think that their joy will be impaired in this way.²³

Therefore, when Jesus said to the thief on the cross that “today” he would be with him in “Paradise” (Luke 23:43), we can have full confidence that Jesus' “Truly” was not a wish, but rather a promise: if God is perpetually happy within himself as the glorious Trinity—even while he judges sinners and punishes them justly in hell—then, in the new creation, there is no reason to doubt that our joy will be perfect and complete, for when we see him, we shall be like him.²⁴

Endnotes

¹ Cited in E Donnelly, Biblical Teaching on the Doctrines of Heaven and Hell, Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, 2001, p. 17.

² ‘Hell's fury unleashed’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 February 2009. Accessed online: May 2010.

³ Donnelly provides some sad examples (Heaven and Hell, pp. 32-33).

⁴ Cited in Donnelly, Heaven and Hell, p. 8.

⁵ L Newbigin, ‘Confessing Christ in a Multi-Religion Society’, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 12, 1994, pp. 130-31.

⁶ T Keller, ‘The Importance of Hell’. Accessed online: March 2010.

⁷ CS Lewis, ‘The Weight of Glory’ in C. S. Lewis Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity and the Church, HarperCollins, London, 2002, pp. 105-106.

⁸ J Betjeman, ‘Before the Anaesthetic, or A Real Fright’ cited in J Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell?, p. 60.

⁹ B Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects, Touchstone, New York, 1967, p. 111.

¹⁰ CS Lewis, ‘Learning in War-time’ in C.S. Lewis Essay Collection: Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories, HarperCollins, London, 2002, p. 171.

¹¹ J Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? Evangelical Press, Darlington, 1993, pp. 297-98.

¹² Bartholomäus Ringwaldt (possibly), c. 1556; translated from German to English by William B Collyer in 1812.

¹³ This is not to suggest that a Christian can lose their salvation, or have no assurance that their salvation is secure. Rather, it is say that one of the means of grace that God uses to keep Christians persevering to the end, fighting sin and obeying his commands, is the very real danger of hell. See Thomas R Schreiner and Ardel B Caneday (The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance & Assurance, IVP, Leicester, 2001) and PT O'Brien (The Letter to the Hebrews, Pillar New Testament Commentary, Apollos, Nottingham, 2010) on the relevant verses.

¹⁴ DL Edwards and J Stott, Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1988, p. 313.

¹⁵ Thomas Carlyle, reference unknown. In defense of lost references, see Hebrews 4:4.

¹⁶ CS Lewis, ‘Learning in War-Time’, in C. S. Lewis Essay Collection: Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories, p. 172.

¹⁷ ibid., p. 173.

¹⁸ ibid., p. 173.

¹⁹ ibid., p. 175.

²⁰ JAT Robinson, ‘Universalism—Is it Heretical?’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 2, 1949, p. 155.

²¹ J Wenham, The Enigma of Evil. Can We Believe in God's Goodness?, IVP, Leicester, 1985, p. 32 n. 7.

²² WGT Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, 1990, p. 159.

²³ JI Packer, ‘The Problem of Eternal Punishment’, Evangel, 10:2, Summer 1992, p. 18.

²⁴ I am indebted to Charles De Kiewit, David Gibson and Simon Flinders for their feedback on this article.

This is the third part of a series on hell. (Read parts 1, 2 [which incorporates 1] and 4.)

The Christian doctrine of hell may be summarized as a real place ruled by God where all who are found outside of Christ at death or at his return experience the eternal conscious pain of punishment, banishment and destruction. It is impossible to write such a frank and sober statement without a number of theological and pastoral issues coming to the fore. The aim of this article is to begin to respond to two of the main theological objections.

1. Hell and the justice of God

In Mark 9:42-48, Jesus states that those who do not deal radically with their own sin will be thrown into hell for eternity, “where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (v. 48). A moment's reflection on what Jesus says here raises the issue of God's justice: how can sin, committed by a finite creature in time, be punished with infinite consequences for eternity? As Augustine commented on these verses, “Who would not tremble, hearing from divine lips such a repetition and so vigorous a declaration of that punishment?”¹

While we may not agree in substance, perhaps we can at least empathize with those who struggle to reconcile how God can damn someone to hell for eternity for sins committed in this lifetime. The Christian response to such an objection is both complex and sensitive. It is complex because there is no one verse that provides a clear explanation as to why God in his infinite wisdom chose to create an eternal hell for sinners; it is sensitive because many of us will have loved ones who departed this world with no certain hope of their position before God.

In addressing the issue of the justice of God, it has been proposed that one or two texts in the New Testament may hint at ongoing sin in hell. Revelation 16:9 describes the response of those who receive God's “true and just judgements” (v. 7): “they cursed the name of God” and “did not repent or give him glory”. This may at least suggest why hell is eternal punishment.² However, the argument holds together only by logical deduction, since the text primarily concerns the time before the final judgement.³ Moreover, the issue raises the question of whether sin can continue in hell, since, as some argue, Christ's death reconciles all things to himself (Col 1:20), which, for them, necessarily entails the cessation of sin.⁴ It is not that the cosmic reconciliation involves ‘salvation’ per se, but rather ‘pacification’⁵ where all things are brought into harmony under God's rule, even unrepentant sinners (cf. Phil 2:10f). For Henri Blocher, for example, hell is empty of sin but full of remorse (cf. Luke 16:19-31).⁶ This position, however, is not without its weaknesses either: for example, it perhaps fails to provide adequate room for the picture of ‘destruction’ in hell where people deteriorate in some sense.

Space forbids a thorough discussion of this exact issue; suffice to say that the possibility of ‘ongoing sin’ does not appear to be a strong basis for affirming eternal punishment.

Degrees of punishment

There are some texts in the New Testament that suggest degrees of punishment at the future judgement, conveying the idea that the punishments are duly measured according to the crime committed. See, for example, Luke 12:47-48, where Jesus speaks of people being beaten with different degrees of severity. This correlates with Jesus' claim that the day of judgement will be more bearable for some than for others (Matt 11:20-24). “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48). In other words, those who have been given more knowledge have more responsibility for what they do with that knowledge. The day of judgement and the subsequent experience of that sentence in hell will be more bearable for the Amazonian Indian who has never heard of Jesus than for the son reared in a Christian home, who knew and heard the gospel but trampled the Son of God underfoot.

As difficult as such a truth is, it at least suggests that God's future punishments are not random, disproportionate or thoughtless; they are measured and appropriate. However, these preliminary thoughts do not bring us any closer to resolving the issue of how a finite sin can result in infinite punishment for an eternity in hell. As with all Christian doctrines, a number of key biblical texts and theological truths need to be held together in order to form a framework in which to understand God's justice in hell.

a) God's sovereignty and love

Firstly, besides the fact that the Bible speaks of God as utterly sovereign over all things, deciding the end from the beginning, it also presents him as deeply personal and infinitely loving. The God of the Bible is “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod 34:6). He stands towards his rebellious world—a world that has given him the finger more than once—and says, “Why will you die? … I have no pleasure in the death of anyone” (Ezek 18:31-32). Incarnate, he felt anguish over Jerusalem's stubborn rebellion (Luke 13:34).

b) Human responsibility

Secondly, the Bible is clear that human beings are responsible for their own actions and culpable for the consequences. For example, Jesus longed to gather Jerusalem's children together, but they “would not” (Luke 13:34). “All day long” God holds out his hand of salvation to “a disobedient and contrary people” who refuse to believe in his Messiah (Rom 10:21). The reason for their final, lost estate, then, is not due to any lack of willingness in God, but rather the stubborn rebellion of their own hearts. In other words, in the Bible, when someone is saved, it is all God's doing; when someone is lost, it is his or her own doing.

c) The greatness of God and the heinousness of sin

Thirdly, Scripture presents us with such a view of God and such a God-centred view of sin that, when held together, suggests that it is not the length of our sin that determines the degree of God's just punishment, but the height of our sin: “The essential thing is that degrees of blameworthiness come not from how long you offend dignity, but from how high the dignity is that you offend”.⁷ Admittedly, there is no one biblical text from which we may prove this propositional statement, but then no single text exists to prove the doctrine of the Trinity or Christ's imputed righteousness. As mentioned above, these doctrines and the truth proposed above are arrived at by holding together a number of biblical texts/truths in tension.

The supremacy of God and the seriousness of sinning against him are seen throughout Scripture. The first commandment makes it plain that God alone is to be worshipped (Exod 20:3). God is described as thrice holy, whose glory fills the whole earth (Isa 6:3); no other attribute of God is emphasized as much in the Bible. Nowhere in Scripture do we read that God is “love, love, love” or “just, just, just”. But in both Old Testament and New Testament, he is described as “holy, holy, holy” (Rev 4:8). God's holiness is his golden attribute that colours all his other attributes: his love is holy love; his justice is holy justice. God's holiness—his utter “otherness”—his “godness”—is so real, so intense, that even the cherubim fly before him covering their faces and feet because he is so unapproachable (Isa 6:2), for he dwells in “unapproachable light” (1 Tim 6:16) and his eyes are too pure to look upon evil (Hab 1:13). As fallen human beings, we have more of a chance of coming within an inch of the sun and surviving than we would of coming within a million miles of the light of this holy God and living to tell of it. An 1826 hymn by Thomas Binney captures the truth well:

Eternal Light! eternal Light!
How pure the soul must be
When, placed within Thy searching sight,
It shrinks not, but with calm delight
Can live, and look on Thee! …

O how shall I, whose native sphere
Is dark, whose mind is dim,
Before the Ineffable appear,
And on my naked spirit bear
That uncreated beam?

The intensity of God's holiness is highlighted in the story of Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's sons (Lev 10:1-3; cf. 2 Sam 6). When they offered ‘unauthorized’ fire to God, they were struck down immediately by fire. Why such extreme punishment for one simple transgression? God's answer: “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified [seen as holy], and before all the people I will be glorified” (Lev 10:3). In short, God cannot be stroked: “He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion”.⁸

Is this an aspect of God that we have lost in our modern evangelical churches? Do our Christian gatherings convey the weightiness of this holy God? Until they do, we will not appreciate the justice of God in hell, because in Scripture, when people sin, the issue is the dignity of the God whom they have sinned against. After committing adultery with Bathsheba (cf. 2 Sam 11), David cries out “Against you, you only, have I sinned” (Ps 51:4). David had sinned against Bathsheba, her husband Uriah, the child in Bathsheba's womb, his commander Joab and his nation. But for David, God was the only person he had sinned against. Sin is first and foremost a Godward thing. It is not “negation” (as Augustine proposed) or “nothingness” (as Karl Barth suggested); sin is an act of defiance against a holy God, and to sin against him is to incur the most severe punishment.

In summary, when it comes to punishment for sin, what the Bible seems to be saying is something rather simple, yet profound: a great and glorious God of infinite worth made us, and therefore we owe him great and glorious and infinite worship. If we do not worship him, then the consequences are of infinite magnitude. God is the most infinitely lovely, beautiful, excellent, glorious, majestic, winsome, delightful and wonderful being in the whole universe, and because he is our Creator, we are under infinite obligation to love, obey, honour, glorify and enjoy him forever; it is our chief end, our ultimate telos. But if we choose to turn away from that infinite obligation, then our sin is infinitely heinous and so deserving of infinite punishment. Do we really think that a teenage boy who punches his brother in the face should receive the exact same punishment for punching the queen in the face? When it comes to God, he does not just differ from the queen in degree, but in kind. Surely this is what Jesus presupposes when he correlates sin by finite creatures to an infinite punishment in hell in Mark 9: the severity of the punishment for sin is directly proportional to the importance of the relationship and the height of the dignity of the one we have offended.

d) God's justice in the gospel

Fourthly, the issue of God's justice in hell is inseparably tied up with his justice in the gospel. In Romans 3:21-26, Paul states something that is rarely heard in churches today: God's setting forth Christ as a propitiation—a God-appeasing sacrifice—was first and foremost to vindicate his own reputation. Paul explains the double dilemma that God faced: his seeming negligence for sins committed by Old Testament saints in the past and his justification of sinners in the present both brought God's justice into question (Rom 3:25a). Throughout the Old Testament, God had reiterated again and again and again his just punishment for sin and his absolute unwillingness to acquit the wicked (Exod 23:7). Yet throughout the Old Testament, believers appear to get off scot-free for their actions. Abraham's misdemeanours in Egypt and with Hagar go unpunished. David's affair with Bathsheba is conspicuously covered over—as if his repentance alone was a sufficient payment (Ps 51:16). But was it?

In the New Testament, the problem remains: how can a holy God declare a sinner to be righteous in his sight when the sinner is just that—a sinner? Thus, the issue for Paul (and God) is not how can God forgive a guilty sinner, but rather how can God forgive a guilty sinner and remain just at the same time? That is the dilemma that the cross of Christ answers: in Christ's death, God punishes the sins of all his people—past, present and future—to prove to the world that he is both just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus (Rom 3:25-26). In that one death, God accomplishes both the vindication of his own name and the justification of sinners who believe in his name. God's desire to vindicate himself from any accusation of injustice is of utmost importance to him.

e) Assurance and God's justice in the gospel

This is all well and good, but what does this have to do with God's justice in hell? Everything, actually, because further reflection reveals that our personal assurance of salvation on the last day is dependent on God's justice in the gospel. The joy of sins forgiven and the assurance that we really will be saved on the last day are based on the assumption of the illegitimacy of a double payment for sin. That is the argument of the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:6-10. In verses 9-10, Paul employs a from-the-greater-to-the-lesser argument to demonstrate that Christ's atoning work on the cross is the basis for the believer's absolute certainty of escaping God's final judgement: if we have been justified by Christ's death in the present, how much more will we be justified in the future, since the payment has already been paid? The argument only holds together on the assumption that God cannot punish sin twice. As Augustus Toplady put it,

If Thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely in my room endured
The whole of wrath divine:
Payment God cannot twice demand,
First at my wounded Surety's hand,
And then again at mine.⁹

In sum, if the gospel itself demonstrates God's commitment to his own justice, then why would we not also affirm God's justice in hell, since Christ's death is the payment made to rescue believers from hell? Christ's wrath-appeasing death and the punishment of hell equate to the same thing. Since God is so just that he will not punish the same sin twice, the issue becomes a case of either-or: either a person is willing to accept Jesus' just payment for sins, or they choose to justly pay for their sins in hell themselves.¹⁰ It is God's justice in the gospel that should enable us to affirm his justice with hell.

A summary of God's justice in hell

Hell exists to display God's good and perfect justice. The question is whether we have a God-centred enough view of God to accept this. John Piper has said that, as evangelicals, “We are willing to be God-centered, it seems, as long as God is man-centered”.¹¹ The point is perceptive, and hell is a good test for just how God-centred we are.

While the points above may not lessen the emotional weight of hell, it may begin to lessen the dilemma for us. “God is perfect. Justice and mercy are not abstractions; they originate in Him. They are adjectives.”¹² They are his adjectives. And beyond this truth, we must live by faith. As Henri Blocher comments,

justice and love are one in God, the same fire of holy passion. We cannot yet see that truth. We do not know how to reconcile the perfection of divine mercy, the bliss of the redeemed, and the torment of the lost. But we do not presume to teach our Lord lessons on love. But we do know him. Our disarmed faith knows God, and it suffices.¹³

Affirming the justice of God in the doctrine of hell is also essential when proclaiming the greatness of God's love in the gospel, which brings us to the second theological reflection.

2. Hell and the love of God

It is only when we have grasped God's justice in Christ's death (Rom 3:21-26) that we can then appreciate fully God's love displayed in the same death (Rom 5:1-10). For one can only speak of God's love (his gracious, unmerited favour towards us) if we first understand what he had to give in order to save us: God himself gave himself in order to save us from himself.¹⁴ What necessitated this giving was God's justice—a justice integrally bound up with his own nature: sin must be punished. What motivated this giving was God's love—a sovereign, free love arising from his own nature, not from any attraction in us. And why did God choose to act in such a way? Because that's the kind of God he is—a just and loving God.

More specifically, this giving involved Christ enduring on the cross the Father's unrestrained wrath against sinners. Pains and agonies of hell that would take the world an eternity to endure were poured upon Jesus in one horrific moment.¹⁵ This is the love of God, for the God who is angry at us and from whom we deserve an eternal hell is the same God who loved us and sent his Son to endure the whole of wrath divine. What is echoed in hell is not only the justice of God on those who are present, but also the infinite, amazing, love of God lavished on those who are absent. Out of the darkness on the cross, Jesus cried the cry of desolation so that we would never have to cry the cry of desolation in hell. He took our hell so that we could have his heaven. If we take hell out of Christianity, we divest Christ's death of everything, and destroy the brilliance of God's amazing love. The ‘dilemma’ of God's love and the doctrine of hell is not, therefore, “How can a loving God send people to hell?”; instead, it is, “Why would a just God ever rescue rebels from punishment in hell?” The answer is left to mystery—a mystery that should lead to worship, where all proper theological reflection ends:

And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior's blood!
Died he for me? who caused his pain!
For me? who him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?¹⁶

Read part 4.

Endnotes

¹ Augustine, Civitas Dei XXI, ix (1), cited in Henri Blocher, ‘Everlasting Punishment and the Problem of Evil’ in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, edited by Nigel M de S Cameron, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1992, p. 287.

² DA Carson, (The Gagging of God, Apollos, Leicester, 1996, p. 533) argues similarly from Revelation 22:10-11.

³ As Carson himself admits.

⁴ For examples of this position, see Henri Blocher, ‘Everlasting Punishment and the Problem of Evil’ in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, pp. 283-312; Andy Saville, ‘Hell Without Sin—A Renewed View of a Disputed Doctrine’, Churchman 119:3, 2005, pp. 243-61; and Paul Helm, The Last Things, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1989, p. 114.

⁵ So FF Bruce, The Epistle to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1984, p. 76. Cf. PT O'Brien, ‘Col. 1:20 and the Reconciliation of All Things’, RTR, 35, 1974, pp. 45-53.

⁶ Henri Blocher, ‘Everlasting Punishment and the Problem of Evil’, pp. 304-307.

⁷ John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Sovereignty of God in Missions, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1993, p. 127.

⁸ CS Lewis, The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, HarperCollins, London, 2001, p. 197.

⁹ ‘From Whence This Fear and Unbelief’ (1772).

¹⁰ This raises the question “For whom did Christ die?”, which, unfortunately, is a topic for another occasion. Suffice to say that our discussion has at least shown that the issue arises in the first place from texts like Romans 5:9-10 and 8:32-34, and not from ‘logical reasoning’ imposed on biblical texts, as is sometimes alleged.

¹¹ John Piper, God is the Gospel, Crossway, Chicago, 2005, pp. 12-13.

¹² ND Wilson, Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl, p. 181.

¹³ Henri Blocher, ‘Everlasting Punishment and the Problem of Evil’, p. 298.

¹⁴ John RW Stott, The Message of Romans, The Bible Speaks Today, IVP, Leicester, 1994, p. 115.

¹⁵ Donald Macleod, The Work of Christ, IVP, Leicester, 1998, p. 176.

¹⁶ I am indebted to Charles De Kiewit, David Gibson and Simon Flinders for their feedback on this article.

This is the first part of a series on hell. An edited version of this appeared in an article in Briefing #381 (Read parts 2, 3 and 4.)

For over 2000 years, the mainstream Christian church has affirmed the biblical doctrine of eternal punishment in hell. In the last 50 years, however, a significant shift in belief has occurred among Christians—even evangelicals. The influence has come both from within and without. Outside the church, philosophers like Bertrand Russell claimed that any person who was profoundly humane could not believe in everlasting punishment. For Russell, hell is “a doctrine of cruelty”, responsible for producing generations of “cruel torture”.¹ Our postmodern society's love of ‘tolerance’ and ‘each-to-his-own truth’ means that the concept of a God punishing people in hell forever is not only intolerable, it's laughable.

Inside the church, well-known evangelicals have brought the subject under increasing scrutiny. Some have demoted the topic of hell to a ‘secondary issue’, encouraging the tolerance of both traditionalist and conditionalist interpretations.² John Stott, who describes himself as ‘agnostic’ on the issue,³ has said that “[t]he ultimate annihilation of the wicked should at least be accepted as a legitimate, biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment”.⁴ Brian McLaren, an advocate for the emerging church, also opts for a form of ‘agnosticism’, downplaying the issue and wishing to focus on the positives rather than deal with the hard texts on hell.⁵ More recently, he has attempted to “deconstruct our conventional concepts of hell in the sincere hope that a better vision of the gospel of Jesus Christ will appear”.⁶

In short, the latter part of the 20th century has seen such a shift in thinking on hell that there is no longer a clear evangelical consensus on the doctrine, nor the accompanying conviction to actually still believe in it. This shift has led some to conclude that hell has all but ‘disappeared’ from modern theology.⁷

Three main alternative positions to the historic orthodox doctrine on hell currently exist and are gaining popularity within the evangelical church. This article will briefly outline them.

1. Universalism

The belief that every person will ultimately be saved is common to all universalists, but among universalists, there exists a variety of opinions on the theological content of the position.⁸ At the risk of oversimplification, forms of universalism may be divided into two broad categories: pluralistic universalism (the belief that Christ is one of many ways for the salvation of all people) and Christian universalism (the belief that Christ alone is the way of salvation, and every person will experience that personally, either in this life or the next). In some universalist frameworks, hell is not eradicated; instead, it serves only a temporary measure. Moreover, for some universalists, it is not rational or moral considerations, nor even an optimistic anthropology, that drives them to their position, but rather “the work of God in Christ,”⁹, which has been “one decisive act of God, once and for all, embracing every creature”.¹⁰

2. Annihilationism or conditionalism

Although important distinctions exist between these two positions, for our purposes here, they are viewed together, since they essentially amount to the same conclusion: people who die outside of Christ eventually cease to exist at some point.¹¹ The most common ‘evangelical’ expression of annihilationism is the view that people without Christ are banished from God's presence in hell, punished there for a time, and then finally annihilated, ceasing to exist. They are cast “without hope into the abyss of obliteration”.¹²

Since annihilationism is becoming the most popular alternative for evangelicals, it is worth looking at its principal arguments. Firstly, a number of biblical passages speak of the destruction of the wicked (e.g. Phil 3:19; 1 Thess 5:3; 2 Thess 1:9-10; 2 Pet 3:7). Annihilation seems to at least be suggested by this word, given that ‘destroy’ implies a cessation of existence. Edward Fudge argues that this is the uniform meaning of the word in both testaments.¹³

Secondly, the biblical imagery of fire supports this meaning of destruction, since fire destroys what it burns. To speak of the final judgement being like chaff thrown into the fire implies that the chaff is consumed to the point of not existing anymore (Matt 3:12).

Thirdly, in the eschatological texts of the New Testament, the word ‘eternal’ is ambiguous. The word may be used to refer to the temporal experience of those in heaven (Matt 25:46), but it may also denote the unending result or consequence of God's punishment, not the ongoing experience of that punishment. The eternity of the punishment may simply be that the cessation of existence lasts forever.

There are also some theological arguments for annihilationism. Firstly, the doctrine of eternal punishment is incompatible with love of God. Clark Pinnock vehemently argues that “the concept of hell as endless torment in body and mind [is] an outrageous doctrine, a theological and moral enormity, a bad doctrine of the tradition which needs to be changed”. It projects a deity of “cruelty and vindictiveness”; such a God “is more nearly like Satan than like God”—“a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for victims whom he does not even allow to die”.¹⁴ For others, eternal punishment is a “doctrine of such savagery”.¹⁵ John Stott is less heated in his condemnation; for him, the concept is emotionally ‘intolerable’, but he concludes that the final question must be “not what does my heart tell me, but what does God's word say?”¹⁶

Secondly, eternal punishment does not compute with crimes committed by a finite creature in this life. It seems terribly unjust for a finite sin to be punished with infinite consequences.

Finally, the doctrine of hell spoils the biblical picture of the new heavens and new earth—of eternal bliss and happiness. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes believes that the restoration of all things (Col 1:19-20) necessarily entails the removal of such a place called hell, for “When Christ fills all in all … how is it conceivable that there can be a section or realm of creation that does not belong to the fullness and by its very presence contradicts it?”¹⁷

3. Definitive self-exclusion from the presence of God

This third view has no ‘official’ label, and, as with the others, may take various forms. It is not an ‘established’ position on hell, articulated by a particular group within evangelicalism; instead, it is best described as pertaining to certain emphases on hell at the neglect or expense of others. In other words, it is not so much what the position affirms that is the problem, but what it fails to mention. Here I point out two such examples, and begin to offer a brief critique.

CS Lewis's writings serve as a good illustration of this position. He states: “A man can't be taken to hell or sent to hell: you can only get there on your own steam”;¹⁸ “the doors of hell are locked from the inside”;¹⁹ “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done’”.²⁰ Tim Keller writes similarly: “hell is simply one's freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity”.²¹

At one level, what CS Lewis and Tim Keller say here must be affirmed: hell is a person's choice. “All that are in Hell, choose it.”²² This is true. The life we live is the life we choose, and if we've chosen to live without reference to God, then we have chosen hell. But to only preach that hell is our choice suggests that God is completely passive in letting people go there, and that he has no active role in hell. The question the arises: how do you interpret texts that speak of God ‘destroying’ people in hell (Matt 10:28), or ‘throwing’ them there (Mark 9:45)?

Associated with this position is the increasingly popular view that God is not present in hell. Hell is complete exclusion from his presence; heaven is his presence: “If we were to lose [God's] presence totally, that would be hell”.²³ Again, as with the other aspect above, there is truth here to be acknowledged and affirmed: hell is the absence of God in his good, lovely and joyful presence; it is the absence of any mercy, grace or kindness; it is divorce from any relationship or even the potential for such. In this sense, hell is ‘separation from God’. To choose hell is to choose all that God is not.²⁴ At the final judgement, God will say to sinners, “Depart from me!” (Matt 7:23).

But is this is all there is to say about God's relationship to hell and those present there? How do we reconcile God's ‘absence’ in hell with his omnipresence? Moreover, what do we make of texts that say that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31), that he is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29), that God has ‘prepared’ the fires of hell (Matt 25:41), and that sinners are tormented “in the presence of the Lamb” (Rev 14:10)?

Of course, the questions I have asked of both these examples betray a pejorative edge. However, as with the other positions, a full critique will have to wait until the next article.

Conclusion

In the light of the above, as the evangelical church enters a new decade of the third millennium, we are left asking the question “Is the church still serious about hell?” These alternative positions present serious challenges to the traditional evangelical doctrine of hell. One response has even suggested that “The doctrine of eternal punishment is the watershed between evangelical and non-evangelical thought”.²⁵ If this is so, then the task of articulating the biblical doctrine of hell for a new decade in the evangelical church cannot be underestimated, since the ramifications are both cosmic and eternal in scope.

As always, when any Christian doctrine is under attack or just gradually slipping from view, the answer is found in returning to the Bible and allowing God's word to be the final authority. Such a point may appear simplistic, of course, since every side in the debate claims to be using the Bible to argue for their position—especially those attracted to annihilationism or the view that hell is merely self-exclusion from the presence of God. In the next article, however, I will provide exegesis of a number of relevant biblical texts in order to argue that the traditional evangelical position on hell is the most sensible and faithful reading of the biblical texts, and that, theologically, it comports best with the gospel of God's love and justice—a gospel that promises a new creation that really will be ‘paradise’.²⁶

Read part 2. (Note that the first half of part 2 is the same as this article.)

Endnotes

¹ B Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, Simon and Schuster, London, 1967, p. 47.

² For example, The Nature of Hell: A Report by the Evangelical Alliance Commission of Unity and Truth Among Evangelicals, ACUTE/Paternoster Press, Carlisle, 2000.

³ See Stott's latest biography by R Steer, Inside Story: The Life of John Stott, IVP, Nottingham, 2009, p. 228.

⁴ DL Edwards and J Stott, Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1988, p. 320.

⁵ See for example, BD McLaren, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2001, pp. 177-92 and The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2003, pp. 167-68.

⁶ BD McLaren, The Last Word and the Word After That, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2005, p. xvii.

⁷ R Albert Mohler Jr, ‘Modern Theology: The Disappearance of Hell’, in Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, edited by CW Morgan and RA Peterson, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2004, pp. 15-41.

⁸ For a helpful overview, see T Hart, ‘Universalism: Two Distinct Types’ in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, edited by Nigel M de S Cameron, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1992, pp. 1-34.

⁹ JAT Robinson, In the End God, Clarke, London, 1950, p. 108.

¹⁰ ibid., p. 99.

¹¹ As with universalism, there is a spectrum of thought within these two positions. For example, KS Harmon in ‘The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge’ (Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, pp. 191-224) observes three kinds of conditionalism: (1) “conditionalist uniresurrectionism” (all people are annihilated and only those in Christ are raised to everlasting life on the last day; Jehovah Witnesses and Socinians believe this); (2) “conditionalist eventual extinctionism” (all human beings are raised on the last day, either to everlasting bliss and so obtain immortality, or are annihilated; held by Seventh Day Adventists); (3) “immortalist eventual extinctionism” (though all human beings were created immortal, those outside of Christ will be annihilated after a period of time in hell). For a defence of conditionalism, see J Wenham, ‘The Case for Conditional Immortality’, in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, pp. 196-99.

¹² P Hughes, The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1989, p. 407.

¹³ E Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: The Biblical Case for Conditional Immortality, Paternoster, Carlisle, 1994.

¹⁴ C Pinnock, ‘The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent’, Criswell Theological Review, 4, 1990, pp. 246-47, 253. Edwards and Stott expresses similar views, though not as strongly (Essentials, pp. 314-15).

¹⁵ M Green, Evangelism Through the Local Church, Nelson, Nashville, 1992, p. 73.

¹⁶ Edwards and Stott, Essentials, p. 315.

¹⁷ Hughes, The True Image, p. 406.

¹⁸ CS Lewis, ‘The Dark Tower’ in The Dark Tower & Other Stories, edited by Walter Hooper, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1967, p. 49. Note that some scholars do not believe that Lewis wrote ‘The Dark Tower’.

¹⁹ CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain, MacMillan, New York, 1962, p. 127.

²⁰ CS Lewis, The Great Divorce, MacMillan, New York, 1963, pp. 72-73.

²¹ T Keller, The Reason for God, Dutton, New York, 2008, p. 78.

²² Lewis, The Great Divorce, p. 73.

²³ Keller, The Reason for God, p. 76.

²⁴ Cf. T Keller, ‘The Importance of Hell’. Accessed: March 2010. Online.

²⁵ J Ankerberg with J Weldon, ‘Response to JI Packer’, in Evangelical Affirmations, edited by KS Kantzer and CFH Henry, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1990, p. 140.

²⁶ I am indebted to Charles De Kiewit, David Gibson, and Simon Flinders, for their feedback on this article.

Recently, Peter Hastie spoke with Dr Scott Rae, Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at Talbot Theological Seminary, Biola University, Los Angeles, on the subject of bioethics. Dr Rae holds an MA and PhD in Social Ethics from the University of Southern California, and a ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary. His major interest is in how Scripture applies to current social issues. He specializes in the subjects of medical and bioethics and business ethics.

He is the author of a number of books: The Ethics of Commercial Surrogate Motherhood: Brave New Families? (1994), Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics (2000), Brave New Families: Biblical Ethics and Reproductive Technologies (1996), Beyond Integrity: A Judeo-Christian Approach to Business Ethics with Kenman L Wong (1996), Embryo Research and Experimentation (1997), Bioethics: A Christian Approach in a Pluralistic Age co-authored with Paul M Cox (1999), Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics co-authored with JP Moreland, (2000). He is also a consultant ethicist for a number of hospitals in Southern California.

Dr Rae is married and has three boys. He lives in Irvine, California, and when he is not teaching ethics and philosophy, he is coaching his boys' sports teams in soccer, basketball and athletics.

Scott, do you agree with Francis Schaeffer's claim that every culture will be judged ultimately on the basis of how it treats its people?

Yes, I think Schaeffer is essentially correct. However, I would go a little bit further and say that every culture will be judged on the way that it treats its most vulnerable people. The ‘vulnerable’ are not just the sick and disabled; it includes them, of course, but I am thinking particularly of children and the elderly. Although the elderly have always been vulnerable, they are becoming more vulnerable than before.

I think that there is also a case to be made that newborns are becoming more vulnerable too. While we don't have laws that would allow broad scale infanticide, there has been some discussion in the United States about overturning the ‘born alive’ rule that would allow physicians to finish off botched abortions. Currently this is illegal in America. If a child survives an abortion, then you have to support it; the child cannot be abandoned.

Why are you so worried about the elderly at the moment?

I'm worried about the care of the elderly because of the escalating cost of health care. I have a friend who is a physician who said to me some time ago that “There is nothing cheaper than dead” when it comes to caring for people. There was a case just recently in Oregon where a woman with terminal cancer was denied treatment but was offered the funding to pay for suicide. I think there's no doubt, at least in the United States, that there will be record numbers of the elderly in the next 20 years as the baby boomers hit retirement and then have to face old age.

Do you think that this is going to become the main ethical crisis facing us over the next few decades?

I'm not so sure about that. It's certainly one of the major issues that we will need to deal with. However, there's another one lurking in the not-too-distant future that's already setting off alarm bells.

What's that?

A growing number of scientists are talking about the remaking of humanity through biotechnology. I believe this is going to be the most pressing issue for some time. Nevertheless, we can't duck the problem that caring for a rapidly growing number of elderly people is a demographic challenge that we are completely unprepared for.

What's going on in biotechnology at the moment that's causing you such concern?

As you know, there have been some rather amazing developments in biotechnology that have enabled researchers to discover new ways to treat diseases. Some of these developments are now being considered, not simply as a form of treatment for disease, but as a means enhance a person's natural traits and gifts. We are now on the verge of altering a person's genes to prolong life or to create some form of artificial intelligence that will possibly expand mental function. There are all sorts of possibilities just over the horizon.

So are you talking about enhancement of a person's natural characteristics?

Yes, that's the ultimate goal for some of these scientists. Some of them want to experiment with drugs and genetic engineering with the aim of re-making a human being. The people who are working to this end are called trans-humanists. I know that what I am talking about probably sounds like science fiction, but some of these enhancements are now becoming more mainstream.

Does this enhancement include boosting physical performance and improving intelligence?

Yes, we are talking about both. Everything is on the table. There are all kinds of possibilities—physiological and mental. Theoretically, it should be possible to develop better athletes and give people sharper minds. Recent scientific discoveries are opening the door to longer lives, happier souls and more balanced emotions. All the science is there. The biggest problem we face is a moral one. Our culture is so driven by the idea of personal autonomy that, for the most part, we don't even think about the moral and philosophical issues involved. The average person says, “Well, if it's going to improve someone's life and prospects, then let's go for it!” It is all about the individual. Naturally, as Christians, we approach the issue from an entirely different world view. We are principally concerned with God's will rather than human preferences.

Once we believe, as some scientists do, that our lives are genetically determined, do we have any meaningful basis for ascribing value to things like love, friendship, sacrifice and moral values?

Among evolutionists, there is an attempt to establish a naturalistic basis for morality. Personally, I don't believe that their attempts to construct a system of ethics will explain a lot of the values that we hold dear. For example, I don't think naturalism offers a plausible explanation for self-sacrifice or compassion, and it certainly doesn't explain why we should forgive. So while they may be well-intentioned, I think they are going to come up short on a system that has a strong foundation for providing moral values.

Where do we get the notion of the sanctity of life? Is it the result of a Christian world view or can it be grounded on naturalistic assumptions?

I don't think that you can explain the ‘sanctity of life’ successfully on purely naturalistic assumptions. The only reason that the notion is widely accepted today is that it enjoys widespread cultural acceptance. I don't believe that such an idea can be sustained properly if it is isolated from our Christian intellectual and cultural heritage. For instance, I don't think you can argue that life is intrinsically valuable on evolutionary assumptions. It's hard to see how you could justify that there is something about human life that is particularly valuable over against other life forms. At best, I think that we can only say that human life is valuable on a utilitarian basis. Of course, grounding it on such a basis doesn't get us very far because it then depends on whether it serves a useful purpose to save the person concerned. That could be very bad news at the moment if you happened to be an unborn child or an elderly person with chronic illness. You see, it's possible to make a good utilitarian argument that keeping the elderly alive as long as we do is a bad idea. Certainly, there is no reason to keep an unborn child alive on utilitarian grounds if he or she is not going to be loved.

Can you help us understand why there has been such a dramatic shift in attitudes away from the sanctity of human life in the last 50 years or so? What has led our society to accept things like abortion, embryo experimentation and euthanasia?

These issues have been forced upon us by new developments in science and technology. Ever since the early 1960s when it became relatively safe to perform abortions, we have been forced to ask questions about the moral status of the unborn. Before the 1950s, no-one really doubted that unborn children were valuable. It was just a common sense view.

Again, from the 1970s onwards, a number of medical advances have made it possible to keep people alive who ordinarily would have died. Again, this has forced us to confront questions about when life really ends. It has also put us in a position where we are forced to define personhood. For example, does the fact that someone has advanced dementia and is perpetually curled up in the foetal position in a nursing home still mean that they are human? Is it possible through sickness or disability to forfeit our humanity? The unusual circumstances today in which we sometimes find ourselves have forced us to re-examine our definition of a human being. And what has happened is that we have moved from an ‘essential’ view of a person to a more ‘functional’ one. We are seeing a disturbing trend developing where it's becoming more normal to consider someone as a person by virtue of what they can do rather than by what they are. This is a major shift.

To what extent are these changes being driven by ideology?

People's outlook on life is certainly changing. As secular views of life such as naturalism have become more influential, we find that people tend to think in these newer categories. Now for naturalists, there are no real categories for things like ‘essences’, ‘natures’ and ‘souls’. The typical naturalist really doesn't have much else besides a functional view of human beings. I think this is a big shift from the traditional view in the West that has always seen a spiritual dimension to human identity. However, naturalists tend to reduce our humanity to an ability to perform certain critical functions. It is a very thin and one-dimensional approach to human existence.

What part does the new discipline of socio-biology play in this change of values, and what have been its underlying assumptions about humanity?

This is a huge area. But in a nutshell, socio-biology and the neurosciences are an extension of a naturalistic worldview into areas that traditionally have been the domain of theology. Scientists who work in these areas commonly ascribe to the brain the sorts of things that Christians would normally ascribe to the soul. Obviously you don't have to go very far down this route to challenge the biblical and theistic view of a person. I have noticed in recent times that some Christian scholars are arguing that you be a Christian and yet have a naturalistic view of the person. They don't see any real incompatibility between the two positions because they are teaching that the Bible doesn't demand souls.

Are these scholars evangelicals?

Some of them would probably claim to be. Some of the top folks at Fuller Seminary would fall into this category. People like Nancy Murphy and Joel Green come to mind. In fact, Joel Green has just written a new book, Body, Soul and Human Life. He is just one of many theologians who are trying to make a serious attempt at integrating the sciences into their view of theology. Personally, I think they have sacrificed too many of the essentials in their drive to integrate science with theology. I mean, does it follow logically that we can discount the existence of the soul simply because neuroscientists can explain through brain function what happens when people pray, or how religious services lift someone's mood? I don't see how it follows that their observations on brain function capture the whole transaction that's taking place between God and man. They can't rule out the spiritual presence of God in a person anymore than religious sociologists can explain the prevalence of religious belief in a community by certain social factors.

Why do many of today's scientists feel that they are free to manipulate human nature?

Well, many of them are obviously imbued with the idea of Francis Bacon that man is the master of nature. Then again, there is the strong cultural drive towards personal autonomy. The combination of these ideas has led people to think that we have the capability to master not only the world, but also our own nature and destiny.

I would also add that genetic technologies have encouraged the idea that the core of human identity is to be found in our genome. This is clearly a naturalistic manipulation of genetic formation. Nothing of the sort follows from our observation of the genome. Ultimately we are not reducible to anything that is physical.

So I would be very careful about anyone who thinks that he can put all your genetic information on a CD and say, “Hey, this is you!” That's ludicrous.

How is this new approach to human life affecting our approach to death and sickness?

Now that people are starting to look at our humanity in a utilitarian or functional way, this has a serious effect on the way they approach the end of life. Many people now believe that they have the right to determine when and how they shall end their lives. It is the ultimate act of self-autonomy. Some states in the USA are making it possible for people to make these choices. For example, the State of Washington passed an assisted suicide initiative last November. The State of Oregon has one too. Florida is likely to follow because it has a large population of elderly people. A lot of people seem to think that assisted suicide is a win-win situation. Patients think that they are put out of their suffering while society believes that it has saved itself some money on useless medical care. What is there not to love about that?

Well, what is not to love about this is that there is a steady trend from voluntary to non-voluntary assistance for suicide. This is now well-documented in places in Europe where euthanasia has been legalized for some time. What really worries me about this type of legislation is that once it gets enacted, it is very difficult to police. I mean, how will you know that the procedures were followed if there is some collusion in bringing about a person's death?

The pressure to introduce euthanasia shows no sign of abating. What do you think is going to happen in the future?

I think that there are likely to be increasing calls for its legalization. There are enormous demographic pressures building as a result of a significant increase of elderly people. The one encouraging sign as the push to legalize euthanasia gains ground is that we are finding that the better we are at treating pain, the less the incidence of requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide. It is a self-evident thing. If we control people's pain, then they want to live. What a surprise that turns out to be! The reason people want assisted suicide is that they are afraid of dying in pain. The good news is that we are capable today of controlling virtually everyone's pain. It is interesting that the proponents of euthanasia never claim that suicide is the more merciful or compassionate approach to suffering. They always argue from the right to die and autonomy. They have to do this because, apart from a very small number of cases, it is possible to control most people's pain. So there is just no need for euthanasia. In one sense, it is a case of ‘burning down the barn to roast the pig’, as we would say in Texas. Euthanasia is a draconian solution for a real problem. There is no doubt that many people who are facing death are in real pain. That is a major problem. However, the answer is to control people's pain, not to put them to death.

What is going to be the effect on the care of the elderly if euthanasia is legalized? What do you see happening in terms of current health care?

I am not optimistic about what would happen in society if euthanasia becomes an accepted means of dealing with chronically or acutely sick people. I don't think people understand fully that one of the reasons why we have such good hospice care and pain management is because assisted suicide is off-limits. At the moment, it seems that in Oregon, the practice of assisted suicide and the proper care of the elderly are coexisting. However, I am just not sure what will happen during the next 20 years as very large numbers of elderly people require a high level of health and hospital care. Frankly, I am not optimistic about maintaining good care.

I don't think our legislators appreciate how dangerous it will be in the future to have assisted suicide on the table as one of the options. Those in favour of assisted suicide argue, “Why would you possibly object to that?” The answer to their question is that with the projected demographic changes, the pressure to make greater use of assisted suicide will be almost irresistible. I realize that I am speculating here, but so are those who are advocating assisted suicide. In general, I think the jury is still out on what the future holds, but I find no encouragement at all in the fact that I will be one of the elderly in the next 30 years. I'm certainly glad that I don't live in parts of Europe like the Netherlands where assisted suicide has been legalized.

Is there a possibility that medical staff might conspire to euthanize certain patients who are very sick?

It's a possibility. Say you and I are part of a medical team, and we are having a conversation about a patient lying in a bed. Who is ever going to find out that we have coerced him? No-one is likely to find out. These laws that are supposed to afford some sort of protection are simply not enforceable; breaches of them are also undetectable. While it would be a felony under the Oregon and Washington statutes to coerce a person to commit suicide, there are really no significant safeguards against abuse. These laws don't have any teeth at all.

When does an embryo become human? Are there theological and physiological factors that you think are decisive in answering this question?

Well, I think the issue is really only physiological. There is really no theological dispute that embryos are human or that they are alive. An embryo is human as soon as it has finished the process of fertilization, which is a 6-12 hour process. Once that has finished, then an embryo is human. I would argue that from the first hour, an embryo has all the capacities necessary to mature into a foetus and newborn, and then an adult. So after the embryonic stages, there are no capacities added; they are just actualized. If an embryo was not human, then we would not be nearly as interested in stem cells.

Given all the modern forms of contraception available, is abortion still being practised at significant rates?

You know, it is. It's absolutely tragic. The number of abortions in the USA is currently running around a million each year. It is still used as the birth control of last resort. I don't know if that is because women can't afford the pill or guys don't want to do birth control, but it's widely available.

Tell me, are live births still occurring as a result of abortions of foetuses in the second trimester?

Yes.

So there are little babies who are five months old that are being born alive after an abortion?

Yes. There were, at one particular neonatal ICU ward, children as old as 23 weeks. That is four and a half months.

If an abortion takes place and a child is born live, what happens?

You mean what should happen, or what does happen?

What should happen?

What should happen is that all measures should be taken to rescue the child. However, what often happens is that the child is killed when they are out of the womb, or they are abandoned and allowed to die on their own so that the charge of infanticide can be avoided. The law in the United States prescribes very clearly that when abortion fails and the child is born alive, then they have to be given all the treatment necessary for them to be stabilized.

So you are saying that there are instances when that is not happening?

Oh, yes. I think that it's more common than we would want to believe. Then norm is probably that the children are abandoned.

When you say abandoned, do you mean that they are just put somewhere out of the way and left?

Yes, they are just put in an out-of-the-way place and left to die on their own.

Does this amount to a conspiracy on the part of staff working there?

It certainly requires their cooperation in not rescuing the child. You need to remember that most of these places where newborns survive abortions are not in neonatal ICUs or high quality care clinics; they are in abortion clinics. The abortion clinic doesn't have neonatal intensive care facilities on hand; after all, why would they? This means that to obey the law, they have to rush the baby to a neonatal ICU, which may be all the way across town. Of course, that would be a public relations nightmare for them, so there are significant incentives to abandon the child in an abortion clinic, or for an abortion physician to commit infanticide and finish off the botched procedure. That is probably more the norm today, but the law was written specifically to prevent both those events.

Do people ever get apprehended for those sorts of things?

There may be some states where it happens occasionally, but I think it's very rare. I can't remember the last time I read about some physician being prosecuted for something like that. In the next few days, we have a guest speaker at Biola University called Gianna Jessen. She is part of our ‘Sanctity of Life’ week celebrations. She is now in her late 20s and she survived a botched abortion. It's a really remarkable story. She was badly burned with saline solution for 17 hours as part of the abortion process. And by God's grace, she survived!

What are the after-effects of abortion?

The post-abortion syndrome is very real, and most women feel a significant sense of loss. This is particularly true if an abortion is done for reasons of genetic abnormality or birth defect. Women who don't want their child still recognize that they have done something deliberate to end their child's life. The abortion stops a beating heart. That's the truth. I think women are usually told that “You can come in on Friday and you get this ‘taken care of’, and then go back to your life on Monday and are done with it”. It's very rare that it works that way.

What are some of the social consequences of widespread acceptance of abortion?

I think society's acceptance of abortion has generally coarsened our view of the sanctity of life. What I find interesting is that modern technology is allowing us to view the wonder of a developing child within its mother's uterus, while at the same time, we have a progressive hardening in our view of the unborn. 30 years ago, it would have been almost unthinkable for a woman to have a baby in the ladies' room and then throw it in a trash can.

Two former Nobel laureates, James Watson and Francis Crick, say that a newborn child should not be called human until it has passed a number of tests with respect to its genetic endowment. They say that if it fails one of those tests, then it cannot be classed as human. What is your response to that?

Well, if we are going to be consistent with this standard, then it seems to me that we have a lot of adults that we need to put to death. There are also a lot of severely disabled and handicapped adults that don't deserve to live either.

So what they are advocating is really a form of genocide.

Yes, it's a form of genocide. It is genocide against the disabled. Actually, I wonder whether these people have really thought through the social consequences of what they are advocating. For example, it's popular today to talk a lot about value and diversity. Well, here's a classic case of rubbing it out. To say that the disabled and the handicapped do not have valuable contributions to make and ought to be valued really flies in the face of our emphasis on diversity. I am glad to hear these people say it straight out because it is good that they are not just using euphemisms to mask their real intentions.

Some ethicists today are saying that we must take seriously the notions of meaningful life and wrongful life in determining who should live. How would they handle people like Helen Keller and Stephen Hawking?

On their criteria, if they were to be consistent, they would have to dispatch them. If people had known that Stephen Hawking was going to be born with the disabilities he now has, he would never have been allowed to be born. And the world of physics would have been poorer because of it. The same goes for Beethoven, incidentally; he suffered profound deafness.

I would love to take an anecdotal survey of the disabled and ask them if they would have been better off if they had never been born. It would be interesting to see what they say. I suspect that they would look at us like we had come from another planet, and rightly so. I think that the question of meaningful life is a silly question to ask someone who is living and flourishing, albeit in a limited capacity.

If doctors make a decision to allow a baby to die because it is suffering from, say, cardiopulmonary problems, is there any reason why they shouldn't make the same decision in an adult? If they decide to assist the adult, then what is the basis of making that decision?

That's a good question. See, I don't have an objection to newborns or adults being allowed to die if further treatments are futile. The same is true if additional treatment is more burdensome than beneficial. If you say, “Stop. I'm done. I don't want to live out the rest of my days with tubes down my throat”, then you ought to be able to say that. It may actually hasten your death, but so be it.

However, it's different if somebody else starts making those choices for you. I would have a real problem about somebody else saying that for me unless they were representing my wishes and speaking on my behalf.

But I think a person ought to be able to say, “Enough!”, where it is obvious that further procedures are only going to prolong the suffering with no prospects of recovery. I think it's right and deeply Christian to say “Enough!” when our position is terminal. If our view of eternity is correct, then what business do you have delaying a loved one's homecoming by hooking him/her up to technologies and tubes that the physicians have deemed are futile? Again, we can put it like this: “What business do we have in increasing another person's net suffering at the end of his life if the burdens far outweigh the benefits?”

I really think people should be able to say “Enough”. I don't think ‘sanctity of life’ means that we have to treat everybody at all costs and at all times. That's making an idol out of earthly life. Theologically, earthly life is not the highest good. If we define the sanctity of life as meaning that we support life even when it is futile to do so over the longer term, then we are obligated to do everything possible at all times and at any cost. When death is inevitable, there is nothing wrong with allowing it to take its natural course. Christian families need to hear that because sometimes they think they are violating the sanctity of life unless they take every measure possible even when it is futile to do so.

How should Christians be viewing developments in stem cell research?

For the most part, very enthusiastically, because the vast majority of clinical applications are coming from stem cells harvested from non-embryonic sources, which is entirely non-controversial. Incidentally, this is where all the action is.

So are you concerned at some of the current decisions that are being made at a political level to promote embryonic stem cell research?

Yes, I am. There are a couple of reasons for my concern. Firstly, I don't believe that it is ever justifiable to kill one person to benefit another. I don't think that we should agree with that under any circumstances. A second reason is because so much of the promise of embryonic stem cells lies off in the distant future. In these circumstances, I think we are giving people with debilitating diseases false hope that their cure is right around the corner. The simple fact is that it isn't. If the cures were right around the corner, then the venture capitalists would be funding this, not the taxpayers.

Is it true that it's far more effective to use stem cells that come from relatives rather than stem cells from the wider population?

That is right, and the reason is that the donor is a match to the recipient. Using stem cells from leftover embryos is virtually useless for treatments because it's like doing a bone marrow transplant from some guy off the street. He may not be compatible. The good news on embryonic stem cells is that we will be having new discussions on this subject sometime soon because both in Japan and in two places in the United States, researchers have reprogrammed adult cells back to a stage where they can harvest stem cells. It happened last year, and it was done without using embryos. This discussion about using embryos will be irrelevant in five years.

How important is it for the church to endorse the historicity and integrity of the Genesis record as a means of articulating a defence for the sanctity of life?

That's a good question. Can you sustain the traditional doctrine that man is made in the image of God and also allow for an evolutionary reading of the text of Genesis? Frankly, I am really reluctant to let the camel get his nose in the tent on this issue. I find it very difficult to see where random selection and providence could coexist. It hard to imagine why, in the providence of God, man, who evinces evidence of the most amazing indications of design, would have been the result of an entirely random process. If it did occur in this way, as William Lane Craig recently said in a debate with Christopher Hitchens, then it would be the most amazing miracle.

As I see it, adopting an evolutionary interpretation of Genesis is an attempt to make two mutually contradictory systems—theism and naturalism—coexist. I know some Christians—especially scientists—are comfortable with this approach. However, as a philosopher I am not sure that it is possible to be entirely consistent in being a theist and also believing in the process of random selection. Of course, I am always open to any new arguments on the subject, but I'm not holding my breath while I'm waiting.

Reproduced with kind permission from Australian Presbyterian, June 2009 (PDF).

Has the Church become captive to the spirit of the age? Many believe that Martin Luther's fears, which led him to write The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, certainly apply to the modern Protestant church. Michael Horton, professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, believes that the church has been taken captive by American culture and its ideals of consumerism, pragmatism, self-sufficiency, individualism and positive thinking. He claims that while the church still invokes the name of Christ, we have precious little reason to believe that we need him. Hence we are moving towards a state that he describes as ‘Christless Christianity’.

Dr Horton is the also editor of Modern Reformation magazine and the author of number of books, including A Better Way (on worship); Where in the World is the Church? (on vocation); The Covenant and Eschatology, Lord and Servant, Covenant and Salvation and People and Place (all on covenant theology); Covenants of Promise (on covenant); The Law of Perfect Freedom (on the Ten Commandments); and Putting Amazing Back Into Grace. His latest book is Christless Christianity. Dr Horton speaks regularly on White Horse Inn, a national syndicated radio program, and is a minister in the United Reformed Churches in North America. He lives with his wife Lisa and four children in Escondido, California.

Michael, in your new book, Christless Christianity, you claim that the historic orthodox message about Jesus is being lost in modern evangelicalism. What has led you to this conclusion?

Well, the simple answer is that I am becoming increasingly concerned about a creeping fog that is spreading throughout the evangelical world—even in conservative Reformed churches—over the nature and identity of Jesus Christ. My concern is that I can go into any number of churches and not know how Jesus will be presented. In some places, preachers will talk about him as the modern-day equivalent of a ‘life coach’ or a locker room pal. Others think of him as a culture warrior, philosopher or corporate CEO. What really concerns me is that less and less Jesus is understood as the divine redeemer.

Of course, there are plenty of other challenges out there as well. I could point to a number of theologians or Christian groups who are challenging central doctrines, such as original sin, substitutionary atonement and justification. However, my real concern is with the way in which Jesus is being presented within so-called evangelical churches. I am no longer confident that when I attend a church, I am going to be introduced to Christ in all the Scriptures.

So my aim in this book is to try and identify what this creeping fog is in a lot of our churches. In my research, I came across a number of recent sociological studies that were more effective than most theological analyses. The first study that impressed me was by Christian Smith, a professor at Notre Dame. He and a team of sociologists at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, put together a book called Soul Searching. It was published by Oxford University Press, and investigates the spirituality of America's teens. After five years of interviews and extensive research across various church traditions, he concluded that “moralistic, therapeutic deism” was the best description for the religious orientation of the young people he spoke to.

What does he mean by “moralistic”?

He says that the orientation of youth has a moralistic element to it because the most typical response he got from individuals went something like this: “People are basically good; they just need good advice and encouragement and coaching. Good people go to heaven when they die; bad people go to hell. I think I'm pretty good. Most of the people I know are pretty good, and so we're not expecting anything too dangerous up ahead.”

So, “moralistic therapeutic deism” is essentially a theology for nice people?

That's right. I should add that it's also therapeutic in the sense that God exists for my purposes and my personal happiness. He is there to make me feel good and to ensure my emotion wellbeing. Naturally, this is opposed to the view that we exist to glorify God, to honour him by our obedience and to serve others. For many young people, the question of whether moralistic therapeutic deism is true is immaterial. It may be true; it may not be true. What matters for them is how it makes them feel.

Finally, by ‘deism’ is meant a view of God whereby he keeps his distance from us and is not involved in our lives, except insofar as we need him to solve a problem for us or to make us feel better. Essentially, God functions as genie and a therapist. This is the view of God that emerges out of the Oprah culture of spirituality. It's deistic in the sense that it says, “Normally, God doesn't get involved with us; but if a special situation arises where we need someone to do some heavy lifting for us, then God will lend a hand. We just have to whistle him up and he'll lighten our load.”

Is this deistic view of God rooted in a particular ideology, or is there some other explanation for God's supposed disengagement from the world and human affairs?

I don't think that “moralistic therapeutic deism” is rooted in keen theoretical insights. This is one of the things that Christian Smith explored. He said that it wasn't really reflective. In fact, he observed that young people aren't thinking about what they believe or why they believe it. All that matters to them is that they have certain feelings.

One of the interesting things he says is that when you talk to young people raised in conservative evangelical circles, you discover that often the people who are most excited about talking about their faith are stunningly inarticulate about what it means. Smith said he would frequently ask follow-up questions like, “What do you mean by God? What do you mean when you refer to Jesus Christ? In what sense did he die for our sins? What do you mean by all these words you are using?”

He said that for the most part, they simply couldn't tell him what they meant. Their words were just feelings tied to slogans. They couldn't explain them. This led Smith to ask, “What are the pastors, parents and Sunday School teachers doing to pass on the faith intelligently to the next generation?”

Are there other scholars who have reached the same conclusions as Christian Smith?

Yes, there are. It's not just Christian Smith who is making these observations. Some well-known researchers have come to the same conclusions. For example, James Davison Hunter, Wade Clark Roof and Robert Bellah are all saying much the same things.

One of the most interesting studies to have emerged in the 90s was by Marsha Witten. She explored a series of sermons from Southern Baptist and mainline Presbyterian preachers over a 10-year period, and noted that the common theme in all their preaching was essentially the message of secular America. She chose representative sermons on the parable of the prodigal son. As she studied these sermons, she said that the common thread that connected them all was their small view of God. In this sense, these sermons contrasted sharply with the view of God that was characteristic of preachers during the Reformation and the Evangelical Awakening. The interesting thing about Marsha Written is that she has come out quite explicitly and said that she's not a Christian. Her book, All is Forgiven: The Secular Message in American Protestantism, was published by Princeton University Press.

As I have read these authors, I have found that they have some valid insights. So my aim was to bring some of that analysis to bear on people like myself who are trying to do a faithful job of ministry in evangelical reformed churches.

Do you think that our cultural focus on entertainment, or what is now called ‘infotainment’, has played a role in the development of “moralistic therapeutic deism”? For instance, a lot of church programs have a higher level of entertainment in them than teaching.

I think television and entertainment have had a huge influence on the way we communicate today. I don't think we understand how culturally incapable we have become of both preaching and hearing.

My friend, T David Gordon, has recently written an excellent book called Why Johnny Can't Preach, which explores this theme. He says that even if you go to a good seminary, it's very hard to undo all of the cultural emptiness that you were raised with. A lot of young preachers who have been through seminary now face this problem. They had to raise themselves while their ‘boomer’ parents went off and enjoyed themselves. While they were growing up, they received no teaching. They may have been interested in the Christian faith, but they received no systematic instruction even though they went to camps and sang songs around the campfire with a guitar. That is the culture that they were raised in. I was raised in it too. We weren't encouraged to think or explore theological issues.

What sort of Christian environment did you grow up in?

Well, my school and church experience did not encourage me to question or think seriously about my beliefs. It was a very experience-oriented environment. We could quote Bible verses about the importance of humility and loving others, but we were not taught to engage with serious issues. We were as affected by popular culture as everyone else. We were ‘dumbed down’.

Over the last 15 years, this trend has only intensified with the arrival of the internet. Now we act like bees flitting from flower to flower. We live with a remote control in one hand, looking for whatever entertains us.

Even the church has geared itself for the entertainment medium. We have become preoccupied with trivia. How often do kids say, “Dad, church is boring”? Yet the teaching and preaching at church may be good, and the sacraments are being rightly administered. Nevertheless, our kids are being lured to another church where they have entertaining and exciting programs, but where the teaching is vacuous. I mean, preachers and parents need to wake up and ask the question, “How can you deliver something that is profound and serious in a trivial and superficial way?” It's an important question that no-one in the evangelical church seems to be asking. But it's a critical issue for the future of the church.

We need to challenge the accepted mantra of the evangelical church—“unchanging message with ever-changing methods”. Methods are not neutral; they can either undermine or uphold the message that we are proclaiming.

You have challenged some very influential people in the wider evangelical church. Has it caused a lot of resentment?

I have had mixed reactions to my comments. I actually try to talk with people with whom I disagree. I want to have friendly conversations with them on these important issues. I work on the basis that I want to understand their position, and if we disagree, to move on. I keep in touch with many of them. I have an understanding with them that if we disagree on some important things, we don't let that affect our relationship.

Are you in contact with Robert Schuller?

I have been, but I am not at the moment. I do have contact with Rick Warren. I think that it's really important for me to say up-front that I am not challenging anyone's motives. I want to make that very clear. I would love to have even half the zeal that some of these folks have for taking the gospel to the world. I certainly learn from their enthusiasm to reach the lost. And I think Reformed and Presbyterian churches can learn from them as well in this sense.

But the question we must ask is, “What are we reaching them with?” That is my concern. I am not questioning anyone's motives. I don't think the average evangelical pastor ever thinks, “You know, I am not sure that I want to be Christ-centred this week.” I am convinced that he wants to be Christ-centred, and yet the diet he feeds his people is something different. I think a big part of that is because we take the gospel for granted. We assume that we ourselves know the gospel because we know a bunch of slogans and we have had a ‘born again’ experience. We assume that our people know the gospel too because they have had the same experience and know the slogans as well. However, this knowledge is only an inch deep. We shouldn't be surprised that the next generation doesn't know the gospel at all, and challenges the gospel at certain critical points.

You claim that the Christ of the Bible is missing in many parts of the modern evangelical church. How is this possible when so many card-carrying evangelicals believe in the authority of the Scriptures, the Trinity and the Great Commission?

Well, let's look at each of the topics you've just mentioned. The authority of Scripture, the Trinity and the Great Commission are staples of evangelical conviction. Indeed, they are central beliefs for the universal church as well.

Nevertheless, if you ask people who attend evangelical churches what they mean by the Trinity and the Great Commission, and what they understand by the authority of Scripture, my guess is that most of them would be hard-pressed to explain their views. And I am not alone in saying that. There are quite a few studies that come to similar conclusions.

Look at the authority of Scripture, for example. I have been in circles where the minister and the church would be described as fundamentalist. They have very strong views on the inerrancy of the Bible—almost bordering on an exclusive dictation theory. Nevertheless, on a Sunday, they don't have proper exposition of the text. However, if this is the inspired word of God and the means by which God recreates the world, I would have thought that, at the very least, the minister would treat it seriously and preach what God wants him to say. So, regardless of what we believe on paper, there is enough evidence around to suggest that our beliefs are not being translated into action.

The problem in a lot of modern preaching is that there is too much emphasis on feelings and not enough on content. The Reformers rightly saw that faith consists of three parts: knowledge, assent and trust. In conservative evangelical circles at the moment, there is a strong emphasis on assent, but insufficient emphasis on content. People may not know what they believe, but they believe it very strongly. All we are left with at that point is a faith that is strong on passion but weak on content. No wonder so many non-Christians say, “You guys really scare me!” In that sense many evangelicals are not really any different in the way they think from the cults.

If we go back to the sociologists and commentators that you have already mentioned, which one of them do you think has delivered the most incisive comments on the state of the Christian faith today?

They all have their strengths. Each of them has special insights on the subject. I think Christian Smith does the best job I've seen at exploring the spirituality of America's teens. I asked him, “Surely you are talking about Unitarians?” But he said, “No, in most cases, I am talking about young people who were raised in evangelical, Bible-believing churches. In fact, it's kids who are raised in these churches who are more likely to buy into moralistic therapeutic deism than the un-churched.” Smith is convinced that there is some causal link between being an evangelical and being a Pelagian—at least in modern America. I am not sure that I agree with him at this point. I think Pelagianism is more a default setting when people in our churches don't know what they believe.

It is a rather audacious claim that the modern evangelical church has been captured by the American dream. What specifically has led you to that conclusion?

I know I am painting with a broad brush, and there are a lot of exceptions to it, but I think it's generally true that there is a lot about American Christianity that is too American and panders to the American dream of consumerism. I hear a lot of criticism along those lines. The so-called ‘emergent church’ has been very critical of those aspects of modern American evangelicalism. However, once again, even ‘emergent’ churches are very consumerist. They are the ‘Starbucks Coffee’-type instead of the regular coffee shop. They specialize in postmodernism instead of modernity.

My problem with mainstream evangelical churches and ‘emergent’ ones is that in neither of them do we have a radical confrontation with the law in the gospel. This is not a problem we can fix easily. It's like smog in our lungs; we can't get rid of it easily. We just have to have to live with it and understand the extent to which it affects our breathing. However, the only way we can be transformed into the image of Christ is through the renewing of our minds through the word, which must happen week after week. This is the only thing that will progressively drive the smog out of our lungs. We must recover the categories of radical guilt and radical grace. We must understand what God has done in Christ. For some people, this might seem like heresy, but the main question of the Bible is not “What would Jesus do?” The real question is, “What has Jesus done?” The answer to that question unfolds from Genesis to Revelation.

And yet “What would Jesus do?” has been taught to the rising generation, and lots Christian youth have all got the wristband.

Yes, it's amazing, isn't it? Imagine if there was a wristband that asked, “What did Jesus do?” Maybe we would get a lot of Christian youth talking about the atonement for a change!

My great problem with ‘emerging church’ leaders like Brian McLaren is that they see Christianity too much in terms of works. In his book, Generous Orthodoxy, he says, “... my goal isn't to turn Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims into Christians, but to make them better Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu followers of Jesus.”

You see, if Christianity is essentially about following Jesus by doing what Jesus would do, then we don't need a divine redeemer. We just need a life coach or a therapist. So it's not surprising to me at all that this is now where we have come to. Brian McLaren acts like he is inventing something new when he talks about ‘deeds not creeds’ and ‘just following Jesus’. But there's nothing new here at all. It's not postmodern. I was raised with that emphasis as I was growing up in California 40 years ago. Incidentally, it's Rick Warren's emphasis at the moment too. He is also big on ‘deeds not creeds’ as well.

My observation is that this emphasis on “What would Jesus do?” over “What has Jesus done?” has been with us a long time. I think if you asked a lot of pastors to confirm this, they would do so. They all know what Jesus has done, they know the gospel, they believe they're saved, they've prayed the prayer. Their problem is that they think they can leave that behind and move on to transforming themselves and the world. They believe that the main issue now is about how to be a good disciple. And this is what my book picks up on.

Actually, Christless Christianity points out that the reason why evangelicals are going wrong is that we start with the wrong assumption. We assume that it's easy to believe the gospel. We think that's our default setting, however that's a serious error.

Actually, our default setting is that we reject the gospel. That's where we must start from. Even as Christians, we face this problem. We are always wrestling with our tendency to self-reliance. Even the Apostle Paul faced this issue (2 Cor 1:9). Our default setting is that we are naturally moralistic therapeutic deists. We are Pelagians at heart. We don't get rid of that tendency when we first become Christians; that is the spiritual sewage that has to be flushed out of us every day until we die. Only at death will we be released from this struggle. At that point, we will no longer be moralists. However, until we die, we are going to be moralists who believe that God exists to make us happy. That is our default setting.

We need to realize that, from the start, even as Christians, our default setting is that we think we can be saved by works. It's in our hearts. We are legalists through and through. Everybody, including pagans, has the law written into their hearts. We just take it for granted that we are saved this way.

However, what we must never take for granted is the gospel. We have no trouble believing in the law, but we find it very difficult to believe in the gospel. That's why the gospel has to be continually proclaimed in the church. Even Christians find it really hard to believe. It comes as astonishing, wonderful, surprising news every time we hear it.

Robert Schuller, who is very influential in the church growth movement, has said it's time for a new reformation. Now what sort of a reformation does he have in mind?

In one sense, Robert Schuller is old news. His star is fading; he is no longer the icon he used to be. Nevertheless, he serves as a good example of how deeply secularized the Christian message has become in our churches. Schuller's forerunner in the 1950s was Norman Vincent Peale. Peale was considered a liberal then, and evangelicals paid him no attention at all. But in the period 1970-95, Robert Schuller became very popular, and his theological convictions were far more troubling than Peale's. Surprisingly, however, evangelicals ate him up. He was welcomed into the evangelical fold, and became an evangelical leader.

I refer to Schuller in my book because, in many ways, he is followed by Joel Osteen. The media in America treat the phenomenal success of people like Joel Osteen at Lakewood Church in Houston as a novel event. It's not. The simple truth is that about once a decade, a new Joel Osteen is created in America. It is roughly the same philosophy, roughly the same teaching, and it all goes back to a book at the end of the 19th century called Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell. Norman Vincent Peale was influenced by that book. About every 10 years, you get someone like Robert Schuller—like Joel Osteen—who preaches this characteristically American gospel of ‘believe in yourself’, ‘pull yourself up by your own bootstraps’, “Here is some good advice and encouragement for how you can have a better life”, and “Here are some Bible verses to help you claim your best life now”. It has a fairly blatant therapeutic moralistic aspect to it.

Robert Schuller is quite unashamed in coming out and saying that the Reformation erred because it was God-centred rather than man-centred. I know it's hard to believe, but that's what he said! I mean, he did it on my radio show, The Whitehorse Inn. It's worthwhile quoting him because he was so brazen in asserting what we all knew he was thinking. I was reading Paul's words to Timothy where he says that in the last days, men will be lovers of themselves, boastful, proud, arrogant and so forth, and he interrupted me and said, “Son, I really hope you don't preach that”. And I said, “What, the text? I am just reading it.” And Dr Schuller said to me, “I don't care what it is. I am referring to whatever it is that you are spewing out there.” Well, I was shocked! I was reading the word of God, and he dismissed it in that way. Then he rounded on me by saying, “Michael, if you preach that sort of stuff, you are going to hurt a lot of beautiful people”.

Now Joel Osteen is no different. He says, “I am not called to preach the Bible, nor am I called to explain the doctrines of Christianity. My gifting is to encourage people and help them put their lives back together.” So, he said, “I don't really talk about sin. I don't talk about hell or Christ's atoning death to save sinners, because that is not what people really need most. What they need is encouragement, and that is really what I am best at.” In Schuller and Osteen, we have reached the point where preachers feel that they can create their own message, write their own job description—as if they are kings, rather than ambassadors. This is the self-made man. It is American Christianity, not just American culture. The moderate Catholic historian, Gary Wills, in his book, Head and Heart, describes American revivalism like this: “The self-made man required a self-made ministry, and a do-it-yourself salvation required a do-it-yourself church.” I think that is exactly what has happened in America. George Barna has said that very shortly, we will reach the place where most Christians will get their discipleship resources off the internet instead of going to actual physical churches.

Doesn't Barna see the church playing a significant role in the future?

No, he doesn't. Self-help Christianity has a very individualistic focus. There is little room for the community. Doing away with church and the community is the consummation of narcissistic, do-it-yourself, moralistic therapeutic deism. It is an ideology that un-churches the churched. This is where we are headed if preachers don't challenge this dangerous theology now.

Has the American church ever have a sound theology of sin? Has it been lost? Is Karl Menninger right when he says that the loss of this notion of sin is the most critical cultural factor of all?

Isn't it interesting that a secular psychologist is the one who tells us, “Hey, what are you doing here? Why are you abandoning the notion of sin?”? The move away from a biblical view of sin came after the First Great Awakening in the 1740s. It was more around the time of the Second Great Awakening in the 1830s that the rot really set in when the evangelist, Charles Finney, explicitly denied original sin. However, steps had already been taken in that direction by Jonathan Edwards' own son and many of his students, who developed what became known as New Haven Theology. This theology certainly played a role in shaping Charles Finney's theological views and ecclesiastical practices. This ‘New School’ Presbyterianism was what was responsible for the triumph of both Arminian theology and American pragmatism in the Protestant church in America. So the collapse of a biblical doctrine of sin goes back a long way in American church history.

How does the idea that Christianity is some form of personal therapy affect the ministry activities of the church?

It has had a very deep impact in a number of ways. Think for a moment of the music we sing, the way we speak about our relationship with God, and the new ways of evangelism. Every one of these areas reflects the depth to which a therapeutic orientation has shaped us.

Think, for example, of how typically we are encouraged to talk to unbelieving friends and relatives. Today, we are told, “Share your personal testimony!” Now, why should anybody care about my personal testimony? Perhaps it's useful as a conversation-starter. Or maybe it's a way of getting to the testimony that is saving. However, my personal testimony of how I ‘got saved’ is not the gospel.

A Buddhist can tell me his or her personal testimony. Everyone has a personal testimony about something meaningful in their life. However, Christians need to start telling people that Jesus Christ did not come to earth primarily to give us meaning, happiness, wholeness, and peace of mind. I know this will sound like heresy to evangelicals today, but not a single verse can even be wrenched out of its context to support the view that this is the gospel. So what is the testimony or gospel that Christians should be giving? It is that Christ was crucified for our sins and raised for our justification.

Think about this. If ever there were people who could talk about their personal experience as the gospel, it would be the apostles. But do they? Has it ever hit modern evangelicals how little we know about Peter, Paul and John, and how little we know about their personal relationship with Jesus? We know a lot about their sin and unbelief. We know that Peter denied Jesus three times, and we know that he compromised the gospel in Antioch. But do we ever hear about Peter's obedience and the quality of his prayer life? Does anyone bother to ask, ‘Why?’ Well, John tells us. He says that libraries could be filled with all of the things Jesus said and did, but the things that are recorded in his gospel have been included for the purpose of helping us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing, we might have eternal life in his name. That is the main point of the John's testimony.

Let's be very clear about this. John says in first letter that the apostles have seen, heard and touched Christ so that they can declare the message about him to us. In other words, they are not passing on a testimony about what has happened in their own lives; their testimony is about Christ himself. They are passing on information to which they were eyewitnesses in the same way that someone today might be a witness to a momentous historical event. What is the difference between the two? Well, the difference is that one is focused on our personal experience of Christ, while the other is focused on certain real and objective deeds that Christ performed for our salvation. The difference is huge. One talks about my feelings—what has happened inside me; the other talks about earth-shattering, historical events that have taken place outside of me. Now, the problem today is that most people in the West think that religion is all about what happens inside of me. And so most evangelicals today have become convinced that if we are going to sell people on Christianity, then we have to focus the message on what happens on the inside, rather than looking at what has taken place on the outside.

This is where we need to make a major decision. Are we going to frame the gospel in terms of what gives us meaning, purpose, peace and happiness, or are we going to talk in New Testament terms about what God did in Christ for our salvation to save us from his just wrath? That puts all gospel conversation in an entirely different atmosphere.

You say that it is possible to lose the gospel and Christ by believing that while we get into the kingdom by grace alone through faith, we only stay there by performing good works. Is that a widespread problem among Christians?

I think it is. It's been a problem in the church ever since Paul highlighted the problems in Galatia. “Having been perfected by the Spirit are you trying to be perfected by the flesh?” (Gal 3:3).

In fact, this problem is on us like the plague. One of the main concerns that I address in my book is that the message that I hear, both in preaching in America and overseas, is “Do more. Try harder”. Sometimes it's expressed in reasonably strident ways: “If you don't do this, then you are going to go to hell”, or “If you do this, then you are going to face judgement”, or “You better do this or else!” Alternatively, it can be expressed with a warm smile like this: “Okay, so you are not putting yourself eternally at risk, but you are not going to enjoy your best life now.” The point is that whether it is the stern version or the smiling version, it boils down to essentially the same thing: “Do more. Try harder”.

Joel Osteen, for example, doesn't dispense with law; he just creates his own. Osteen's version of the commandments doesn't condemn you; it's just a series of suggestions. You know, friendly advice as opposed to commandments. Nevertheless, he clearly says that if you don't follow these principles, you are going to have a difficult life. He has a kind of judgement, but it doesn't involve God's wrath. In a sense, we judge ourselves because we fail to follow the spiritual laws that make everything work in our lives.

In contrast to Osteen's model, the real law of God nails us. This is not a law whereby we judge ourselves, but where the holy God judges us. We are now completely vulnerable to God's searching gaze rather than to our own benign scrutiny. Whereas Osteen's model allows us to justify ourselves, the biblical model permits us to run to Christ as our mediator and redeemer. However, if people are not faced week-by-week with the reality of a holy God, then they are unlikely to ever receive his grace because they need to come to Christ as mediator to experience it. And this won't happen unless they are fully aware that they are sinners in need of rescue from the coming judgement. I think the main reason why people are not looking for a divine human mediator is because they really don't see that they have a problem that needs to be mediated. The emphasis that I hear, even in conservative Reformed circles, is on a long list of things that people must do every week. Of course, it may vary on the spectrum from, “Do this or else” to “Follow these principles and your life will go better”. But whatever it is, it is essentially law without gospel that I am hearing today.

You have earlier mentioned music as a purveyor of moralistic therapeutic deism. How significant a problem is music in this regard?

Music mediates. Our thoughts and ideas don't appear from nowhere; they are mediated to us by various influences. And these media are not neutral. When Paul says that the purpose of singing is to ensure that the word of Christ dwells in us richly so that we can teach and admonish one another, he has an entirely different purpose in mind from those who want to use music simply as a vehicle to express their feelings and emotions about God. The two approaches are fundamentally different. One is about truth—objective truth—and the other is about subjective therapy.

Paul also says that we are to make melody in our hearts to God with joy and thanksgiving. CS Lewis said, “My deepest experiences, my deepest emotions, come when I am taken with something other than my emotions”. The Psalmist puts it this way: “My heart is stirred by a noble theme” (Psa 45:1 NIV). Again, it is typical of Paul that he bursts forth into song as his heart is enraptured by the wonder and majesty of God's power and grace. This is certainly what needs to fill the hearts of Christians today.

Naturally, the Psalter and the songs of Scripture do this better than anything else. This emphasis, where it exists in certain hymns, definitely makes them stand out above all others. These hymns are great because, whatever subjective elements they contain, their focus is primarily objective. Their emphasis is on God and the work that Christ has accomplished for us. It is God and the work of Christ for sinners that constitutes the engine for praise and thanksgiving. The problem with a lot of contemporary music (and I am speaking here only in very general terms) is that its style and content is largely therapeutic—that is, it is largely about the expression of the believer's feelings. Certainly there is a trend in some areas towards a growing maturity, but so much of modern Christian music is nothing more than expressing how I feel, how committed I am, how obedient I have become, and so on. And that is a fundamentally different orientation to a focus on God in Jesus Christ that causes me to have Christ-centred emotions.

What are you saying to your students who are leaving here to go into this moralistic, deistic therapeutic fog? What are you saying apart from just ‘preach the gospel’?

I keep coming back to the simplicity of Paul's counsel to Timothy. He warns Timothy that in the last days, men will be lovers of themselves, boastful, proud, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Tim 3:2-4). The fundamental problem is that people are basically man-centred rather than God-centred. So Paul instructs Timothy to “Keep your head” and “Preach the word in season and out of season.” (2 Tim 4:1-2). What he means, of course, is that Timothy is to preach when it is popular and when it is not, and whether people like you or loathe you. We are to teach, correct, exhort and rebuke. Then he says, “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Tim 4:5).

I am struck here by Paul's focus. He is a man of one passion. His life is organized around the gospel, and he calls upon Timothy to follow him in this deliberate approach to his calling. I think that what that means for today's ministers is that we must set aside distractions. The problem is that some of our current distractions are very good things.

Now there are lots of things today that the church could be doing. Rick Warren thinks the church should be creating an army of foot soldiers for eliminating poverty, AIDS, illiteracy and tyranny around the world. Well, who is against any of those wonderful things? Not me. But do they represent the first claim on the church's time and resources? That's the question we need to ask.

Most churches I know that are not focused on the gospel are usually doing very good things. The problem is that the church is being killed by good things. The church has a very narrow commission. Christians are certainly called to do good things in the world. However, the church has a very specific and narrowly defined calling. Our primary task is to deliver God's good news from heaven—to be ambassadors of reconciliation. After all, if the world does not hear the gospel from us, it won't hear it from anyone else. So my advice to our graduates is this: “Don't allow yourself to be distracted from your central task by other very good things. Narrow your focus to doing the work of an evangelist. Keep your head down, do your work, preach the word and leave the results to God.”

Reproduced with kind permission from Australian Presbyterian August 2009.

Dr Carl Trueman is Dean of the Faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and teaches as a professor of historical theology and church history. He is married to Catriona, who is originally from the island of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland. They have two sons, John and Peter, aged 11 and 13. Carl was brought up in a very supportive but non-religious home, and was converted to Christ at a Billy Graham rally at the age of 17.

Soon after he became a Christian, he went to study at the University of Cambridge. It was there that he came under the influence of Dr Roy Clements, who was the minister of Eden Baptist Chapel. Through this ministry, Carl began to develop growing convictions about the truthfulness of the doctrines of grace and Reformation theology. On completing his studies at Cambridge, he went to the University of Aberdeen to study for his PhD in Reformation church history. In Aberdeen, he began attending a Presbyterian Church (Church of Scotland). It was here that he first encountered Reformed Presbyterianism. He was in Australia in 2009 to give lectures in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Carl, is there any point in studying the past—especially people's lives? I mean, people like Henry Ford once said that “history is bunk”; can we learn anything from it?

Henry Ford is wrong. History is essential. It certainly serves a more important role than simply being a mere recording of facts. Actually, if the truth be known, we don't have any recordings of pure facts because all history is interpreted on one level or another.

I think that the reason why it's important for us to study church history is that many of the issues that we face have occurred at one time or another in the past. So studying these past events gives us a better perspective on issues and problems that others have already grappled with. Of course, it's from this study that we can work out the best questions to ask as we face our own struggles in the present. In this sense, history plays an invaluable role. Every Christian should be interested in it.

What should be the areas of our focus in church history: men, women, movements/ideas or a combination of all three?

I would say a combination of all three. Although there has been a genuine attempt to be more inclusive of women in the writing of history, one of the problems historians face is that woman tend to leave less historical evidence behind. Historical evidence is like the ‘rubbish’ that we generate as part of the normal process of living. Men tend to create more of it than women. My wife likes to tell me that this is because women are generally more tidy and efficient. Whatever the reason, historians have to rummage through the ‘rubbish’ to construct a story. This explains why they tend to focus on subjects where there is a lot of it. Naturally, this leads them to write more about some subjects than others. Nevertheless, it is legitimate for church historians to focus on all three of the areas you have mentioned—men, women and ideas.

One of the towering figures in the early 20th century of Protestant Christianity is the Presbyterian theologian and churchman J Gresham Machen. Why has there been such intense interest in his life?

Machen continues to be a figure of interest for a variety of reasons. First, he was undoubtedly one of the most educated and articulate defenders of orthodox Christianity during the early decades of the 20th century. He figured prominently in the famous fundamentalist and modernist controversies. Machen was a highly respected New Testament scholar who sided very much with the defenders of traditional conservative orthodoxy.

Second, Machen has left behind an important institutional legacy. He was largely responsible for two institutions that survive to this day: the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of North America and Westminster Theological Seminary. I happen to be a member of the OPC as well as Dean of Westminster Seminary, so I have a personal connection to what he has left behind. My office is in part of the campus that is known as Machen Hall.

Finally, I also think that his little book, Christianity and Liberalism, was a tour de force that set out the issues of conflict between orthodox Christianity and liberal modernism in an amazingly simple, sharp and focused way. It has been a reference point for the issues in that debate ever since.

Can you give us a picture of the times in which Machen lived? Who were the leading thinkers and what was their agenda?

I think the early 20th century is clearly a time of great cultural turmoil. While the First World War did not have the same cultural impact on America as it did in Europe, it did precipitate something of a backlash against 19th-century Romanticism. A number of leading intellectuals like HL Mencken and Walter Lippmann were in the vanguard of a movement of religious scepticism that challenged the place of religion in American cultural life. They advocated sexual freedom and opposed Prohibition, among other things. Also, in the early part of the 20th century, John Dewey, the father of modern pragmatism, began to have an increasing influence in the education of Americans.

Before long, the rise of scepticism and pragmatism began to have an impact on the churches. This came to the surface in two areas. First, there was a growing acceptance of the so-called ‘assured results’ of higher criticism—that is, the belief that the Bible was merely a human document that was flawed. And second, it was during this period that there was a strong growth within evangelicalism of non-church-based Christian institutions, or what we might call ‘para-church’ organizations. Although many of the para-church organizations had laudable motives, their existence and prominence led to a weakening of the doctrine of the church and its institutions. This was the background from which Machen emerged and against which he needs to be judged.

To what extent do you think that the battle over the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible in the early 1890s was the curtain-raiser for the full-blown theological battle that erupted in the Presbyterian Church in the 1920s?

Well, the heresy trial in 1892 of Charles Briggs, a professor at Union Seminary, was certainly a turning point in that process. Briggs, in his inaugural address as professor of biblical theology at the seminary, condemned “the dogma of verbal inspiration”. This led to him being charged and prosecuted by the Presbytery of New York. Although he was condemned by the General Assembly and suspended from the ministry, the movement that he represented gathered momentum over the next few decades so that by the 1920s, the liberals were in firm control in the Presbyterian Church.

There is no doubt that the trial of Charles Briggs was something of a watershed. While the supporters of orthodoxy actually won that particular battle, to use one of my colleague Richard Gaffin's favourite phrases, I think they “chopped their wad” at the end of that struggle. They basically wore themselves out. The forces of liberalism became stronger as time went on, and the orthodox members of the church found that they could no longer call in political favours to help them in the struggles within the church courts. The cost of their victory left them spent and more vulnerable to the onslaught that was going to take place 20 or 30 years later.

Lefferts Loetscher, in his book, The Broadening Church, talks about the student body chaffing against some of the greats at Princeton like BB Warfield and other conservatives on the faculty. What was taking place in the intellectual climate and spiritual climate of America that would have set so many in the student body against such a stellar faculty?

This is a huge question that requires a far more developed response than I am able to give within the confines of this interview. But I can offer a few tentative suggestions that at least help to explain some of the most likely forces that were influencing the developments at Princeton.

Perhaps the first thing I should mention is that the 20th century heralded the growing power of youth. At the turn of the century, the scientific paradigm and the discovery of Einstein's theory of relativity led people to question traditional values and beliefs. Then, following in its wake, the age of consumerism burst onto the scene. The influence of both these phenomena led to a lot of questioning and re-evaluation. Youth became more critical of accepted ‘dogma’ and wanted to challenge many things. They tend to be iconoclastic in that way. The scientific paradigm is built upon improving on the past. You have to get out of the past in order to move into the future. Consumerism is built on the idea that “Why have a horse and cart when you can have a motorcar?” New is better than the old.

Thus a major cultural shift began to occur in the in the early 20th century. These changes have been unravelling over several generations so that our culture now favours the young over the old. We see this in the business world. Employers often prefer young people because young people learn new skills better than old people. With the arrival of advanced technology, we feel that acutely. My 13-year-old niece understands DVD players better than I do. I am dependent on her to help me record something when I am back home with my mum.

So I think that in the early 20th century, there was a shift in influence towards youth, and that this shift was inherently iconoclastic. I also believe that there's an underlying dynamic in academic life where young, hot-shot professors feel it necessary to establish themselves over and against their senior peers. This is also true in seminaries. There is always a temptation in theological institutions for young, aspiring professors to gather student groupies around themselves to pursue their own particular agendas. Again, it is always more exciting to think you have made a new discovery or advance than to simply hold the view that the old ideas were right all along. There were a whole variety of factors that led to disturbance at Princeton Theological Seminary in the early 20th century. In the first couple of decades, a perfect storm was developing that led to the kind of iconoclasm that you have mentioned.

One of the main advocates of secularism at the time was HL Mencken. He said that Machen's arguments for orthodox Christianity against theological liberalism were completely impregnable. Is the fact that Machen was such an able apologist the main reason why we should be studying his life?

It's certainly one of the more important reasons why we should be looking at Machen. The rather simple and obvious point that Mencken makes about Machen is that he was a front-rank, orthodox Presbyterian scholar who decided to speak and act like a front-rank, orthodox Presbyterian scholar who was justifiably angry at the betrayal of historic Christianity by so many liberal churchmen.

A few years ago, I invited a Roman Catholic friend to come and give a doctoral seminar at Westminster. I noticed that he was quite unashamed in asserting his position. The first thing that my friend said when he sat down was, “Okay, I know you guys are Reformed Protestant. However, I am a Roman Catholic, so I don't apologize for being in your faces with my Roman Catholicism as I present today.”

I know I have sat in many meetings and have felt the temptation myself to back away from conflict over issues of doctrine. It's easy as an evangelical, when you sit down in a room of Roman Catholics, to say, “Well, I know I'm a Protestant and you are Roman Catholics, but we have a basic core commitment and I am going to work on the basis of that”. Machen was the Protestant equivalent of my Roman Catholic friend. He knew what he believed, and he was unashamed about stating it. He was quite forthright in articulating what he understood to be the true Christian gospel.

Was there some particular incident or challenge that Machen experienced during his education that proved to be the catalyst for him to adopt the role of what Mencken described as ‘Doctor Fundamentalis’?

There is no doubt that Machen experienced a crisis of faith while studying in Germany under the German liberal theologian, Wilhelm Hermann. Ned Stonehouse describes the event in his biography of Machen. Darryl Hart also mentions it in his excellent book on Machen, Defending the Faith—J Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Protestantism.

While Machen was studying under Hermann, he was deeply impressed by his professor's passionate convictions. However, he couldn't reconcile that passion with the emptiness of Hermann's liberalism. I suspect that this challenged Machen to become as passionate in his own commitment to the truth of the gospel.

Later in his life, he faced a number of crises. One of these was when the liberal element within the Presbyterian Church tried to transform Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1929, liberal churchmen persuaded the General Assembly to reconstitute the board of the seminary. This meant that Princeton became a more broad-based, generic institution, and turned its back on being a confessional Presbyterian seminary. These dramatic changes at Princeton forced Machen to think long and hard about what it meant to be a Presbyterian. Is a watered -down ‘mere Christianity’ a realistic option for a church? Or does it need a more detailed statement of faith? This issue was critical to Machen.

Another incident was also critical in the development of Machen's views. Disappointed by the number of liberal missionaries who were being sent by the Presbyterian Church, Machen moved to establish an independent Board of Foreign Missions. This enabled him to ensure that supporters' funds were properly channeled to gospel preaching missionaries and not to liberal missionaries. In the end, I think that was the thing that brought him down in the church and shortened his life. This was probably his last great stand.

What is a ‘fundamentalist’, and was Mencken right in referring to Machen as ‘Dr Fundamentalis’?

According to the philosopher Alvin Plantinga a ‘fundamentalist’ is that ‘expletive deleted’ who is just to the right of you. ‘Fundamentalist’ is a pejorative word that is tossed around unthinkingly—usually to caricature someone who is taking a line that is reasonably conservative. I've been called a ‘fundamentalist’ from time to time. Interestingly enough, this has never happened when I have spoken as a conservative at a British University. It is only in my time at Westminster that some people have labelled me like this.

When the word is used properly, it can mean anyone who affirms basic historic Christian orthodoxy. This means anyone who upholds the basic truth and purpose of the Bible. When ‘fundamentalist’ is used in that way, then I am happy to say, “Yes, I'm a fundamentalist”. In some contexts, it can also imply commitment to dispensational eschatology, as well as a focus on what are really minor ethical issues such as whether or not one can consume alcohol or visit the cinema. So ‘fundamentalist’ can be used in this latter sense, in which case, I am not one. Machen was a ‘fundamentalist’ in the sense that he was a defender of the truth of classical Christian orthodoxy.

As a young professor, Machen taught at Princeton Theological Seminary, which was regarded as the ‘West Point’ of the Presbyterian Church. Nevertheless, in a few short years, Princeton abandoned its historic Christianity despite having scholars like Warfield, Hodge and Green there. Are there any lessons from what happened at Princeton for the church today?

Oh yes, there are a lot of lessons. First, it's important to realize that no system of governance can provide an absolute guarantee that a Christian institution will remain orthodox. Of course, this applies to both seminaries and churches. Systems of governance are ultimately only as good as the men involved in them.

Second, I think the lessons at Princeton indicate that you have to be very careful about whom you appoint to be the stewards of orthodoxy. In the case of Princeton, it was the board and the faculty. When you appoint board members to a seminary, it's crucial that the right people are appointed. It's the same with faculty. They must be reliable and orthodox.

Third, history tells us that institutions don't go off the rails because they are taken over by liberals. The rot sets in when good orthodox men don't have the backbone to stand up and be counted when the drift starts. It is not liberals who allow seminaries to depart from the truth; it is the middle-of –the-road guys who want to get along with everybody. Their problem is that they want to get along—be nice guys—but they lack the strength to make a stand.

Machen became renowned among secularists like Mencken and Walter Lippman for his book, Christianity and Liberalism. What was it about the book that so impressed them?

I think the book is well-written by the standards of the day, although the style is now a little dated. It boils the problem down into its essentials. It's only 151 pages, and highlights the principal issues between Christianity and liberalism.

Machen's argument is that Christianity is a religion committed to a supernatural God who produced a supernaturally inspired Bible. Liberalism, however, is not committed to the supernatural, and is therefore an entirely different religion. It is not a subset or species of Christianity. That is not to say, of course, that we may be able to learn something from liberals. Nor does it imply that everyone who holds liberal opinions is not a true Christian. What Machen was saying was that liberalism as a theological system is not historic Christianity.

You have just written the introduction to a republished version of Machen's Christianity and Liberalism. Why do you believe that its republication is so timely, and why have you bothered to write an introduction to it?

I did it for a number of reasons. Firstly, we are approaching Westminster Theological Seminary's 80th anniversary, and it's an appropriate time to reaffirm our commitment to our past. Not only are we looking to the future, we want to reaffirm that we still stand where Machen stood on the issues that really matter. Nothing has changed on that score.

Secondly, I think the book presents the issues between the two opposing views in as nice and pointed a way as has ever been done.

Thirdly (and this I try to develop in my introduction), one of Machen's chief complaints about theological liberalism is that it degenerates ultimately into sentimentalism. In the introduction, I try to focus on Machen's polemic against Christianity and sentimentalism. I think sentimentalism is making a strong resurgence in our postmodern age. Today, matters of taste and ‘niceness’ are assuming far greater importance, whereas the value of the doctrinal content of Christianity is being downgraded. There is a growing trend within the modern church to think of Christianity primarily in terms of feelings, journeys and aesthetics. It is the old sentimentalism in a new dress. Machen speaks very forcefully on that point. His focus is on the historical realities of the Christian faith—the incarnation, the cross and the resurrection. These events in Christ's life are not sentimental if we understand their effect in space and time. It is in these historical events that God really comes to us, takes away our sin through a horrific death on the cross, and vindicates his Son through his resurrection. The emphasis here is on saving action, not sentimentalism.

Machen wrote with considerable passion about the Bible. He claimed that it was infallible and inerrant. Although his arguments are almost 100 years old, are they still of relevance in the current theological scene?

Definitely. I think the Bible itself teaches that it does not contain error or mislead us, and it is powerful to achieve what God has designed it to achieve. Both those truths have abiding validity. I think the debate today in evangelicalism is in some ways different to the one that he faced in his day. For instance, some of the issues that we face in relation to biblical authority, such as the relationship of authorial intent, public intention and the communal reading of biblical texts, are not issues that Machen faced, so he is not as helpful for us as a resource at that point. I think the basic point is that the Bible contains no error and it is powerful to achieve what God intends it to achieve.

In the last 30 years, both Carl Henry in his magisterial God, Revelation and Authority and Francis Schaeffer in The Great Evangelical Disaster have stressed the importance of an inerrant Bible for mission, evangelism and church life. Why has this issue resurfaced again and why is there so much questioning of the Bible's authority and inerrancy amongst evangelicals?

I don't think there's a simple answer to that. I am sure that one of the reasons is that the discipline of theology has become more fragmented. Biblical scholars now specialize in very small sections of the Bible. Systematic theologians generally don't study biblical exegesis and don't wrestle with issues that the old scholars were forced to deal with. Where you have a situation where biblical scholarship is so individually specialized and fragmented, it's inevitable that the Bible itself will begin to look fragmented to these experts. It's impossible to avoid because scholars are using a particular lens to look at Scripture which introduces inevitable distortions.

Another problem that we face is that some scholars have abandoned the presupposition of the unity of Scripture as well as the unity of the God who inspired it. Of course, there other factors as well that have contributed to this trend—for instance, some scholars who are anxious for scholarly credibility think that they can obtain some kudos among their peers by pointing out problems with the Bible. On the other hand, some of those who have tried to defend the doctrine of inerrancy have done a less than able job. In this sense, the doctrine hasn't always been helped by some of its friends. There's not one reason in particular to explain why inerrancy has come under attack; there's many of them.

Why did Machen think that doctrine is so important? Why did he believe that he should devote his career to defending it?

Machen believed that doctrine is important because the Bible teaches doctrine. The proposition that God exists is doctrine. So too is the belief that Christ was the second person of the Trinity who took on flesh and came down to die for our sins. In saying that these statements are doctrine, I am automatically making a statement about their referential truth value as well. If my belief that God exists is merely a reflection of my own religious psychology, then my belief is nothing more than sentiment. Again, if the statement, “God came down and died for my sins” is merely the religious aspiration of the faith community to which I belong, then again it is nothing more than communal sentimentality. Machen believed that the Bible teaches history. Further, he believed that it taught interpretive history, not neutral history. The interpretation of that history is doctrine.

Did the liberals have a point in their attack on Machen when they said that Christianity is not essentially about doctrine, it is about a relationship with a person or the possession of a life?

It is an interesting point to make. I would say that a relationship actually requires propositions to be meaningful in any real sense. It requires true speech acts. Sure, I have a relationship with my wife, but I have to be able to express that linguistically and in a true fashion for it to have any meaning and satisfaction. The Bible describes God's relationship to us in a way that presupposes and requires speech. In fact, the Bible presents God as a speaking God. He tells us things. I think that we create a false dichotomy if we oppose the personal and relational aspects of our relationship with God to the doctrinal and didactic ones.

Why were Machen's detractors so opposed to the idea that Christianity is not doctrinal?

Thinking people since the time of the philosopher Immanuel Kant have been faced with a major religious problem: how do we justify the existence of God if we can't rely on reason? Kant said it was impossible, using reason, to prove anything about the spiritual or what he called the ‘noumenal’ realm. Many people were convinced that he was right. They believed that it was impossible to make meaningful statements about God. All that could be done was to make statements of a moral nature—about whether a particular act or course of action was right or wrong. Theology was reduced to ethics.

In the wake of Kant's critique of reason, another theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher tried to rescue Christianity by reconstructing it in terms of religious experience. It was a valiant but ultimately fruitless attempt. He deserves some credit for having a go, but it was just a hopelessly heterodox form of Christianity that he came up with.

We are now living in a postmodern world. Does Machen's basis for defending the Christian faith still have any currency in the new intellectual climate today?

It certainly does. The form of postmodernism that we face today is not so new at all. It's just a form of scepticism. Look at the debate between Erasmus and Luther in 1524-25. The claim of Erasmus' case is that Luther can't be certain about anything and that the Bible is not clear. He goes on to say, “You know, people have different opinions on this and that we mustn't make certain statements about things because that is arrogant”. Postmodernists say something similar today. Interestingly, Richard Baxter said something similar in the 17th century. He talks about the problem of dogma, and says that we need to simplify Christianity down to the basics. We want a ‘mere Christianity’. There is an overtone of scepticism in this approach, and I see it being replicated in post-conservative evangelicalism today.

So how do you feel about a book like CS Lewis's Mere Christianity?

I don't know enough about Lewis' book to say. I certainly do not want to say that Mere Christianity is necessarily a bad thing. For the most part, it seems to be a good book. However, it is not enough to build a church upon. While it's possible to be a mere Christian and be saved, there is much more to the Christian life and calling that goes well beyond that.

One of Machen's most forceful claims against his opponents is that admiration for Christ falls short of faith in Christ. Is it possible to be a Christian simply because you admire Jesus, or must you believe in his virgin birth, atoning death and resurrection?

I don't think it's possible to say that you trust Christ unless you take into account that Christ is presented to us in the Bible as an interpreted Christ. The significance of that interpretation demands more than a certain respect that you might have for a Prime Minister or the Queen. The Christ of the Bible demands more than respect; he demands absolute trust and commitment.

Is this issue still a live one in the church at the moment?

Yes, it is. I think we are already hearing a similar refrain from some of the ‘emerging church’ people who say that Christianity is a way of life and not a set of doctrines. I don't believe it's possible to separate the Christian way of life from those doctrines.

Should Christians be indifferent to matters of doctrine that may divide us in terms of denomination?

I think you will always face a problem when you substitute the confessional church with a para-church body. You end up having to set aside so called ‘No Go’ zones that may involve matters of some doctrinal significance. At one point in Machen's Christianity and Liberalism, he comments that it was a tragedy that Protestantism split over the issue of the Lord's Supper because the Lutherans couldn't agree with the Reformed church on the Lord's Supper. However, he goes on to say that it would have been more of a tragedy if they had agreed to disagree and said that the matter was unimportant and set it aside. For me, that was a very helpful and insightful comment. There are some things in which it is more important to be wrong about than to think that they are not important. It's better to lack complete clarity over baptism than to say it doesn't matter.

It has been said that being indifferent to doctrine is the first step on the road to liberalism. Is that so?

People who are indifferent to doctrine—who think that church confessions are unimportant—are left with no real criteria by which to judge truth from error. Furthermore, if you think that holding a firm position on the doctrine of baptism or the Lord's Supper is unimportant, when both doctrines are taught in the Bible, then what is to stop you from deciding that that the Bible's teaching on the incarnation or on the propitiation of Christ's sacrifice are not significant too? We are living in a day when we judge people by aesthetic categories rather than by their beliefs. We have lots of Christians who say, “If the guy who lives down the end of my street is a nice chap and says nice things about Jesus, then why can't he be part of the fellowship?”

What does this mean for evangelical agencies that have minimalist confessions—like the Evangelical Theological Society, for instance?

I think it means that the boundary is always going to be fuzzy. There is always going to be trouble drawing lines in these situations. On the other hand, I think we need to bear in mind that the ETS is not the church. It is not as important for it to have a really tight and comprehensive standard. I am happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with brothers who disagree with me on some quite important things in para-church organizations. However, what I will never do is allow that difference to creep in the church where I belong. Church and para-church organizations are two separate things, and it is important that we understand that distinction.

Does the Bible consider all doctrines of equal importance? For example, is church government as important as the death and resurrection of Christ? Should we defend our distinctives if they are not of first importance?

Clearly, the Bible does not consider all doctrines to be of equal importance. You can certainly go to heaven as a Baptist or a Presbyterian or a pentecostal. You can be saved without even being baptized, but you cannot be saved if you deny the resurrection of Christ. Paul is very clear about that in 1 Corinthians. Having said that, I would maintain that if our church life and ministry is going to be orthodox, orderly and stable, we need a biblical form of church government. It is important to have good order, procedure and practice. Everything needs to be done decently and in order. This is the reason why churches must have constitutions and procedures for dealing with error. Everything needs to be done in an orderly and godly way.

I respect other forms of church order, but I am convinced that the principles of the Bible are best reflected in Presbyterian church government. I certainly do not deny the Christian nature of the Anglican or the Baptist churches as long as the gospel is preached and the sacraments administered in those bodies. Each church needs to be clear about what it is in the eyes of God, and it needs to have rules and procedures to safeguard the faith that is being delivered to it.

How important is it to ensure that strong doctrinal views are not only held by clergy but also embraced by those in the pew? What practical measures can we take to ensure that that happens?

It is very important for all church members to have strong doctrinal convictions. Church history is littered with disasters in churches where great ministers have not managed to penetrate the pew. For instance, I believe that the minister who replaced the great Bible commentator Matthew Henry was a Unitarian. Richard Baxter's church went Unitarian shortly after his departure. English Presbyterianism collapsed into Unitarianism in the early 18th century. So it is crucially important that we have an educated congregation.

How we educate church members to be mature in their understanding of doctrine is a tough call. Today's culture is by and large indifferent to Christianity, and many people in the church know less about their Bible than they used to. Many churches have abandoned evening services. So we teach people less at the very time that they need to be taught more.

The other important thing that ministers can do is commit themselves to systematic expository preaching throughout the Bible. This is crucial in helping congregations to understand how they are meant to handle the whole canon of Scripture. If ministers fail to do this, they risk leaving their people ignorant of the ‘whole counsel of God’. Personally, I think the old Dutch tradition of preaching expositionally from Scripture on Sunday mornings and then using the catechism to guide thematic preaching in the evening. It seems to me that we need to find the modern equivalent of that so that we can supplement our expository preaching with preaching that gives people doctrinal categories so they can see the whole picture as well as understand particular books of the Bible.

Modern evangelicalism has been described by some religious sociologists as nothing more than moral therapeutic deism. Does Machen's defence of the doctrine of God have anything to say to us in our weakened state of understanding of God's nature and character?

Sure. I think one of the great things about Machen's Christianity and Liberalism is that when he wrestles with the theodicy question, he really hits the deists and the sentimentalists hard. He points out that suffering and pain are realities that God is completely involved in. A doctrine of God has to take into account suffering and pain. Just having a sentimental being with a white beard sitting in the sky looking benignly down on the earth is not helpful, and fails lamentably to do justice to the Bible's account of God. We need to recapture all of the terror, awe and majesty of the God of the Bible. I think Machen tells us to face up to the true God of Scripture. He calls on us to recognize that the God with whom we have to deal is an awesome and terrifying being, unless we meet him as saviour in the person of Jesus. Sadly, too many Christians are ‘moral, therapeutic deists’. It's a great phrase, isn't it? It express precisely what many Christians have become.

Reproduced with kind permission from Australian Presbyterian.

The following are notes meant to accompany Jean Williams's article on women and discipleship in Briefing #378.

• Three books written to help women understand and apply Titus 2:3-5 are Carolyn Mahaney's Feminine Appeal (Crossway, Wheaton, 2004), Susan Hunt's Spiritual Mothering (Crossway, Wheaton, 1992) and Martha Peace's Becoming a Titus 2 Woman (Focus, Fearn, 1997). These books have their flaws, but they contain much helpful advice about Titus 2 ministry and the practical implications of biblical womanhood.
• One church's stated goal for their women's ministry is “to teach and train women in biblical womanhood for the sake of the gospel and the glory of God”. In practice, this means that all their events include teaching about the practice of biblical womanhood. See Carolyn Mahaney, ‘Implementing the Titus 2 Mandate’, 2005 (MP3 free download).
• If I were writing this article again, I would add a fifth point to my ‘Titus 2 curriculum’: godly character (coming in at point 3 or 4). As I've reflected further on Titus 2, it's occurred to me that the godly character of the older woman is of paramount importance as she teaches younger women. The older women who teach younger women are to be “reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine” (Titus 2:3; also see 1 Timothy 5:9-10). Only then can they teach younger women, through word and example, how to live godly lives that bring honour to the gospel.
• At one point in my article, I wrote, “At the heart of godly womanhood is confident trust in God—an inner strength that comes from a deep knowledge of the Bible and of God's sovereign purposes”. For more on this, see John Piper, ‘The beautiful faith of fearless submission’, 15 April 2007, and ‘The ultimate meaning of true womanhood’, 2008.
• Woman was made to be the man's ‘helper’, serving God in light of the created order (Gen 1-3, 1 Tim 2:11-15). But how does this work out in practice? It's sometimes said that “The man's orientation is towards the task—the world of work; the woman's orientation is towards the man—the world of relationships”. I prefer to think of it this way: both men and women are oriented to God, but this orientation centres on work or relationships. In other words, the primary responsibility of both men and women is to serve Christ and further his kingdom, and the primary sphere and disposition with which they carry out this responsibility will be uniquely masculine or feminine. For a married woman, the primary sphere in which she serves Christ will be husband and home, and for a married mother, it will be husband, children and home. For a single woman, being a woman will affect the disposition with which she works, offers hospitality, relates to men and women, serves Christians and reaches out to women in her community. Like the married woman, her focus will also be relational.
• One of my goals is to encourage as many women as I can not to go back to work when their kids are all in school! I know this decision won't always be possible or even preferable, but I'd love to see more women devoting their time, once they've cared for their families, to teaching and training young women. If you feel ill-equipped, in some parts of Australia, there is training available for this kind of Titus 2 ministry:
  • The Ministry Training Strategy is piloting a two-year ministry training initiative at Crossroads Christian Church in Canberra called ‘T2 Apprenticeships’. The aim is to recruit, train and mobilize mothers for ministry once their youngest child goes to school. For more information, contact the T2 coordinator, Michelle Philp, at .
  • Carmelina Read runs a two-year course called ‘Ministry Training for Women’ at the Presbyterian Theological Centre in Sydney. The course is aimed at training lay and congregational women in Titus 2 ministry. For more information, see www.ptcsydney.org.
  • Heather Reid runs a three-day mentoring training course called ‘Building 1 on 1’ at Ridley Theological College in Melbourne. While specifically for Ridley College women, it could be adapted to other contexts. For more information, contact Heather Reid at or .

Dr Bruce Winter is the Principal of Queensland Theological College at the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Brisbane. He has held this position since 2006 when he left Tyndale House, Cambridge, where he had served as Warden since 1987 and as Director of the Institute for Early Christianity in the Graeco-Roman World.

Dr Winter is a Fellow of St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, and a Visiting Research Fellow (2006-2011). He has also served as a member of the University's Faculty of Divinity, lecturing on Thomas Cranmer, archaeology and the New Testament, as well as supervising PhD candidates. He has also served as a lecturer at Moore Theological College, Sydney, and Trinity Theological College, Singapore.

Dr Winter's main areas of interest are in New Testament studies, theology, apologetics and ethics. To this end, he has undertaken research that is designed to benefit the academy and the church. His special interest is in the intersection of the word of God with its ancient setting, and its significance for contemporary thinking about the church and its relationship with modern society.

He is a prolific author, and has published numerous journal articles, as well as publishing or editing several of his own books, such as The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting (Eerdmans, 1994), Seek the Welfare of the City (Eerdmans, 1994), Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women in the Pauline Communities (Eerdmans, 2003), After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Eerdmans, 2000), and Philo and Paul Among the Sophists: Alexandrian and Corinthian Responses to a Julio-Claudian Movement (Eerdmans, 2001).

He lives with his wife, Lyn, on Bribie Island, which is north of Brisbane.

Peter Hastie: Tertullian once posed the question, “What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?”, implying that there is a deep divide between biblical and non-Christian worldviews. Do you agree?

Bruce Winter: Yes, I do. Tertullian was a brilliant apologist who lived at the end of the second century. He believed that there was a great ideological divide that separated Christian and non-Christian culture in the Roman Empire. At its very root was the clash between the imperial view that a man becomes a god when he becomes the emperor, and the Christian view that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ.

Tertullian's statement reflects the distinction that he saw between the non-Christian academy, symbolized by Athens, and the Christian worldview as represented by Jerusalem. More than any of the other great apologists of the early church, he saw the true nature of this conflict. He saw that there was a great divide between the two views, particularly in the area of anthropology, because the Romans had no place for sin. The Christian faith, on the other hand, saw man as being afflicted with sin, a spiritual condition that only God can cure. Tertullian believed that it was impossible for Christians to identify with Roman culture if they had to deny the reality of sin. I believe that's what lay behind his thinking.

PH: What are the main ideas within Australia at present which have the greatest influence on our values and behaviour?

BW: Firstly, I think Australians are strongly influenced at the moment by religious pluralism. This is the idea that all religions are essentially the same and that they are all leading us in the same direction. As a result of our immigration policies, we now have a lot of religious diversity. We meet many fine Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims, and we find it easy to assume that no one religion is privileged against the rest. I think one of the most common ideas in Australia today is the belief that all religions are the same.

The other main idea that seems to command some allegiance is that of ‘hedonism’, or what Walter Lippman once referred to as “the unhappy pursuit of happiness”. The Women's Weekly is a glossy presentation of this point of view: “I want happiness. I want comfort. I want security. I want whatever I desire.” And so the pursuit of happiness is a very strong undercurrent in our culture. I think this helps to explain the popularity of the Dalai Lama. He was recently in Australia, and he tapped into this vein of longing by running a series of seminars on the question of happiness. They were hugely popular.

PH: What role do the media have in disseminating worldviews?

BW: The media is enormously influential in spreading ideas and stimulating people's desires. It is the vehicle for picking up the underlying views in the community and then reinforcing them in a mass market. In many cases, it actually progresses those views. For instance, in the 1920s, those involved in motivational research discovered that two of the strongest motivations for people are need and greed. The advertising industry was able to exploit this research, which has had a powerful effect on the media. From then on, advertisers have played upon these basic motivations. The thrust of advertising is now “This will meet your needs; this will satisfy your desires”. It is a very powerful, impressionistic view.

You can see how influential this advertising is by the way that it helps to form ideas of body image—especially amongst young men. Don't you find it interesting that David Beckham and the Gucci guy can pose in their underwear with no hair on their chest? I suppose you realize that they shave it off? They want to have the ‘Greek god’ look. The surprising thing is that when I go to the beach these days, I have discovered that lots of young men seem to gone through the same evolutionary state: their hair seems to have disappeared as well.

PH: It's happening with legs too, isn't it?

BW: Yes, that's right. It's amazing that this fad has caught on throughout the world. It's just another example of the media's power to communicate and reinforce popular worldviews. The media is not simply selling a product; it's selling a way of life. You can see this quite clearly in the way that advertisers try to persuade us today. Whereas once they tried to convince us to buy products on their merits, nowadays they use sex or images of wealth and success to sell their goods. Advertising for cars always seems to have a pretty girl alongside the vehicle. It's all about lifestyle; media is the instrument that promotes these images.

One of the dangers of the media is that so much of its influence takes place at a subliminal level. Many of its values are conveyed in images that quietly wash over people's minds and convince them that they are seeing reality. Often Christians absorb these values unthinkingly, and begin to regress spiritually. They think that they have to have this or that if they are going to enjoy life. It's all a lie. I think Christians have to be far more critical of the subtle attempts by advertisers to shape their lives and buying habits. I taught my children to understand what advertisers are trying to do and to poke fun at their efforts. I also pointed out to them how advertisers are trying to promote a thoroughly non-Christian worldview. When I am watching TV, I often turn the advertisements off, and I am also quite selective in the programs that I watch. One of the most insidious dangers Christians face today is that we spend so much time exposing ourselves to the media and so little time reading the Bible.

PH: Do you think the internet is having a similar effect on Christians?

BW: Yes, I think it's even worse with the internet. The internet suggests that everything is within our reach. Its unspoken message is that you can see or have anything that you want. The problem here is that the internet can breed an attitude that is very self-focused and exploitive of others. People who are hooked on the internet tend to screen out other people and their needs.

PH: How are Christians being affected by contemporary worldviews?

BW: 30 years ago, the favourite text amongst Christians was John 3:16. However, in a recent poll, the most quoted text was Matthew 7:1: “Judge not, that you be not judged”. I think that tells us something. Modern Australian culture says you mustn't judge, and now Christians are following the world by claiming this text as their basis for remaining dumb about the culture. It seems astonishing to me because John 3:16 is about the gospel and its challenge to the world's ideas of salvation. The gospel implies a judgement on all the false ideas of the age. Yet Christians are following non-Christian society by refusing to make these judgements. In addition, they are appealing to a biblical text to do it. It's quite extraordinary!

PH: Are you saying that Christians have capitulated to the modern age by refusing to distinguish between truth and error?

BW: Yes, I am. Furthermore, they are misapplying the text “Judge not, that you be not judged” in doing so. The reality is that Christians are meant to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor 10:5). Nowhere does the Bible say that believers are meant to keep quiet when people challenge the notion of truth and say that there is no difference between right and wrong.

Sadly, the church today has imbibed a playboy theology that goes back to Greek philosophical heathenism. The central idea of this Greek view was that our aim in life is to pursue happiness. Many Christians have bought into this idea. They want to serve God, but they also want to be happy. This creates a problem for them because they have no place for pain or suffering in their experience.

The problem of making happiness your goal—especially if you are a Christian—is that you make yourself vulnerable to playboy theology. Christian young people who follow this line are putting themselves on the same trajectory as the young playboys and playgirls in the first century who said, “Everything is permitted for me; I can do what I like”. As far as they were concerned, life was about enjoying oneself and being happy.

People forget that God's plan for us Christians also includes trouble and persecution. If our aim is only to have a pain-free and happy life, then we will fall away from Christ when we experience adversity. In the parable of the sower and the seed, one of the stumbling blocks that trips people up is their desire for happiness. When they don't get it, they “immediately [fall] away” (Matt 13:21). Too many Christians fall into this category today. The problem is that we have influential preachers like Benny Hinn and Joel Osteen who throw together a few biblical texts and tie them to a secular worldview that makes Christians feel that God is under obligation to make us happy. But the Bible never promises a life that is free of trouble and suffering.

PH: If Christians are to become a realistic counter-cultural force, how important is it to deconstruct contemporary worldviews?

BW: It's crucial. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 that our task is to pull down every argument and pretension that sets itself up contrary to the knowledge of God:

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

Our aim is to bring every thought captive to Christ. Paul uses an image based on the Roman army's method of waging war. Imagine an ancient city under attack with the enemy hiding behind the protection of high city walls. The Roman method of penetrating the city consisted of bringing a large battering ram to the walls, and then repeatedly pounding them until the stones were dislodged and the whole thing collapsed. Once the wall came down, the people were defenceless; they had to surrender and kneel before the victorious general. Paul says that what Romans did in capturing a city is analogous to what Christians have to do in countering the false ideas of the age.

The problem today is that too few preachers challenge the false ideas of our culture. Unless preachers undermine the credibility of these belief systems, they still hold sway over believers. It's a little bit like trying to run a computer with a new operating system if you haven't already deleted the old one. The computer won't work because it is trying to run on incompatible systems. You must first delete the old system.

Paul makes it clear that the task of a preacher is to deconstruct the errors of the age as well as to instruct believers on how to live the Christian life. As a preacher, I need to do both. This means that when I prepare to preach to a congregation, I need to ask myself, “What ideas do I have to demolish that have been programmed into our thinking by this modern age?” I need to be able to answer that question before I move on to think about how the congregation can be reprogrammed to do God's will through the renewing of their minds.

PH: Is there a link between the upsurge in worldliness in the church and the failure of ministers to deconstruct the false ideas of the age?

BW: Yes, there definitely is. One of the reasons why the impact of the gospel seems to be so slight is that many Christians have been thoroughly programmed by the ideas of the modern age. The problem here is that while those ideas remain unchallenged, they exercise an ongoing influence in their lives. This explains why Paul tackles the problem in Romans 12-15 by deconstructing Roman cultural norms and contrasting them with the will of God. Paul's point is that we must deconstruct before we can reconstruct. Preachers must constantly ask themselves the question, “What ideas are still held by the congregation which prevent them from fully embracing God's will, as outlined in Scripture?” The only way that we can get a thorough response to the gospel is to, firstly, dismantle those ideas and demonstrate their falsity, and secondly, show how people can reconstruct their lives in obedience to Christ.

PH: Does the New Testament have any suggestions as to how Christians can most effectively deconstruct opposing worldviews? For example, does Paul's address to the Athenians in Acts 17 provide such a model, or does it represent a failed experiment?

BW: Paul's address to the Athenians was not a failure in evangelism. On the contrary, it was very helpful because it gives us several keys to getting our message across to unbelievers.

Firstly, Paul connects with his audience by finding a common point of reference. In ancient Greece, the members of the Areopagus were charged with the official function of admitting new deities into the pantheon of gods. So Paul had to prove that the God of Scripture existed. This explains why he began his speech by saying, “This God who exists, but whom you confess not to know, I am going to explain to you”. Paul's approach on this occasion shows how he made a clever connection with the authorities in the ancient world, who were charged with giving official recognition to the deities in their culture. However, in doing so, he corrects their misunderstanding about God—namely, that he lives in man-made temples and relies on us in giving him feast days.

Secondly, he shows that he is conversant with their Stoic and Epicurean worldviews, and he relates some of the shared elements in these systems with truths that we find in the Old Testament. Some of the argument resonates, and some of it doesn't, but at least he demonstrates that he is able to converse with their world.

The next step in his address demonstrates that, judged by their own standards, they have failed to understand God properly and have compromised their religious beliefs. While not all of them believed in the imperial cult, they had nevertheless said, “Look, even if we don't believe in it, let's just do it without being superstitious about it”. Paul's approach is designed to convict them of hypocrisy and then confront them with God's universal call to repentance in the light of his promised judgement.

Paul then explains the gospel to them as an amnesty that they need to accept immediately. One of the religious beliefs of the Areopagus Council was that when a man dies, the earth drinks up his blood. They did not believe in a bodily resurrection. However, Paul announces that the resurrection is proof of this day of judgement. That is why some laugh. Nevertheless, a senior member of the Council takes Paul seriously and is converted, along with a few others.

So Paul's presentation of the gospel in Athens did not fail. I think we learn from his attempt that if we want to communicate with non-Christians, then we need to understand how to establish entry points into their thinking. We need to work hard to correct misconceptions and establish some agreed positions before we move on to announce the coming judgement, and the pressing need to repent and accept God's amnesty in the gospel. Acts 17 provides a good model to inform our own preaching in a non-Christian context.

PH: What happens within the church when we don't engage with modern worldviews and deconstruct them?

BW: We become culture Christians. It's sad that by the time the empire actually became Christian, all that the Romans had to do was to push all of the statues out of the temples so that they became basilicas or Christian places in which to worship. It wasn't a big transition for pagans. The distinctions for Christians and non-Christians were blurred because most Christians had absorbed the culture and become culture Christians.

I know from the years I worked in Asia that absorbing the culture uncritically was the great danger facing the church. If you don't think critically about the culture in which you live, then it will simply permeate the thinking of Christians, and so you will have believers who think and act no differently from pagans. The danger we face today is that the media is shaping Christianity so that in a variety of ways, Christians no longer appear to be different from non-Christians—particularly in moral areas and work attitudes.

PH: What is the place of entertainment in the Christian life? Does non-Christian entertainment have a subliminal effect on us?

BW: The early Christians faced this question just as we do. Entertainment in their day involved the Roman spectacles, chariot races, gladiatorial fights and those sorts of things. Some of these activities encouraged a perverse interest in violence and sex, so in that sense, they were unhelpful to a Christian's growth. Should a Christian be aware of what is going on in the wider culture in terms of entertainment? I don't think we can be ignorant of it. However, what most people are unaware of is that many of these forms of entertainment have a subliminal effect on our thinking. This means that we need to be very selective about what we choose to entertain us. It's easy to stumble if you simply want to be amused and suspend your critical faculties. I may sound like a bit of a killjoy, but I think it's important to be evaluating films as we watch them. Too many Christians fail to do this, and stumble. If you suspend your critical faculties, it's possible to assimilate all sorts of ungodly ideas and behaviour.

PH: How do first-century worldviews and culture pose a threat to the church's understanding of leadership?

BW: Well, during the first century—particularly during the reign of Claudius—philosophers took a back seat and charismatic orators came to the fore. A cult of personality developed where people became celebrities or megastars because of their grand style of oratory. The movement towards celebrity actually spread like wildfire throughout the region.

People paid to go and hear these orators. Everyone looked up to them. What they said wasn't as important as their style. Their rise to prominence was a triumph of style over substance. People felt that they had to look like them, dress like them, walk like them, talk like them, and they became a model of leadership. Their students were called ‘disciples’, just like the followers of Jesus. The problem was that their followers began to copy them. So a mark of leadership during this period was that you had to have bodily presence and be able to entertain a crowd.

If you are familiar with what is said about some of Paul's personal features, you will know that he didn't match the qualifications for leadership in this period. For a start, he looked a bit of a ‘weed’. His critics claimed that he lacked a sense of physical presence, and his speech was unimpressive. We think he may also have had bowed legs and a hook nose. He certainly didn't look like one of the Greek gods.

Incidentally, this probably explains why people in Corinth liked his letters but didn't want him to come back and be the minister of their church. In the space of only about 10 years, the Corinthians brought this Trojan horse of celebrity leadership into the heart of their congregation. In other words, it only took a few years for the church to absorb these false ideas.

PH: What were some of the specific ways that Christian leadership was squeezed into the mould of first-century thought, and what was Paul's response to it?

BW: Well, you had to follow your leader. The Christian message, on the other hand, is that someone invited us to follow him. So there is only one person you can follow, and that is Christ.

Paul had to deal with this issue in Corinth. The Christians in Corinth placed a great deal of emphasis on ministers being ‘leaders’ and ‘leaders’ having followers. However, Paul says their focus on secular styles of leadership is idolatrous and worldly (1 Cor 1). In chapter 3, he asks, “What then is Apollos? What is Paul?” (v. 5). In doing this, he deconstructs the whole cult of leadership in the first century. First-century ideas of secular leadership had invaded the church and corrupted the idea of Christian pastoral work.

The same has happened today. It's interesting that the term ‘leadership’ has only really come into the vocabulary of the church since the 1980s. Prior to that, the church didn't have leaders; we had ministers and elders—people whose task was service. So all of the words of the New Testament are about serving, about functioning and about what you do, but not about creating a following. Paul says that to create a personal following is idolatrous: “I didn't die on the cross”, he says, “You weren't baptized by me”. Paul was appalled that celebrity leadership was having an influence in the church.

PH: Do you see models of secular leadership as a threat to the church's mission, and if so what sort of specific trends in secular leadership come to mind?

BW: Yes, I think the secularizing of Christian leadership is a huge threat to the church's mission. We can trace the growth of this Christian leadership model to one influential American theological seminary in the early 1980s. I was visiting at the time when they said they wanted to run a course in Christian leadership. They decided they would adopt any secular model of leadership that worked. This explains why they adopted the MBA manuals in teaching leadership. Lots of seminaries in the USA went down the same path. Christians now often talk about Christian leadership in MBA jargon. They see church as a business: it's the corporate model with a CEO at the top.

The whole thing has spread like cane toads in Queensland. The result is that it has changed the way we think about ministry. All anyone ever talks about now is ‘leadership’. Actually, there is only one person who is referred to as a leader in the New Testament, and that is Jesus. He is the only leader.

In my opinion, the influence of MBA-style training in ministry has had a devastating effect on the church. It has wrongly accentuated the personality of the preacher and has created a cult of ‘follower-ship’. And this is something Paul forbids in 1 Corinthians 1.

PH: Is this misunderstanding of leadership affecting seminaries too?

BW: Yes, it is. I know a young man who is a tall, well-built person of striking appearance. He was invited to join the faculty of a well-known seminary. When he went there, they said to him, “You look like the sort of person we are looking for!” He was appalled at their emphasis on his appearance and personality. However, this is nothing new. People were fascinated by appearance in the first century too. If you wanted to be a leader, then you had to pump iron and pull the hair off your chest, arms and legs so you looked like a Greek god.

Unfortunately, there are some similarities with the first century emerging today in the qualities that our churches are looking for in leaders. This model from an earlier age, which focused on celebrity, is now what people want in Christian ministers. If you don't fit this bill, then you are easily ruled out. I see this happening often in mainstream denominations. Of course, it's okay if you have a sense of humour and people think you are funny. People in the ancient world knew how to make people laugh and cry, and they played on their feelings. That's what made you say, at the end of their address, “What a great orator”. However, when a Christian minister ends his address, people should say, “What a great God!” I now have a policy in our college that I won't allow people to use the term ‘leadership’, because I want to drum the ideas of celebrity and privilege out of people's thinking altogether.

PH: So what do you use?

BW: Well, I talk about ministers or servants. That is what we are being trained to be. We ‘serve’ and ‘teach’. Using these terms helps us to focus on our functions. I don't use the word ‘leader’ because it is loaded with all sorts of wrong ideas in today's world. We need to become biblical fundamentalists in our use of terms to describe church office; otherwise, if we use the MBA jargon we will bring a Trojan horse into the church.

PH: Did Paul ever call on his disciples to follow him?

BW: No, he never said, “Follow me”. However, he did say, “Imitate me”. The imitation Paul desires is for us to join him at the end of the queue of an ancient triumphal procession where prisoners were paraded as the off-scouring of the earth. There was no joy in being in this spot; it was a death sentence.

Paul is not interested in ‘cool’ or ‘funky’ leaders. He never tells us to follow individuals in the New Testament, only to follow Christ. ‘Imitate’ is the right word, but we are not meant to imitate how Paul walked and talked; we are meant to imitate him in his suffering and service for Christ (1 Cor 4:13, 16).

PH: What do you think about this idea of ‘spiritual direction’, where people place themselves under the authority of another who monitors them? Is it wise?

BW: Peter, to be honest, it's not worth half a squirt of goat's milk! It's very dangerous because it can easily lead to manipulation and control. Paul says that people are to be taught the word so that they can perform the works “which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). Ministry is about building up individuals in the word so that they can fulfil God's purpose for their lives. I think carving people off into some mentoring program is fraught with dangers. God never intended us to become clones of so-called ‘leaders’.

PH: How does the church best address these issues of the secularization of its leadership?

BW: We need to get back to the real meaning of the Bible on these matters. We are too culturally blinkered. The Bible has a very clear, functional approach to leadership; it's not hierarchical. I also think that ministers need to teach their congregations very clearly that they are not following us.

PH: Are there other ways that the world is invading the church?

BW: Yes, it comes to the surface when we are thinking about the worship of God. I sometimes wonder whether some people believe that God needs a hearing aid. We have lots of loud and thumping music that is not conducive to singing the word in our hearts. I went away recently on a weekend camp. It was interesting that people said, “Wasn't it good because we could hear each other singing”. Nothing moved me more in the 20 years I had in Cambridge than to hear my brothers around me singing to Christ. What I found so encouraging was that I could hear the words so clearly. Unfortunately, it's often the case that our words are drowned out by the excessive amplification. 1 Corinthians 12 says that what is important in a church service is that we strive for the ‘common good’. We need to make our music serve the ministry of the word.

PH: So you are saying that a church service should be about reading the Bible, singing the Bible and listening to the Bible?

BW: Yes, that's right. This is a Reformation principle, and it doesn't have to be done in a dull way. It annoys me when people don't read the Bible in church as though it is the word of God. John Chrysostom once said that “when the emperor sends his edict to us, everyone stands and listens in hushed tones; but when God speaks to us, it is even more solemn”.

One further thing: we need use the Psalms more in our services. I think the Psalms express in a very clear way the kind of words and thoughts that we need to use in the praise of God.

PH: Can you explain how modern culture is affecting Christian attitudes to sexual roles in the church today?

BW: When a young man got the toga virilis in first-century Rome, he said, “Everything is permitted for me. I am grown up now, and I am an adult; I am the captain of my ship. I can do whatever I want.” There are Christians today who have the same attitude. This explains why Paul gives reasons why Christians must not fornicate in 1 Corinthians 6:9-21. Some of the men in the church in Corinth were trying to rationalize a promiscuous, playboy lifestyle. Paul forbade it, and gives eight reasons and three commands as to why Christians mustn't do that. We need to do the same today. Only authoritative teaching prevents a slide into immorality.

PH: Is the idea of the liberated woman as depicted in the series of Sex and the City really a new idea, or was there an ancient equivalent in the first century?

BW: Yes, there certainly was an ancient equivalent. She was called the ‘new woman’, and Augustus legislated against this movement. The philosophical schools also opposed it, as did the early church. It was a very powerful and influential movement, much as it is today. We see its influence from the prenuptial agreements of the first century, where the wife had to promise to sleep at home and not to wander around and bring disgrace to the family's name by sexual immorality. The prenuptial agreements give you an insight into what was really going on during the period, as does the criminal legislation of the time, which made adultery a criminal offence for the first time in Roman law. Until then, it had been resolved within the family.

PH: Was this problem of the new woman a particular problem for the Christian church?

BW: Yes, the church was quietly infiltrated by many of them. We see signs of this when wives removed their veils in church. Paul deals with this problem in 1 Corinthians 11. Wives were deliberately removing their veils when they stood up to pray and prophesy. The veil was a sign of their marriage; it was the first-century equivalent of a wedding ring. Removing the veil was a sign that she didn't want people to know that she was married.

The problem with women removing the veil was that it sent off precisely the wrong signal. It gave the impression that they were living promiscuously or that they no longer wanted to be married. In the first century, you had to remove your marriage veil if you were a convicted adulteress; you weren't allowed to wear it again. So that was a big issue that the Corinthians had to struggle with.

Also, there was problem in the way women dressed. If a woman wore gold, pearls and braided hair, this was the standard dress of a high-class prostitute of the first century. The characteristic of the married woman was modesty. However, the new woman didn't want to have babies because of the stretch marks they caused, so she used abortion or dangerous contraceptives. But a modest and loving and holy woman would not abort a baby. That provides the setting of 1 Timothy 2. The important point is that modesty is the characteristic of the way married Christian women dress. We need a return to modesty for women today.

PH: What are some of the problems that you see we need to address in the church today as a result of the rise of the new woman?

BW: One of the glaring problems today is the issue of modest dress. Current clothing fashions, especially for young people, dictate a style that is far from modest. I think especially some women are quite unaware of how immodest their dress can be. Furthermore, I am not sure that they realize the extent of the problem that immodest attire can cause for men.

I don't want to be misunderstood in my comments about modesty. I am not suggesting that women in our churches should look dowdy or frumpish—as though they have come from a bygone age. I wouldn't want them to look as though they belong to an Amish community. But neither should they dress in a way that is unnecessarily suggestive.

Reproduced with kind permission from Australian Presbyterian, August 2008.

The following is a collection of the correspondence we received on the “Gospel Convictions” statement in Briefing #367. It appears in reverse chronological order.

7 June 2009

The Gospel Convictions statement could maybe contain a statement about the nature of church. After all, this does seem to be a theme to which The Briefing often returns.

Philip Cooney
Wentworth Falls, NSW, AUS

4 June 2009

I've been a Briefing reader for many years, and have often found it a great encouragement. I thank God for all the great work you've been doing for such a long time.

However, I recently read your ‘Gospel Convictions’ article in the library at Oak Hill College, London, and was a bit surprised by point 3.

In view of the overwhelming biblical evidence for, and the longstanding Reformed pedigree of (e.g. William Ames, Hermann Bavinck, GC Berkouwer, Robert L Dabney, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Goodwin, Charles Hodge, Anthony A Hoekema, John Murray, JI Packer, Benedict Pictet, Herman Ridderbos, Francis Turretin and James Ussher, to name but a few), the doctrine of final judgement according to works (those works being evidence of our faith), I wonder whether it might be helpful to ask the following questions of a couple of words in the text:

• ‘Winning’ in what sense?
• ‘Necessary’ in what sense?

Perhaps some distinctions might be in order, lest we should be misunderstood to be disagreeing with Paul (e.g. 2 Cor 5:10), James (Jas 2) and Jesus (e.g. Matt 12:37, 16:27)!

Many thanks for your ongoing work; it's much appreciated.

Steve Jeffery
Emmanuel Evangelical Church
Southgate, London, UK

22 May 2009

G'day Briefing team and happy 21st!!! I've found the magazine an enormous blessing for nearly all of that time.

Thanks for the invitation to offer some feedback on ‘Gospel Convictions’, which is a great statement. I personally found it very challenging. Some suggested amendments:

1. An additional few words to indicate that Jesus is actually God who became a man. The Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and so on would be quite happy with your wording at the beginning of 1.
2. Regarding 5: I have some concern about the beginning and end. The beginning needs more joy and exuberance about life, not just the joy of suffering. We live in God's very good world, and he has given it to us to enjoy and be thankful for. This motif is needed, I think. Lamenting the fact that many are in love with this present world and its pleasures is most appropriate, but it needs to be distinguished from the good world that the Lord has made and given us to enjoy for the time that we're here.

Perhaps you guys have looked at ‘Our World Belongs to God—A Contemporary Testimony’ (revised last year), produced by the Christian Reformed Church of Canada. It is quite inspiring, and seeks to do, in part, what ‘Gospel Convictions’ seeks to do, but is much more expansive.

Hope this is of some help.

George Glanville
Blaxland, NSW, AUS

21 May 2009

I have read carefully through the draft of ‘Gospel Convictions’ in The Briefing (April 2009). One of the things I have enjoyed about The Briefing is its clear stand in support of evangelical belief—including the way it is applied to life.

There is very little in the draft that I would reword.

Under the first heading, paragraph 1, I think it would be more correct to speak of “forgiveness of sins” in the last sentence (rather than “forgiveness of sin”). There is a distinction between ‘sin’ (the sin principle—sin nature, which is condemned, not forgiven; Romans 8:3) and ‘sins’ (the actions, which are forgiven; Colossians 1:14).

Going back to the third sentence in paragraph 1, the blessings of forgiveness of sins, salvation and eternal life are mentioned as blessings that Jesus Christ will bring for believers when he returns. While that is true, they are also blessings that believers presently possess here on earth. I realize that not every aspect of salvation can be expressed adequately in a brief statement, but I raise this point in case it is worth recasting the sentence in some manner to express this point. (But perhaps what is said under heading 3 covers this adequately.)

May God continue to bless, guide and encourage you.

Murray Grindlay
Wellington, NZ

14 May 2009

I certainly join in with a hearty congratulations on your anniversary. I've only been subscribing from a little below issue #100, but I think that's a reasonable stint from someone in the UK!

I'm sorry to see so few comments on ‘Gospel Convictions’. Being a confessional kind of evangelical, thinking about how to articulate what makes such Christianity distinctive in today's world, and putting it down on paper, is an important and useful task.

There is much that is good in the statement. It's good to be clear about the work of the Holy Spirit, the authority of Scripture and the centrality of Christ's work for us. Truly these are mainsprings of the Christian life. And yet, I want briefly to highlight three apparent omissions and one clear error from a Reformed perspective.

Central to our identity as Christians must be God as Trinity, and something of this would strengthen the statement. Ideally, it should be inextricably woven through it. This undoubtedly addresses key issues in our society of individuality and social-relatedness.

The nature of the church and the Christian's place in it is also connects with this. Evangelicals are notorious for hanging loose to commitment to the fellowship of a local church and seeking to express their salvation in the context of Christ's body here on earth.

The gifts of baptism and the Lord's Supper should also be addressed as part of this. They have a vital role to play in our growth as Christians as signs and seals of Jesus' love for us.

Unfortunately, I think anyone holding to a Reformed confession will have difficulty signing up to section 3 of the statement. Assurance does not necessarily follow immediately after justification, nor should it be automatically inculcated immediately after a profession of faith. Although looking to Christ in the gospel promises is the basis of assurance, faith sometimes needs to be proved in a person's life before they feel it, and pastorally, we must recognize that some believers struggle with assurance throughout their Christian lives.

Thus XVIII:3 of the Westminster Confession states: ”This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties, before he be partaker of it“.

Contrary to the Federal Vision, I concur that it is wrong to deny present justification, nor are works causally necessary for salvation. However, not all alleged experiences of the Holy Spirit are genuine, and they are to be tested to see whether or not they promote our love for Christ and his people. Hopefully you can revise this section of the statement to reflect these concerns.

James Horgan
Hertford, UK

13 May 2009

I am positive about the ‘Gospel Convictions’ statement, and write because I feel there is scope for improvement in its style. I assume you hope it will be useful not just for evangelical Christians, but also for those whose views differ from yours. The statement is very direct, rightly giving ample space to the negative as well as the positive, and so, inevitably, it will cause offence. If it is possible to avoid antagonizing readers unnecessarily, that would seem to be something to aim for, so I would suggest avoiding legalese like the ‘hereby’ in the first paragraph, and quotations from the Bible that are familiar to Bible readers, but are a strange dialect to others (e.g. the “once for all delivered” quotation and the phrases “wondrous love” and “zealous for good works”). The style of the whole piece seems to me rather stuffy. Maybe this arises from the frequent use of abstract nouns and passive verbs (e.g. the first sentences of sections 2 and 4).

The word ‘accordingly’ is severely overworked in the draft, but there are alternatives, or it can be cut.

I have decided to retype the whole statement, making changes as I went. I have highlighted what seem to me important alterations. I hope this is of some assistance.

Knowing from Scripture that true life is to be found only in the knowledge of God, and that the times we live in will be marked by doctrinal error and godless living, we hereby commit ourselves to proclaim and contend for the following teachings of the Bible. We are convinced that these truths express both the unchanging faith given to us in the Scriptures, and the points at which that faith is under threat at the present time.

1. The truth and centrality of the gospel of Jesus, the crucified and risen Christ. Not a sentence, so no stop is needed; same with the other five headings

The gospel is the momentous news concerning God's divine Son, whom God the Father sent into the world and who became the man Jesus Christ. The gospel declares that Jesus lived a sinless life, that he died on the cross in our place, bearing God's righteous anger and judgement against our sin; that God raised Jesus phyiscally from death, exalted him to heaven, and seated him at his own right hand as the Lord and Ruler of the world. [Omit words in brackets] According to this same gospel, Jesus Christ will return as judge of the living and the dead, bringing eternal punishment on those who do not obey him, but forgiveness of sins, salvation and eternal life to all who repent and put their trust in him. Therefore, the gospel demands a twofold response: that we turn away from our rebellion against God to submit to Jesus Christ as Lord (repentance), and that we trust in the risen Christ alone for forgiveness of sin and salvation in the day of judgement (faith).

This gospel of Christ crucified demonstrates the wondrous love and righteousness of God, and reveals his eternal plan to unite all things in heaven and on earth under one head, his Son Jesus Christ Omit: “to the praise of his glory and grace”. By the proclamation of this gospel, God is gathering from every nation a people for his own possession—a people who are justified by Jesus' blood and committed to good deeds .

Omit: Accordingly, We are opposed to any teaching that denies the unique and universal Lordship of the risen Christ as the only name under heaven by which people must be saved, that rejects the penal substitutionary atonement of the cross, or that diminishes the reality of future judgement and hell. We also oppose any practice of Christian ministry that displaces the clear, faithful and frequent speaking of this gospel in favour of other emphases, such as social action or personal growth, or that promises salvation without personal repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We Omit: also resist the call to any ‘unity’ that is not based on the truth of this gospel.

2. The necessity of the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit to initiate and enable repentance and faith.

Because we humans are universally sinful and spiritually dead, only God's Holy Spirit at work within us can open our eyes to the truth of the gospel, bring us from death to life and lead us to repent and believe [omit next bit in parenthesis] All Christian believers are baptized in the Spirit, and by his power, are born again to a new life with God as our Father and Jesus as our Lord. The Spirit leads us to put to death the misdeeds of the body and produce the fruit of holy living; he unites us as one new humanity in Christ.

Consequently, we reject Omit: any teaching that questions predestination and God's sovereignty in bringing believers to new birth by his Spirit, and we oppose the worldliness that resists the Spirit's leading towards daily holiness. We are opposed to Omit: any teaching about the Spirit's work that effectively divides Christians into different classes according to their level of emotional experience, their exercise of any miraculous gift, their achievement of ongoing victory over sin, or their experience of a second blessing or ‘baptism of the Spirit’.

3. The assurance of salvation that belongs to those who have been justified by the blood of Jesus and sealed by his Spirit.

Those who by the Spirit's work rest their confidence in Christ's blood alone for justification are fully assured of their right standing before God, their possession of eternal life and their ultimate salvation at the Last Day. While true living faith will always lead to the good works God has prepared for us to do, these good works play no part in winning our salvation, either now or on the Last Day.

Therefore, we are opposed to Omit: any teaching that undermines in believers our assurance of salvation for believers either by denying our present justification, or by questioning our experience of the Spirit, or by adding religious or moral works as necessary for salvation.

4. The authority and sufficiency of the God-breathed Scriptures for gospel truth and life.

The writings of the Old and New Testaments foreshadow, reveal and explain the gospel of Jesus Christ All the words of the Bible are God's words. It is not merely that they are true, reliable and authoritative; they are God's sufficient means for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training his people in every age. All Christian evangelism and ministry centre [plural subject—plural verb] on the prayerful speaking of the Bible's truth, whatever else they may entail or however they may be supported. [Word order change to avoid ambiguity.]

Therefore, we refute any view that diminishes the Bible's authority, for example, by subordinating it to the authority of the Church or of scholarship. We oppose claims that sections of Scripture are in error (e.g. by contradicting biblical reports of the bodily resurrection of Christ) or no longer acceptable (e.g. in denying the continuing validity of biblical gender distinctions). We also stand opposed to any who reject the Bible's sufficiency by claiming access to Omit: new or fresh revelation—whether by ecstatic experience, words of knowledge, meditative contemplation, church councils or liturgical ritual.

5. The tension of gospel living in the world today.

As those who live between the resurrection and return of Christ, we give thanks for all the good gifts we receive from God's hand in creation, and we count it all joy when we suffer the inevitable trials, illnesses and persecutions of this present evil age. In God's kindness, such trials test and strengthen our trust in Christ. We look forward with longing and hope to the resurrection of the dead and the new creation, which God will assuredly bring in his own secret time at the return of Jesus Christ. Then we will experience in their fulness [British spelling!] all the blessings won by Christ, including freedom from sickness, pain, injustice, poverty and death.

Accordingly, we stand opposed to the ‘social gospel’, the ‘prosperity gospel’ and the ‘healing gospel’—all of which falsely seek to draw into this age the blessings of the next. We explore the fact that so many are in love with this present world and its pleasures, rather than longing for the age to come.

6. The urgency of gospel living in the world today.

By their nature, these glorious gospel truths demand, not only that we proclaim and contend for them, but that we practise them as well. To assent to these truths without also acting them out in our lives is neither to understand them nor really to believe them.

Thus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and with our hearts compelled by the love of Christ, we declare our determination to:

• surrender our lives to the honour and service of Christ in daily holiness and decision-making
• pray constantly in Christ's name for growth and fruitfulness of his gospel
• proclaim the Bible's life-changing word whenever and however we can—in the home, in the world and in the fellowship of his people.

Basil Bigg
East Sussex, UK

12 May 2009

1. In part 1, we need to refer to Jesus' continued divinity when he becomes a man: “who became the man Jesus Christ”.
2. Should there not be some mention of the Trinity somewhere? Some Catholics are pushing to have Mary included in the Trinity.
3. Original sin and the sinful nature are not adequately acknowledged. (Sin is represented here more in terms of conscious rebellion => ‘innocent’ infants.)
4. In part 2, the word ‘humanity’ is used twice in the first paragraph. ‘Humanity’ is a modern liberal word. We should use ‘man’ or ‘people’ or ‘chosen people’.
5. Part 2: we should say “so-called second blessing ...”.
6. In part 4, we should say “tongues or other ecstatic experience” (spell it out, because some wouldn't think tongues is an ecstatic experience, yet it is the most common one).
7. Are there any aspects of millennial teachings we want to oppose? What about the ‘rapture’?
8. Predestination could be more explicit.
9. In part 1, could we refer to Jesus as our redeemer (cf. Catholics with Mary)?
10. Anything about the place of the law?
11. Part 6, the first bullet point: should emphasize that this response is not an attempt to earn salvation, but a response of obedience to his grace?

Roger Parker
The Reformers' Bookshop
Stanmore, NSW, AUS

6 May 2009

As with everything you produce, I really appreciate it. You think things through, and your ‘Gospel Convictions’ embody this. That's why I hesitate to suggest these few amendments, because I feel you've got things just about right. So the following is just a bit of tinkering, that's all. Do with it what you want.

PREAMBLE: Was your second clause a dig at our current age, or a comment on the state of every generation? Because I favour the latter view, and I think you do too, how about this small amendment?

We know from Scripture that true life is only to be found in the knowledge of God, and in faithful obedience to his will and his ways. But we are also realistic enough to know that every generation of believers is prone to doctrinal error and godless living. With those twin truths in mind, we hereby commit ourselves to, etc.

POINT 1: A brilliant statement! May I suggest a minor alteration 4 lines from the end? Could you change “personal growth” to “personal fulfilment”? That seems a safer description of the “it's all about me” attitude that you're rightly decrying.

POINT 2: [My suggested amendments here spring from my views as a non-cessationist reformed man, so if the official Briefing line is cessationist, then please ignore what I'm saying. I can't expect you to change your stance just on the basis of a slight tweaking in the form of words. It needs much more space to argue these things through.] Apologies for labels!

Could the last sentence in paragraph 1 read:

The Spirit leads us to put to death the misdeeds of the body and produce the fruit of holy living; he gives varied gifts to individuals as he decides, not as we demand; and he unites us as one new humanity in Christ.

As for your second paragraph about the Spirit, would it be more diplomatic [!!] to make the final sentence less specific about the attitudes you deplore? In my [non-cessationist!] view, you have lumped together as wrong a mixture of views that are both wrong and [arguably?] right. Could you accept the following?

We are also opposed to any teaching about the Spirit's work that tends to make Christians feel either superior or inferior according to their emotional experiences, their alleged victory over indwelling sin, or their claims to a “second blessing”.

POINT 4: Once again, you'll see my non-cessationism coming through! How about this for the last four lines?

We also stand opposed to any who reject the Bible's sufficiency by daring to claim access to new or fresh revelation [from any source] that could be placed on the same level as the Bible itself.

POINT 5: [from my same standpoint!]. Could the last paragraph now read:

While we welcome the blessings to society that often accompany the acceptance of the gospel, and while we acknowledge God's sovereign right to heal miraculously those whom he chooses, we stand opposed to any false gospel that erroneously seeks to draw into this age the permanent blessings of the next.

Thanks for you patience in wading through this. If you could point me to a back copy of The Briefing that has dealt with the cessationist view, I could perhaps have saved us all the trouble of writing/reading this.

Cliff Bailey
Devon, UK

3 May 2009

As a long-time subscriber, I want to express my thanks to the Briefing crew, past and present, for your work over the years. At times, I have been challenged, affirmed, frustrated and encouraged, but always in the knowledge that you have the glory of God in your sights. Keep it up!

The draft version of ‘Gospel Convictions’ in Section 6 calls us to action, just as Tony did in his piece in Up front in the 21st Anniversary edition. This call to action is great, but perhaps it could be strengthened by the addition of a fourth very important issue: we need to be specifically reminded to do the good works he has prepared for us to do.

I am here assuming that “to speak the Bible's life-changing word”—the last point of Section 6—is regarded as a ministry of the word and does not refer to good works. If this is not what is meant, then perhaps this should be spelled out more clearly.

There are a number of New Testament passages that make it quite clear that we are to do good works. Ephesians 2:8-10 states unequivocally that, in fact, this is what we are created for in Christ Jesus:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Other passages that are relevant include Titus 3:8, 14; Hebrews 10:24, 13:16 and 1 Peter 2:12. And we do well to pay heed to the warnings of Matthew 16:27 and Revelation 2:5, 20:13, 22:12. The Old Testament makes it clear many times that the fault with the Israelites was that they were not “doing justice” (e.g. Jeremiah 22:1-4).

‘Gospel Convictions’ touches on the issue in Section 3 where there is the acknowledgement that “true living faith will always lead to the good works that God has prepared for us to do...”, but this is said within a negative framework, and is hardly encouraging us to do them. This is unlike the writer of Hebrews 10:24 who wants us to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works”.

I think that in ‘Gospel Convictions’, we need to be able to capture the dynamic of saving faith that has the glory of God as its goal with good works as an intrinsic part of its expression. That the powerful effect of God's saving love within us will result in good works should be seen as a united whole, the parts of which cannot be separated. Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, writing to the church of the Thessalonians. capture this well in saying, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word” (2 Thess 2:16-17).

James, of course, goes to some length to ensure that we understand that faith without works is dead. By not doing works, we deny the faith; without the works, the faith is useless. Both come from God. Perhaps the double helix of genetics fame is a useful analogy here: the strands are separate, but, uncombined, produce nothing. If either strand is damaged, the whole suffers—not dead, but certainly not complete.

There is a practical danger in not giving good works their proper place. Some of us are able to lead, to preach and to evangelize. But not all of us—in fact, not many of us. The danger comes when evangelical doctrine focuses on the ‘some’ while subtly suggesting that the ‘many’ ought to join the ‘some’. But where does this leave the many who know full well that they are not able to lead or preach or evangelize? It leaves them faithfully attending services and Bible studies that don't acknowledge their good works—not as ‘Random acts of kindness’, as the bumper sticker calls them, but as the proper and true expressions of faith in Jesus.

Bob Boss-Walker
Port Macquarie, NSW, AUS

21 April 2009

Regarding ‘Gospel Convictions’, I absolutely agree with the statements as they are understood. Some comments if I may. In the first section, I was distracted by the phrase “who was sent into the world by his Father and who became the man Jesus Christ”. I understood what was said, but Scripture called his name Immanuel, ‘God with us’. He did not become that; he came as Jesus, the Christ (the Messiah). The use of the word “became” sounds to this reader too akin to those thoughts espoused by cultic doctrine that one can become ‘a Christ’. Just a thought. I particularly liked your clarity in section 5. The “social, prosperity, and healing” gospel are the gospels of the western God of consumerism. Having served in the mission field in south-east Asia, that false gospel cannot and should not ever fit. Thank you for the awesome work in The Briefing.

Keith Stell
Location not provided

21 April 2009

I've been meaning to write something about the gospel convictions statement in the last Briefing, but it keeps getting lost in other things.

It's pretty darn good. I like its simplicity, its biblicism, the way it handles polemical issues. It's great.

If I had to quibble with something, I might nitpick on the “love of Christ” in #6. It's ambiguous, of course, and I assume deliberately so: is it Christ's love for us, or the love that we have for others that comes from Christ? But it could be worth being more explicit about our love for others, given the ubiquity of the explicit command in the New Testament (e.g. 1 Pet 4:18; cf. Rom 13:8; 1 Cor 13, Phil 1:9, Col 3:14, Heb 13:1, 2 Pet 1:7, 1 John 4:7-11, John 13:34-35, Matt 22:38-39). Also, the shape of the love described in the three sub-points, if I can say it, is a little pharisaic. The Pharisees would happily sign up to “Determined to abandon our lives in honour to God and in prayer and evangelism”, but they could do so with no love. Especially in our ‘love deficit’ context, it's worth making love central to both life and doctrine.

So my suggestion is that it could be worth being more explicit—both for us who sign it, and for those who read it. Perhaps: “Being compelled by the love of Christ, we declare our determination to: regard no one from a worldly point of view (or, according to the flesh—ESV), but to do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith”.

Thanks again. It's a great statement.

David Walker
Aitkenvale, QLD, AUS

21 April 2009

Congratulations on your 21st anniversary, and thank you for the MP3s. I am enjoying the sermons and Tony's song.

Seeing that you asked for comment on “Gospel Convictions” I was impressed with the clarity of the statements. However, in point 1, where Jesus' returning as judge means ‘forgiveness of sins’ for believers, I thought this could be taken that we are not forgiven until Jesus returns. Also, I think it should say “for all who have repented”, not “to all who repent”, as this may be taken that repentance is possible after Jesus returns. Later in point 3, you state that you are opposed to teaching that undermines our present justification , which includes repentance and forgiveness of sins. So perhaps point 1 could be worded differently to avoid misunderstanding.

I really look forward to monthly Briefings, and praise God for the men he is raising up to stand for the truth of the Bible in these last days.

Jenny Hunt
Tamworth, NSW, AUS

19 April, 2009

Thank you very much for the 21st anniversary edition. There were some great articles in it. And thank you for the last however many years (since issue #173 when we started reading) as well. We do read pretty much all of every issue, so please be encouraged by that. I think The Briefing has been great for helping us to have a biblical mindset. We're not great at really thinking and praying articles through, though, so we love the idea of having a few questions and prayer points.

You asked for comments on ‘Gospel Convictions’. Here are a couple of things that struck us as we read it.

Under point 1, you say: “Jesus Christ will return ... bringing ... forgiveness of sins, salvation and eternal life to all who repent and put their trust in him”. We thought this wasn't quite right because we are forgiven now (Col 1:12-14), we are saved now (Eph 2:5, 8) and we have eternal life now (John 5:24). So we don't need to wait for Jesus to return to bring these things.

We thought that maybe something related to evangelism should have a point all to itself. As it stands, it is mentioned in a number of the points, and gets the last bullet point of point 6. That didn't seem enough.

Thanks again, and do keep up the good work.

James and Vicky Widdows
Grace Church Dulwich
South-east London, UK

19 April 2009

Enjoyed ‘Gospel Convictions’! A couple of suggestions:

1. In point 1, one of the areas where substitutionary atonement has been under attack is the characterization of an angry God making a innocent and, by implication, an unwilling Son die for us. A key argument against this view is that Jesus willingly went to the cross. So you might consider changing the second sentence to “The gospel declares that Jesus lived a sinless life, that he willingly died on the cross ...”
2. Postmodernism and its rejection of absolute truth is also clearly an issue we need to stand against. While I think that you do this in what you do and some things you say, I think it would be helpful to make it overt as it is such an influential concept taught to our kids, and largely assumed to be true. So I suggest in point 4 that you add something explicit in the refutation section. A suggestion would be to add to the first refutation sentence ”... under the authority of the Church or scholarship, or those who deny that it is absolutely true for all ages including our own age.”

Grant Dibden
Kings Langley, NSW, AUS

17 April 2009

You invited comments on ‘Gospel Convictions’. My wife and I thought that your draft statement was excellent, but we would like to make one small suggestion. This concerns the word ‘hope’ under point 5. Today, this word usually carries the implication of being within the realms of possibility—that is, introducing an element of doubt or uncertainty—while, in the Bible, it refers to a future certainty. Can different wording be used to overcome this change of use of language?

We find The Briefing a very helpful and thought-provoking publication, read from cover to cover.

We also liked Tony's guitar work!

Robert and Judith Batty
Purley, UK

16 April 2009

I read the ‘Gospel Convictions’ statement in this month's Briefing. I loved it. Here are a few vague comments. (I feel like I should have taken much more time to think about it!)

Point 1: The statement mentions the centrality of the gospel. However, nothing is said in the following comment about why or how the gospel is central. Along similar lines, I think there should be a statement in the first paragraph about salvation only coming through Jesus' death on the cross. Finally, towards the end of the second paragraph, it mentions God gathering people from every nation. Again, I wish it would say that God is gathering a people from the Jews and the Gentiles (from every nation) to reflect the biblical way of looking at such things.

Point 4: The first sentence is not clear. The gospel is foreshadowed in the Old Testament, not the New Testament, etc. You might need two sentences here (foreshadowed in Old Testament and fulfilled in New Testament). I absolutely love the final paragraph.

GO THE BRIEFING!!!

Martin Pakula
Lilydale, VIC, AUS

14 April 2009

A quick thought after looking at the “Gospel Convictions” statement. Great idea. Thank you. Great interview with Phillip and great article by Tony on looking back and forward.

On the “Gospel Convictions”, it possibly needs something on ‘church’, the local assembly, our conviction of the need to gather for encouragement, Jesus' command to love one another (cf. the individualism of our age). Also, ‘love for the lost’ seems to be missing, as is love for all people—doing good for all. I know you can't fit everything in, but these are just some things that occurred to me.

Keep up the great work.

James Davidson
North Rocks, NSW, AUS

14 April 2009

My comments on ‘Gospel Convictions’: easy to read, easy to understand, totally succinct. I very much like the ‘accordingly’ statements: they leave no-one in any doubt of where you are coming from. I have moved in some circles where I have been treated as a second-class Christian simply because I didn't speak in tongues and therefore was not ‘baptized in the Spirit’. I agree wholeheartedly with all you say in Section 2.

I've only been a subscriber for around five years, but have enjoyed each edition. I find today that in many churches, one listens to wishy-washy teaching that does nothing for one's heartstrings or one's grey cells. The Briefing addresses these issues. It's a most stimulating read—thought-provoking and spiritually exercising.

Thank you and keep up the good work.

Shirley Mainstone
Spring Gully, VIC, AUS

13 April 2009

Congratulations on your 21st anniversary! I am grateful for all the benefit the magazine has brought me since I started subscribing.

Can I please respond to a couple things in the issue?

Firstly, the doctrinal statement: I think it's a very good idea to create a statement like this that makes clear where The Briefing stands theologically. Having read through it, I think it is very good. I applaud the clarity of the statements about salvation, the work of Jesus, and the sufficiency and authority of Scripture. (Please don't be pressured into removing “e.g. denying the continuing validity of biblical gender distinctions”; some will say that this is a secondary matter, but, in fact, it is a key ‘litmus test’ issue for evangelical commitment to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.)

I did notice, however, that there is no clear statement of the Trinity. If this is meant to be a thorough statement of core/non-negotiable Christian beliefs, I think that should be included. (It would be worrying if an Arian or modalist could read the statement and agree with it—which might be the case!)

Jereth Kok
Melbourne, VIC, AUS

9 April 2009

Just a few comments on ‘Gospel Convictions’. I could not fault a word, but I do not like the balance of the presentation. I would prefer the overall layout to be:

1. In matters of faith
2. In matters of hope
3. In matters of love.

In matters of faith, the Apostles' Creed is a good starting point onto which you tack the articles of reformed evangelical faith. It seems to me that you have taken too much as assumed knowledge, and need the creed as your starting point to ensure more balance.

In matters of hope, I think you could rejig the articles of gospel living in the sense of pilgrims' progress towards the new Jerusalem.

In matters of love, I think you further need to address the two great commandments, which leaves you with an evangelical position to fashion on the social welfare agenda.

Dr Paul Hopwood
Pennant Hills, NSW, AUS

9 April 2009

I find Section 4 (on the authority and sufficiency of the God-breathed Scriptures for gospel truth and life) to raise questions and inspire comments:

1. There is no recognition of the issue of the interpretation of Scripture, a matter on which people rightly look to both the church and to scholarship for help with. Is the church permitted, according to ‘Gospel Convictions’, to offer an authoritative interpretation or not?
2. Is it wise to offer specific examples of a statement of principle? Thus “We also oppose the claim that sections of Scripture are ... no longer relevant” could be agreed on by all evangelicals, but there is likely to be disagreement over the specific example given: “in denying the continuing validity of biblical gender distinctions”. Why divide evangelicals in a statement of convictions through an ‘e.g’? (Of course, if ‘Gospel Convictions’ include [say] submission by women in marriage, women not being permitted to provide authoritative teaching, then this should be stated as a clear conviction).
3. Generally, the statement is negative around ‘social action’ (section 1), ‘social gospel’, ‘prosperity gospel’ and ‘healing gospel’ (section 5). Many evangelicals will not disagree with what is said per se, but will wonder, as I do, why nothing constructive seems to be said about the role of healing, social action and social justice in the working out of the mission of God.

With all good wishes for the next 21 years,

Peter Carrell
Nelson, NZ

3 April 2009

Congratulations on The Briefing's 21st birthday! Although I have only been a subscriber for a year or so, your journal has become an eagerly awaited part of each month's mailbag.

I was very interested to read the statement of ‘Gospel Convictions’, which you drafted and published in the 21st birthday edition. I think it's a good idea, and the thing I really like about it is the clarity with which you not only set out the positive points of the gospel, but also make it clear what this rules out and what, therefore, needs to be resisted/refuted.

What I might suggest adding, though, is a clear reference to the doctrine of the Trinity. The question of who God actually is is central to the Bible, and the answer is, of course, that God is Trinity (even though that word does not appear in Scripture). The doctrine of the Trinity is under attack not only from cults like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, but also increasingly from liberals within the mainstream Christian denominations. Most of the major controversies of the day (the roles of men and women, homosexuality, the uniqueness of Christ) have deep implications for Trinitarian doctrine. Liberals will often be content to re-shape the Trinity in order to support their chosen conclusions in these other areas, rather than letting the truth of who God really is shape our convictions in all other areas.

Hope this helps.

David Huss
St Paul's Church
Banbury, UK

3 April 2009

Terrific edition of a marvellous magazine! It is well worth celebrating the 21st anniversary of a journal that has been greatly used to bless God's people and proclaim the truth of the eternal gospel.

I like the idea of the ‘Gospel Convictions’. A couple of suggestions:

1. I wonder whether the second clause in the introductory paragraph (“and that the times ... godless living”) is really necessary up front. It seems to me to strike too negative a note too early. Of course, I think it is true, but the tone of the statement is important when people first read it. Maybe a similar sentiment could be put into the final sentence of the intro—for example, “but (keeping in mind that we expect the time until Jesus' return to be marked by doctrinal error and godless living) the points ...”
2. The summary of the gospel is excellent! I would personally have liked to see a clear rejection of views that denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus in the ‘denial’, but of point 1 after the reference to the atonement. But I see it is there in point 4, so I can live with it there.
3. In point 4, however, it seems to me that if this statement is intended to respond to current issues, we need another ‘denial’: in the bracket after “relevant”, I would suggest, at the end after “distinctions”, something like “or the Bible's teaching on sexual morality”. I think that covers pre-marital sex and homosexuality.

Keep up the good work!

Neil Foster
Newcastle, NSW, AUS

1 April 2009

Thank you for ‘Gospel Convictions’. It was invigorating to read a contemporary restatement of the “faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints”. I particularly appreciated the “Accordingly ...” sections, which set out the negative implications of the five main convictions. If The Briefing won't say those bold things, which Christian periodical will? So thank you for saying them.

Since you invite feedback and input, I have a few suggestions. I'm worried that the presentation of the gospel in conviction #1 lacks any sense of promise and fulfilment. It makes the Old Testament seem completely unnecessary! This is reflected in the definition of “the Christ” as “the Lord and Ruler of the world”. While this is true, the primary meaning of ‘Christ’ is the divine King of Israel, promised for centuries beforehand. Only as such is he Lord and Ruler of the world.

When you say, “the Spirit leads us to put to death the misdeeds of the body” in conviction #2, that seems to leave us as the ones doing the actual mortifying, while the Spirit eggs us on in the background. But it is by his power that we put sin to death and do what is right. Could you replace ‘leads’ with the more global ‘helps’?

I think you need to insert “as originally written” into the middle of the following sentence from conviction #4: “All the words of the Bible are God's words”. We wouldn't want people to think that The Briefing encourages belief in the wretched false ending of Mark's Gospel with its snakes and deadly poison!

One other suggestion, which you probably won't agree with, is to change the final bullet point in conviction #6: “[we declare our determination to:] speak the Bible's life-changing word whenever and however we can—in the home, in the world and in the fellowship of his people”. By all means, let's be known as Christ's people, and let's all speak up for him, but doesn't the Bible emphasize the preaching of the word by the people given by Christ for that task (Eph 4:11)? Why not change the final bullet point to: “[we declare our determination to:] support the preaching of the Bible's life-changing word among the lost and in the fellowship of God's people, by our financial giving, time and effort”?

Thanks again for embarking on this really helpful exercise. I think when the dust has settled, it will be a great resource.

Nick Howard
Kent, UK

29 March 2009

I am a regular reader of The Briefing, although I have never corresponded with you before.

I applaud what The Briefing is trying to do—to say things how they are in the light of biblical teaching. This is so often avoided in the local church in favour of not wanting to cause offence or not wanting to upset anyone or come across as judgemental, and so on.

I obtain Christian teaching from a variety of ministries—some of which do conflict—and therefore some must be in error. I would like you to expand on conviction #5 for me please. Among other points made in this particular conviction, I was a little surprised to read the phrase used as a critique of the social, prosperity and healing ‘gospels’—“all of which falsely seek to draw into this age the blessings of the age to come”. I am not seeking to defend all aspects of some Christian ministries that seem to major on these ‘gospels’, but my reading of the Bible does suggest to me that there is more to living as a Christian than just waiting for a release from worldly problems by the blessings received after death.

Conviction #5 communicates to me that The Briefing's view is that we should just live on earth, grateful for our eternal salvation, and seek to proclaim this salvation to others by way of gospel preaching, but also to accept all the “inevitable trials, illnesses and persecutions of this present evil age” that come our way with a “we can't do anything about it because it must be God's sovereign will” philosophy.

It appears to me that the commission Jesus gave us included a level of authority won back for us over the evil one by Jesus' defeat of Satan on the cross (Matt 28:18-20; Mark 16:17-18). We read in Ephesians 3:20 that God/Jesus “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us”. This says to me that God is limited in what he can achieve on earth by what we do as his followers. There is no full stop after the word “imagine”; it is a comma. God can do anything, but it is by way of his power at work within us if we allow it.

If I am wrong and we do not have any Jesus-given authority, and nothing happens without God controlling/willing it, then I have some serious questions, such as:

1. What is the point of prayer? God wills everything to happen anyway, so what effect can we have on it? In fact, it would be a sin to pray for healing if it's God's will that we are sick!
2. It must then be God's will that all the disasters, killing and other evil in the world happen—in which case, I am going to have a real problem convincing my unbelieving friends that God is a good God who loves them.
3. Eternal life in the sense of all the blessing of it begins when we die, and we just have to sing “when we all get to heaven, what a day that will be!”

Please correct me if I'm wrong. If I am, then I have less responsibility than I thought!

Tony Jopson
Plymouth, UK

Professor Paul Helm held the JI Packer Chair in Theology and Philosophy at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada from 2001-2004. Before that, Professor Helm was Professor of the History and Philosophy of Religion at King's College in the University of London. Before joining King's College in 1993, he was Reader in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. Educated in Worcester College, Oxford, Professor Helm has written many articles and books, mainly focusing on the philosophy of religion and Christian doctrine in the Reformed tradition. He is married and has five children. Among his many books are The Providence of God, Eternal God, Faith with Reason, Faith and Understanding, Calvin and the Calvinists, The Beginnings, The Callings, The Last Things and his most recent major work, John Calvin's Ideas (Oxford University Press 2004). Peter Hastie spoke to Professor Helm in Vancouver.

Professor Helm, why does a professor of philosophy write books on a theologian like John Calvin? Why are you interested in him rather than someone who is a renowned Christian philosopher like Thomas Aquinas?

Actually, there are a number of reasons for my interest in Calvin. When I wrote my first book on Calvin, Calvin and the Calvinists, I was responding to a book by Dr RT Kendall, later a well-known minister in London, in which he suggested that Calvin's so-called theological ‘successors’ in the period after the Reformation misrepresented many of his positions and introduced a number of corruptions into the brand of theology which has come to be associated with Calvin's name.

My own view, which I still hold, was that RT Kendall had done a poor job in trying to distinguish between Calvin and the Calvinistic tradition. In fact, his book undermined the Calvinistic tradition, which is the tradition out of which I come. So I became rather alarmed at the thought that the tradition that we have associated with John Calvin was being ‘trashed’ for what I considered to be rather flimsy and superficial reasons. So Calvin and the Calvinists was a response to RT Kendall's book, and nothing more.

However, in my latest book on Calvin, John Calvin's Ideas, I am seeking to do something rather different. I think we can learn from him about how to think and how to engage in theology and philosophy. I am particularly interested as a professional philosopher in Calvin's approach to gaining knowledge and establishing truth.

Calvin has a lot to teach Christian philosophers of today about our attitude to knowledge. One of the most pleasing developments over the last few decades has been the rise in interest in what is now called ‘Christian’ philosophy. What we have seen, particularly in North America and elsewhere, has been a renaissance of Christians who are interested in philosophy. This has been a very encouraging phenomenon, but it has had a glaring deficiency. Parts of the movement are not as theologically aware or informed as they could be. Unfortunately, this has affected the quality of work that some of these Christian philosophers have undertaken when they write on the philosophy of religion. If some of them had a better appreciation of Calvin, as well as other theological ‘greats’, I daresay that they would have probably produced more useful philosophy.

How does an understanding of Calvin's views about knowledge help them?

Calvin spoke about a distinction between God as he is in himself—that is, his essence, and God as he is revealed towards us, in other words, his nature. In Book 1 of the Institutes, Calvin says:

What is God? Men who pose this question are merely toying with idle speculations. It is far better for us to inquire ‘What is his nature?’ and to know what is consistent with his nature ... indeed his essence is incomprehensible; hence his divineness far escapes all human perception. But upon his individual works he has engraved unmistakeable marks of his glory.

Here Calvin makes a rather nuanced distinction between God's nature and God's essence. He believes while we cannot properly understand God's essence (it is, in a sense, incomprehensible), we can know his nature, which is revealed to us. Of course, Calvin isn't saying that since God's essence is incomprehensible, we can't know anything about it. We can know what has been revealed to us, thus giving an insight into the character of God's nature, from which we can then go on to draw some conclusions about his essence. But the essence of God has not been revealed to us. For God to fully impart himself to us would require us to be divine. This means that there is no name or concept that fully encompasses God. Nor is there any description of God that fully defines him. We cannot explain God completely with our own thoughts, imagination or language.

If philosophers fully understood this, they would recognize more acutely than they do the limits of human reason to comprehend God and his ways. Calvin reminds us that we must be constantly aware of the presence of mystery in the Christian faith. He also helps us to see why the mystery is there. He seeks to preserve and protect that mystery and, in a sense, not allow it to be trampled on by the philosophical intellect. Calvin believes that God's incomprehensibility warns us against unwarranted speculation in theology, and about trusting human analogies of the divine. So I believe Calvin is enormously helpful in getting us started on the right foot as we try to think philosophically. And, as I said before, knowing Calvin thoroughly is essential to understanding and safeguarding the Reformed tradition.

I think many people who will read your latest book, John Calvin's Ideas, will say that it's a groundbreaking book because it's looking at Calvin's intellectual and philosophical roots. Did you have a specific reason that led you and Oxford University Press to publish it?

I wanted to clear up a number of modern misconceptions about Calvin. One of the misconceptions held by many Christians today about Calvin is that they think that he is a purely biblical thinker—he had no real interaction with or knowledge of philosophy. They think he was born in the heavens, as it were, and was untouched and unaffected by medieval philosophy. But I think I have demonstrated in my book that Calvin was a child of the medieval period. A thorough reading of Calvin's works shows that he was also affected by the Renaissance and was very familiar with a whole range of theological and philosophical positions.

Throughout my book I use the Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, as a kind of foil for Calvin. I am not suggesting, incidentally, that Thomas Aquinas directly influenced Calvin. But someone or something that has Aquinas's intellectual ‘shape’ certainly did. The interesting thing is that on a number of important issues, the positions that he and Thomas adopt marry up with each other. So that's one reason why I am so interested in Calvin. I think it's important to understand his theological method as well as his view of knowledge, and to discover who his theological and philosophical predecessors were.

The other major reason why I am so interested in Calvin—especially his understanding of how and what we know about God—is that in some branches of contemporary Christian philosophy, Calvin is viewed as a supporter of what is known as ‘reformed epistemology’. ‘Reformed epistemology’ is the name we give to a branch of philosophy that is concerned with religious knowledge and how we can establish certain religious truth-claims. Those who believe in reformed epistemology challenge the idea that all beliefs, other than those that are allegedly self-evident, must be supported by evidence to be fully rational. Reformed epistemologists think it's perfectly reasonable, for instance, for a person to believe many things without having evidence to support their beliefs. Most strikingly, they insist that believing in God does not need the support of evidence or argument in order for it to be rational.

Famous contemporary philosophers like Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, who are coming out of a Calvinist tradition, have tried to find precedent for what they believe in Calvin. They claim that if Calvin is right in thinking that people are born with an innate sense of God, then we can rationally come to belief in God without the need for supporting evidence. Personally, I am not convinced that they are entitled to draw all these conclusions from Calvin, and so I evaluate their ideas about Calvin as part of my book.

In your latest book, you say very little about John Calvin's views on predestination. Yet popular historians and other scholars often identify his views on predestination as the central plank in his theology. Why haven't you used that as the defining point of Calvin?

I haven't focused on Calvin's doctrine of predestination because I believe it's a wrong reading of Calvin to want to identify in his thought a central dogma from which all other theological positions can be deduced or derived. Instead, I have tried to show that there were actually many ideas in Calvin's head besides the idea of predestination. Though I don't deal with predestination in the book, I should point out that there's a chapter on the closely aligned subject of providence.

I think the other thing that I'd say is that Calvin's views on predestination and election are hardly unique to him. Unfortunately, in the popular mind Calvin is the author of the doctrines of predestination and election. The reality is somewhat different. The fact is that we find very similar views to Calvin's in Augustine and, to a lesser degree, but definitely to a considerable degree, in Thomas Aquinas.

It's often made out that Calvin burst on to the theological scene like a meteor from another galaxy. People have said that he has little in common with earlier theologians in terms of theological method, style and content. Is that an accurate view of Calvin?

No, not really. Calvin certainly brings a freshness of style to theological writing. Clearly he is one of the founders, if that's the right word, of the modern French language. He's enormously important in that sense. And he certainly had prodigious, unique Renaissance-cultivated literary gifts. You certainly find these in The Institutes, for example, where Calvin constructs his work in the second person rather than the third person. Sometimes he even writes in the first person. So, in one sense, he is rather unique in terms of his style—his language is elegant, economical, graceful and un-scholastic.

However, even recognizing that Calvin brings his very own style to theological writing, we should not be blind to the signs of scholastic influence in both The Institutes and a number of other works. For instance, he employs the medieval disputatio tradition. This is a mode of exposition in which the question for discussion is raised, then authorities are advanced in support of and also in opposition to the proposition to be discussed, and then some reasoned judgement. I think this demonstrates that Calvin was a man of his times who worked within the conventions of his age.

This brings me to the claim, sometimes heard, that Calvin is so unique, he seems to come from another world. My own view is that lots of people have tried to appropriate Calvin for their own theological and political agendas. A modern example of just this sort of thing is the controversy that arose in Europe between Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, both leading Protestant theologians at the time of the Second World War. Barth and Brunner quarrelled over whether Calvin was or was not a natural theologian. One of the reasons for the intensity of this debate was that Barth was trying to enlist Calvin to support him in his stance against the ‘German Christian’ movement (a creature of the Nazi party) in the early years of the Third Reich. The German Christian movement sought justification for its teachings from so-called natural theology. I think this particular controversy is a reminder that we should always be wary of anachronism in appropriating ideas from the past to the present.

To what extent was Calvin indebted to his medieval predecessors?

It's interesting that Calvin was educated in philosophy and in law, but not in theology. He picked up theology, so to speak. I think it's impossible to deny he was influenced by his educational background.

I find it interesting when people say that Calvin has an anti-speculative, anti-scholastic frame of mind. There's considerable evidence that he's anti-speculative, but a lot less evidence that he's anti-scholastic. When he inveighs against the scholastics, he has very specific people in mind—namely, his contemporaries at the Sorbonne (University of Paris) who were ardently obstructing the Reformation. In other places, he simply deals with his scholastic inheritance either by accepting or rejecting its various insights, based on whether he thought they were good and useful in fostering the Reformation project. So, almost on the same page, you can find an instance of Calvin praising Aristotle on some particular issue, and then, a short while later, critiquing him for some other matter. Again, sometimes he applauds the scholastics in general for some useful distinction they have made, and then soon afterwards, he rejects their vague and useless speculations. So he's totally familiar with the range of material he is working with. He was the master of it, and was prepared to use it or not as he saw fit.

There's a popular view that the reformers, particularly Luther, scorned philosophy. Luther once referred to philosophy as ‘the devil's whore’. What was Calvin's attitude to philosophy? Was he hostile to it?

No, Calvin wasn't hostile to philosophy at all. In fact, there are many positive evaluations of philosophy in The Institutes. I am sure that his evaluations were influenced by Augustine, to whom he was enormously indebted. I don't think we should overplay the originality of the range of judgements that he makes about the various philosophies and philosophical schools. It's also important to bear in mind that Calvin maintained a clear distinction in his thinking between the various intellectual disciplines. He has a strong view of the autonomy of theology. This leads him to distinguish sharply between theology and philosophy. However, in making that distinction, we mustn't think that he disavows philosophy. When he makes a distinction between the various disciplines, such as theology and philosophy, it is no more significant than the distinction he makes between, say, theology and astronomy, or theology and medicine. Each of these disciplines has a legitimate place and exists in its own right.

Over the last 50 years, it's been popular to pit Calvin's followers, like Beza, William Perkins and the Westminster divines, against Calvin himself. Scholars like RT Kendall, the Torrances and Holmes Rolston III have pushed this idea. Is there any substance to their claims? Why do they do it?

I myself believe there's very little substance to their claims. There is a certainly a difference in method that we find among Calvin's followers. And we also see a strong reassertion after Calvin of scholastic methods within the Reformed tradition. Reformed scholars like Professor Richard Muller argue, quite plausibly, I think, that this simply reflects the fact that once the Protestant Church was faced with the Counter-Reformation, the Reformed community had to set about training their own ministers.

This meant that they were suddenly forced to reflect upon a whole range of matters that had not been dealt with at an earlier stage of the Reformation. The Institutes, for all its greatness as a work in systematic theology, is, after all, essentially an occasional book. Calvin does not give equal weight in that book to every aspect of the theological curriculum. He deliberately emphasized certain matters at the expense of others—partly because some of these matters could be taken for granted, and partly because of the need to debate the issues that lay at the heart of the Reformation conflict.

The simple fact is that when you come to educating young men for the Christian ministry, you have to adopt a much more formalized method of instruction. Educators such as Francis Turretin deliberately reverted to the scholastic method of teaching to ensure that students were thoroughly prepared on all issues. As it has become clear from my own studies of Calvin that this move wasn't altogether outside of the spirit we find in Calvin's work. After all, as I have already mentioned, Calvin freely appropriated scholastic distinctions and terminology when he thought that these would further the thoughts of his argument in The Institutes.

Why do you think scholars try to drive a wedge between Calvin and his Reformed successors? Do they have ulterior motives, or have they just failed to read Calvin properly?

In my opinion, I think they want to think of Calvin as a kind of re-discoverer of the pure gospel. They have a rather sort of simplistic ‘heroes and villains’ view of church history. Calvin is their hero. Therefore, in their judgement, he mustn't be tainted with anything that seems unheroic or unimpressive. They caricature, quite unfairly, the movement that follows Calvin as a kind of degeneration into legalism. This is one of the main charges that they level against the theology of Calvin's successors. Another charge is that his followers taught preparationism—that is, the teaching that Christian conversion must always be preceded by the preaching of the law.

I think we can find sporadic evidence of these things, depending, of course, on what the critics mean by legalism and preparationism. But the simple fact is that Calvin assigned a significant role to the law, and while he didn't explore it as fully as his successors, nevertheless, he stands at the head of the Reformed tradition. It is a serious misreading of Calvin to think that he was opposed to it.

What are some of the novel ideas about Calvin that Kendall and others have advanced? Are they significant, and why have you engaged them in fairly extensive controversy?

Well, the areas that concern me relate to doctrinal matters that are central to our understanding of the gospel. These issues arose after Calvin's death as Reformed theologians were forced to reflect further on the pastoral implications of the gospel. One area of particular importance has to do with the nature of the atonement. In the early 17th century, Arminius, the Dutch theologian, began to teach that Christ died on behalf of all men. This raised the question: for whom did Christ die? Did he die for all people or just for the elect?

The Reformed community defended the view that Christ's death was to save his people from their sin; it was a definite atonement. Now Dr Kendall and others have been arguing that the idea of definite atonement is a serious departure from Calvin. What I strove to say in my little book, Calvin and the Calvinists, was that the doctrine of definite atonement is consistent with what Calvin taught. Furthermore, the doctrine of definite atonement may be said to be implied by what Calvin taught on the substitutionary nature of the atonement. The problem, of course, is that Calvin was never forced to defend a definite view of the atonement. The issue, as a controversy on which he was required to take sides, simply hadn't come up by the time of his death.

Despite your disagreements with RT Kendall, do you see any significant break between Calvin and the Puritans? I mean, were there genuine differences?

Naturally, there were many differences as one would expect. The Puritans came almost a century later, and were operating in a different culture and political context. However, despite the existence of such differences, I think it is important to point out that they were largely matters of style and emphasis, rather than matters of substance.

Is there any basis to the oft-repeated claim that Calvin was warm, exuberant and evangelical in his understanding of the gospel, and the Westminster divines were formal, introspective and legalistic?

I really don't think so. The writings of the Westminster divines and the pastoral theology of the Puritan period reveals a deep spiritual sensitivity and warmth of piety. In any age, you will find instances of arid theology, but, for the most part, the Puritans certainly were concerned for heart-religion.

The problem with these sorts of claims is that they are made quite recklessly. When scholars say that Westminster theology is infected with legalism, rationalism, Aristotelianism, formalism and the like, they usually use these terms in such imprecise ways, it's hard to know what they mean and to what these terms apply. Unfortunately, most of the charges come down to nothing more than ‘theological slang’. It is regrettable that these charges against Westminster theology are a dust storm that does nothing to clarify our vision of the field.

Let's get down to specifics. Kendall claims that Calvin taught universal atonement—that is, that Christ died for all, and the doctrine of definite atonement is a Westminster aberration. Is there any justification for that view?

If Kendall's view is meant to imply that Calvin denied in express terms the limited or definite view of the atonement, then the answer is that there is no justification for it. If we ask the question “Did Calvin expressly teach the doctrine of definite atonement?”, then it's hard to say. Of course, we must always be on our guard against inaccuracies in attributing to earlier writers views that have only been developed in subsequent periods. We must be honest and admit that Calvin did not engage in any such controversy over the atonement. However, I think it's reasonable to suggest that Calvin's views of the atonement as substitutionary and efficacious lead naturally into the doctrine of definite atonement. The seeds of definite atonement are definitely there. When people like Dr Kendall point to the universal terms in which Calvin's language is cast, I think it can be readily shown that this really refers to the universal preaching of the gospel without restriction or condition to men and women everywhere.

Kendall seems to suggest that the Westminster divines turned saving faith into a work, whereas Calvin had always seen it as a gift. Is he correct in saying that?

No, he is not. Both the Westminster divines and Calvin teach that faith is a gift from God. Interestingly, this is a point where Calvin has recourse to Aristotelian philosophy to make his position clear. He repeatedly refers to faith as the instrumental cause of justification. In this sense, faith is not the material cause or ground of justification; it is simply the instrument that appropriates the benefits of Christ's death to the individual believer. This means that there is a certain element of conditionality about faith. Without faith, there is no salvation. But this does not mean in Calvin's mind, or in the minds of the Westminster divines, that faith is therefore the meritorious cause of justification. Such an idea would fill both of them with horror since it would have the effect of dethroning Christ from his office as the sole mediator between God and man.

Kendall also suggests that the Westminster divines undermine Calvin's teaching that every Christian should be fully assured of his or her salvation. Is this true?

I think it's important to approach Calvin's work on faith with a distinction in mind—that is, that he distinguished between faith in its ideal form and faith as one frequently finds it empirically in the hearts and lives of Christians. The ideal view of faith for Calvin in The Institutes is the faith that carries assurance with it. On either side of where that definition occurs in The Institutes, he frequently shows that faith can be mixed with doubt and unbelief, which issues in a lack of assurance on the part of the person who has it.

What are the pastoral consequences of denying definite atonement and claiming that faith is essentially a passive intellectual persuasion, rather then an active exercise in thought?

If Christians understand the pastoral consequences of denying definite atonement, they will realize that they are pretty serious. It would mean that Christ's work was so presented, it had to have some kind of a human contribution to make it effective. If Christ died with the intent of saving the whole world and, clearly, the whole world is not saved, then the efficacy and merit of Christ's atonement cannot ensure the salvation of a single soul. I find it hard to imagine a doctrine that would do more to undermine the finality and sufficiency of the atonement than that.

As far as the nature of faith is concerned, it is more than simple agreement with a proposition. James tells us that even the devil has that sort of faith (Jas 2:19) The presence of true biblical faith can be seen through the effects of such faith in our lives. Faith is known by its fruits, as the New Testament teaches, so it is by an appreciation of these fruits in our lives that faith should be recognized. That does not mean that these fruits (the evidence of such faith) supplant faith or supplant the work of Christ, which is a widespread misunderstanding on the part of many interpreters of Calvin. It is through seeing the fruits of faith that we gain assurance of the reality of our faith in the Redeemer. However, and I want to stress this point, these fruits are not the basis of our acceptance with God. The basis of our justification is the righteousness of Christ.

Kendall says that the idea that we must preach the law as a stage in leading to conversion is a Puritan idea that has no support in Calvin, and represents a work of legalism. Is he right, given the fact that Calvin does not believe that there is one typical manner in which people become Christians?

The suggestion that Calvin's successors believed in the rigid process known as ‘preparationism’ (the idea that people must unaidedly prepare themselves to receive God's saving grace) is without foundation. Furthermore, Calvinists do not believe, and have never believed, that there is one stereotypical manner in which people become Christians. For instance, compare the conversions of Augustine of Hippo and Bishop JC Ryle, the famous Anglican evangelical. Augustine experienced intense contrition for his sins at the time of his conversion, whereas Ryle tells us in his book, A Self-Portrait, that he underwent a very gradual change and was not aware that the Holy Spirit was working in his life at the time he became a Christian. These were two very different experiences, but they are both cases of conversion. Indeed, such variety of experience in the church is already found in the New Testament. The experience of Zaccheus is different from that of Saul (Luke 19:1-10, Acts 9: 12-22).

Yet for all this variety, it is clear that there are certain strands that are part of biblical conversion. One of these is a conviction of sin. That is why we should not be surprised that there are many explicit passages in The Institutes where Calvin talks about the preaching of the law and the appreciation of the law on the part of the individual as being a necessary element in arousing a sense of spiritual need. Calvin certainly sees that the law plays an essential part, along with other doctrines, of convincing individuals of their sin and arousing in them a desire to repent.

So to what extent should pastors take a cue from Calvin about preaching on God's law?

This is a very important matter. For Calvin, the law is not simply the Torah of Israel, the gift of God to his people at Mount Sinai. In Calvin's mind, the law, and the reality of the divine commands, originate in God's relationship with Adam. So the law is not to be traced only to Moses; it goes back much further. In fact, it precedes even Abraham. Calvin traces the origin of God's law to Adam. Furthermore, Calvin interprets Romans 1 and 2, and particularly what Paul says in Romans 2 about the conscience having an understanding of the law, even though it doesn't have access to the revealed law of God, as being an essential part of understanding the relationship of the law and the gospel. I think the point that Calvin makes is that the concept of God's law is much broader and deeper than the commands the Lord gave to the Israelites.

What is it about Calvin's understanding of God—especially his understanding of God's incomprehensibility—that people in the 21st century so desperately need to hear?

The term ‘incomprehensibility’ is a little unfortunate. To people today, it might suggest that all thinking about God is ‘mumbo jumbo’. Again, it might suggest a view of God in which anything goes. Some might reason that because God is incomprehensible, each one is entitled to make up a view of God to suit him or herself.

For Calvin and his successors, the incomprehensibility of God is a technical term—a term of art. It simply denotes the idea that it is impossible for us to get our minds around the infinitude and glory of God. The creator/creature distinction is absolutely fundamental to Calvin's theology. From this, he reasons that we cannot fit God into the sort of categories that we use to describe and understand aspects of created reality. The reason, then, why the doctrine of God's incomprehensibility is so important is that it is all too easy for us to devise a god whose character is made in our own image. What Calvin, and all those who have followed him, stresses is that the distinction between the Creator and the creature lays the foundation for our relationship with God and the limitations of our knowledge. God's thoughts will always be beyond human ones. We are limited by our creatureliness.

Some philosophers suggest that human language is too weak and limited to speak usefully about God. Since Calvin had a very big view of God, did he have difficulty with God-talk, and were human words inadequate as far as he was concerned?

Calvin's view on human language is very interesting: he sees the whole process of divine revelation as being part and parcel of God's grace. When God reveals himself to us, he is revealing the good news of his grace and mercy. When God does this, he comes down to our level by accommodating himself to human thought-patterns and forms of speech. In other words, God accommodates himself to our own time-bound and space-bound condition. That's an act of condescension and grace for Calvin. God's accommodation to us when he speaks is paralleled in the incarnation, which itself is an act of condescension and grace. Obviously, human words can never fully encapsulate the grandeur and glory of God. But that does not mean that language is inadequate for the tasks it has to perform. It is certainly adequate as a vehicle of communication. But that does not mean that it is exhaustive. We can never by our human language encompass God's majesty and wisdom.

Calvin taught that everyone has an innate knowledge of God. Does this mean that Calvin is opposed to the traditional proofs of the existence of God as well as the use of reason in apologetics as some Calvinists have suggested?

I believe that Calvin thought that the sensus divinitatis (innate sense of God) as he taught it (Rom 1:19) is itself an aspect of natural revelation. In other words, it's one of the pieces of evidence in the created order that demonstrates (perhaps in a dramatic, rather than an argumentative fashion) that God exists. Calvin doesn't think that being a believer is simply a blind leap of faith or a mere act of the will. Our belief in God may be based on various lines of evidence that, together, make such a belief plausible. Some of those grounds for believing in God are the evidence of God's wisdom, power and glory as revealed in the creation. And it's interesting to see how this works out, for example, in his commentary on Acts 17, where he deals with Paul at the Areopagus. Calvin sees Paul's preaching as following a fairly clear pattern that presupposes some natural revelation as part of that pattern. People need to remember in this connection that not everything in the Reformation period was brought into question. Calvin was not a revolutionary; he was a reformer. I am not convinced that the doctrine of natural revelation was an issue at the time of the Reformation. It would be foolish to expect Calvin to have as much to say on it as, for example, he does on the nature of human merit.

Do you have any advice to people on how to read The Institutes?

My rather unoriginal advice is to begin at the beginning and to pay particular attention to the first three books and less attention to book four. The other thing I would say is to read patiently. Remember that The Institutes was a much-revised, central text for Calvin. The Institutes represent the key to properly understanding Calvin's essential thought, as well as providing the theological background to his commentaries. So it's a key Calvin text that must be read slowly and carefully.

Furthermore, we need to remember, as we noted earlier, that The Institutes is not a theological textbook in the modern sense of the term. For instance, Calvin does not give equal treatment to every topic. And because it is an ‘existential’ work, addressing the whole man, it continually challenges the reader. It's a Reformation classic—one of the ‘great books’ of the Christian faith.

Reproduced with kind permission from Australian Presbyterian, April 2005.

Dr Mark E Dever serves as the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. He is also the President of 9Marks (formerly The Center for Church Reform, CCR) in Washington DC. 9Marks encourages pastors of local churches look to the Bible for instruction on how to organize and lead their churches.

Dr Dever has authored several books. Perhaps his best-known is Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Crossway, 2000, 2nd edition, 2004). He has also published A Display of God's Glory—Basics of Church Structure: Deacons, Elders, Congregationalism, and Leadership, The Deliberate Church—Building Biblically in a Haphazard Age (2005), which he co-authored with Paul Alexander, and Promises Kept—The Message of the New Testament, and a companion volume on the Old Testament. His latest book is The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, published by Crossway Books.

Dr Dever received his Doctor of Philosophy in ecclesiastical history from Cambridge University, his Master of Theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

He and his wife Connie live and minister with their son, Nathan, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. His ministry website can be found at www.9marks.org.

Peter Hastie: Mark, why have you written yet another book on evangelism? Have you discovered something new, or are you concerned that we are forgetting some of the basics?

Mark Dever: No, I haven't discovered anything new. However, what really concerns me is for Christians to understand the fundamentals of evangelism in a way that is helpful in the contemporary scene. For instance, in America at the moment there is a real shortage of popular books on evangelism that I can give to young Christians. As a pastor, I was thinking, “What could I give to somebody? What book could I pass on to a young Christian?” 30 years ago I would have given them Paul Little's book How to Give Away Your Faith, but that's dated now, and it's probably too long for today's readers. I really like Will Metzger's Tell the Truth, but again, it's huge and it focuses on specific problems. I like Packer's Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, but it's more useful for dealing with theological questions.

Of course, Robert Coleman's The Master Plan of Evangelism is good for those who really want to get started in evangelism, but it's a little dated. Also in Australia, John Chapman has written some very helpful books on the subject. However, I was having difficulty finding something that was available and useful in my context here in Washington. I just wanted a straightforward and simple guide. So I tried to write the kind of book that would be engaging and easy for a teenager to read. That's why I wrote The Gospel and Personal Evangelism.

PH: How did you go about writing it?

MD: Writing this book was an interesting exercise. I would literally sit down at the end of the day and write a chapter of the book. Then I passed it to a few others for their comments. My aim was to begin each chapter with an introductory illustration that I could pick up again in the conclusion, and then include a few simple points in between. I did that in most chapters. I think it's by far the most reader-friendly thing I've ever done. Of course, not everyone will find it as reader-friendly as they would like, but it's as reader-friendly as I could get it.

PH:It has a couple of superb illustrations in it. I will never forget the one about John Harper, the Scottish minister on board the Titanic, who was still preaching the gospel to his fellow passengers even as he floated in the icy water, clinging to wreckage.¹

MD: Yes, isn't that John Harper story amazing? I read it in an old book and thought, “Well, this story is too fantastic to be true”. So I started digging around doing some research. In the story, as you will remember, his daughter was one of the survivors of the Titanic disaster. So I asked myself, “Okay, whatever happened to that daughter? Is she still alive? Where does she live?”

I managed to track her whereabouts to a few places, such as Chicago and Miami. She was a teacher there. I am fairly certain that she has gone to be with the Lord. Apparently she was quite a strong Christian. I was able to corroborate everything in the story. Although I wrote the story in popular form, I tried to use my historical training to ensure that the narrative was factually accurate. It's an extraordinary picture of God's faithfulness. While it certainly reveals Harper's passion for the gospel, it also shows how God is able to use such simple things as our sharing the gospel in such challenging circumstances. We may be sinking in the North Atlantic in the most famous ship disaster of all time, but God can still use us to reach out and save others through our witness.

The John Harper story is also important for another reason: it reminds us not to be afraid of approaching others. We live in a time when people are increasingly skittish about evangelism—Christians and non-Christians alike. People are suspicious of evangelism, and misunderstand it, which contributes to our reluctance to share the gospel. When you add our fear of others' reactions as well as our natural laziness to the equation, it's not hard to see why we make such little progress in sharing our faith.

I also think our culture is becoming more hostile to the gospel. This trend may be more established in Australia than in the USA, but it's now certainly the case that the postmodern mindset is dominant, particularly in the media. Therefore, when we start speaking in terms of certainties, we sound scary to other people. It's interesting that Andrew Sullivan, a well-known liberal Roman Catholic gay activist, picked up some of my comments on evangelism, and on his blog on New Year's Day, quoted them and called me the ‘voice of fundamentalism’. Essentially, all that I had said was that evangelism is not imposing anything on anyone; it is simply sharing the truth. I mean, an evangelist no more imposes his views on others than a pilot imposes his views on his passengers when he lands a plane on a runway. I bet the passengers are glad!

Of course, I understand Sullivan's concerns about the special nature of religious truth-claims, but he needs to realize that evangelism is not simply looking at someone and saying, “Look, you have to become a Christian”. Instead, an evangelist tells us the truth about who God is, and explains where we stand as a result of that. People can ignore us—indeed, they have every legal right to do so. Furthermore, evangelists have absolutely no desire to physically or emotionally coerce anyone. In a sense, we are like doctors: we have a duty to tell you the truth, care for you, argue with you (if that is useful), but we can't compel you to do anything. People forget that there is a big difference between coercion and persuasion. The idea that evangelism is coercive is nonsense.

PH:You say that most Christians—even pastors—are ‘reluctant evangelists’.² What do you actually mean by this?

MD: I mean that Christians, like everyone else, are prone to be selfish and scared, and wanting others to think well of them. So, although we possess what one part of us knows is the greatest news in the world, we don't act as though it is. Consequently, we share the gospel less than we should.

PH:How big a problem is our reluctance to evangelize?

MD: Well, it was big enough a problem to encourage me to write the book. Of course, I believe that worldliness in the church is a lot more pervasive than a lack of passion for evangelism. Nevertheless, one of the results of worldliness is a waning enthusiasm for evangelism. I love Iain Murray's definition of worldliness: towards the end of Evangelicalism Divided, he says that worldliness consists of loving idols and being at war with God.³ I think that's true in the lives of too many professing Christians today. Unfortunately, many of our churches calibrate their life to these nominal Christians. The predictable result is that you get fake, hypocritical churches that confuse the message of the gospel and make it hard for others who are trying to do genuine evangelism. So there are other problems out there apart from reluctant evangelists, but the point is that we mustn't be content to just sit around pointing out the errors in others; we actually need to be sharing the gospel and praying for people to be converted.

PH:What do you think are the underlying problems that give rise to our reluctance in evangelism?

MD: The most significant problem in stopping us evangelizing is never anything related to the specific time we find ourselves in. It doesn't matter whether we live in the 19th or 21st centuries; we face the same basic problems that everyone who lives between the Fall and the return of Christ faces. So if anyone tries to sell you the idea that it is more difficult today than in other ages, don't believe them. From the time of Cain until the last believer before Christ's return, we are all fundamentally in the same boat. We suffer the same spiritual afflictions and tendencies. We all pass through the experience of Romans 7.

Nevertheless, there are some challenges that take a special form in our day. For instance, in the US and Australia, Christians face a very vigorous secularism that is dismissive of our claims. Indeed, some secularists are so worried about Christianity, they think Christians are about as dangerous as Muslim terrorists. They get really worried when we don't invest our lives in this-worldly concerns. They look on us as unpredictable free agents. When we reject their relativism and make absolutist spiritual claims, they look at us as nervously as they would a terrorist with a suicide bomb strapped to his back. Of course, Christians are not into coercion in any form. But it is very hard to persuade secularists of that. All we want to do is share a message about the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. But our world is confused by the confidence we have in the gospel, and is threatened by it. Satan, I am sure, causes those things to echo in the world to increase this sort of common confusion.

PH:What are some of the most frequent excuses that you meet today as a pastor as to why Christians are not sharing their faith?

MD: Peter, I don't even have to tell you the excuses that people at our church offer me; I just have to ask myself. Here are the reasons why I'm not phoning back a couple who are on my mind at the moment: it's because I'm dog-tired; because I feel like I have so much to do and I don't know where to start; because I think that there are other people who can do it; because I think I have already told them—I gave them a book to read. I could go on. You get the picture? And I'm the pastor and I'm only thinking about the last seven days! So I could only imagine what my own congregation is facing.

I think many people in the church are probably concerned that they can't answer all the questions that might come up. I am sure this affects people by playing on their doubts—especially if they have their own questions that they are wrestling with. Actually, having a few questions of your own shouldn't prevent you from sharing the gospel with others. You can explain to them that while you still have a few unresolved questions yourself, you don't have enough faith to not believe. There is simply so much reason to believe the good news of Jesus Christ in history, in Scripture, as well as in our own experience that it would take a leap of faith not to believe in the gospel. And an honest conversation like that can be very helpful to a non-Christian.

PH:Is reluctance in evangelism a spiritual issue? Didn't Jesus say, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5)?

MD: It is a spiritual issue, but it varies, and you will notice it varies with different people. It's a bit like peddling a bicycle: you have to push on both pedals to make the wheels go 'round. Similarly, you need faith in Christ as well as knowledge. The problem is that there are always Christians who want to push one pedal—either knowledge or experience. We need both. My task as a pastor is to remind people of the need for balance. If someone wants to stress personal union with Christ, I remind them of the need for knowledge as well. If they want to stress knowledge, I tell them about their need to depend on Christ.

PH:Should we ever engage in evangelism out of a sense of duty, even if we don't feel like doing it?

MD: Yes, we should. But we should also want to evangelize because of the joy that God puts in our hearts. Ultimately, that's the best reason for sharing our faith. However, we also need to be realistic and recognize that there will be times when we won't be sharing our faith out of an overwhelming sense of joy. When that happens, that's a call to look at our own devotional lives. Are we putting our hearts and minds before the Lord and under his cross everyday? Do we remind ourselves continually that we have been ransomed by the death of the Saviour? When we meditate on Christ's death for us, it doesn't mean that we never have struggles in our obedience, but it does help.

Although we are told to run the race, at the same time, I think that we are more likely to be motivated when we pray that the Holy Spirit would convict us more deeply about our own sin. Once we see more of our need and understand more of what Christ has done for us, he will become more precious to us. And this, in turn, will enable our obedience far more than sheer grunt effort.

PH:Employers are sometimes annoyed when Christians share their faith at work. Is it appropriate to witness on the boss's time?

MD: This is a ticklish one. The first thing to say is that Christians who want to witness should be in a local church where the Bible is faithfully taught and where wise elders can give them good counsel on this subject.

Advice on evangelism needs to be tailored to individual situations. For instance, I know someone who needs to be encouraged to speak less and work more. That would be a better testimony for him because he has certainly let his work colleagues know about Jesus. It's not that I don't want him to witness about Jesus, but I have a lot of sympathy for his employer. He is paying for work to be done. On the other hand, I want to defend the right of employees to share the gospel in appropriate situations. Every situation requires wisdom and insight. I don't think it's wise to say, “Share the gospel every time you can”. I can see all kinds of problems that come from that approach.

However, there are also problems with the advice which says, “You must never witness at work”. So, that's why I say, “Join a good church”. Discuss this issue with the elders and ask for their advice on your particular situation. If you need wisdom and guidance, then pray to the Lord to guide you. James 1 tells us that if we ask him for wisdom, he gives it without finding fault (v. 5).

PH:How about an elderly person who is house-bound or a young mother with several small children? How can they evangelize?

MD: Well, they are both presenting the gospel. They are fleshing it out in their words for much of their lives, before or after their time of confinement. But at the point where they find that they are tied down, they are filling up those words with a life that will help them invest those words with great meaning. So the important thing when you are tied down is to continue to model Christ's love. This will ensure that your words, perhaps spoken long ago, will have fresh relevance, or it will help little ones to understand what it means to live the Christian life in days to come. A life well-lived in these circumstances can be hugely useful in evangelism.

We just had a funeral for a dear sister who had a stroke a few years ago. At the funeral, I asked the people to put up their hands if she had ever sent them an encouraging note. About 250 people's hands went up. This lady—Helen—was just a wonderful Christian. She used her final years to exercise an incredible ministry of letter writing. And that confirmed the truth of the gospel that she had spoken to people for many years. Also, I think we have to realize that God sometimes gives us more time to pray, and when he does this, we can pray that he will bless those who have opportunities to speak to others.

PH:What sort of steps can a Christian take if they want to make evangelism a more meaningful part of their lifestyle? How do you get started?

MD: Again, join a local church that preaches the Bible. Talk to the elders there and let them know your desire. If you see an older person you know who is a good evangelist, tell them you have noticed this and that you would love to learn from them. Take stock of your own relationships. Sit down with a blank piece of paper and write down the names of those people that don't know the Lord, but do know you, and then just start praying daily for opportunities to share the gospel with them. Start thinking about how you can make legitimate opportunities to share Christ with them.

Also, I think that the more you come to know the Bible—both in reading it extensively and also meditating on it deeply—the more integrated your understanding of all of life will be. And this means that there will be fewer steps between what you are doing at work and sharing your faith in Christ.

PH:Knowing that there are such things in life as divine appointments, how should that affect the way we witness?

MD: I guess I tend to see divine appointments everywhere. I am always on the alert for opportunities. So I prefer to err on the side of witnessing too often than not enough. I deliberately go to the same places. I try to get to know people by name. It's a little more difficult in a place like a cafeteria where there's a lot of movement, but if it's place where people wait on you, then you have more time. I like to tip well. You can be an empathetic and kind person. That will sometimes give you more time to talk with them right there. You can freely bring them into conversations you are having with friends, especially if you are having a Christian conversation. I don't know how many times I have said, “Hey, we were just talking about such and such. What do you think?” Most people don't mind being asked that way. It's not threatening—it's not an immediate frontal assault, and if you have been kind and friendly to them already, then they are likely to start talking. When you do this, people sometimes open up about their lives, and they'll tell you if they go to church and what their background is. This can sometimes lead to good gospel conversations.

PH:Do you have any positive tips that you could offer in terms of witnessing to people like shopkeepers and people with whom we have constant contact?

MD: Just be a kind customer. We had this one Hindu family living just down the street from our house when we lived in England, and we got to share the gospel with that family a number of different times. I never saw any response, but we were sowing and praying.

I also know a girl who has become a really enthusiastic Christian. I remember meeting her several years ago. She lived in a house near us. She was standing out the front smoking, not apparently interested in religious things, but she did have a respect for spiritual matters when I spoke to her. So as we talked, she expressed an interest, and began to come to church occasionally. Over the years, I have watched her come to Christ, be converted, baptized and changed in wonderful ways. It's a real joy to me when I see things like this.

PH:Do you do any evangelism with people in your neighbourhood?

MD: I live in an old home by American standards, so I guess it's old by Australian standards too. It was built 'round the 1870s on Capitol Hill. I have a huge bay window here in my study, and sometimes when I look out, I will see people just standing there and looking at the house. Tourists always come along this area. If I see people outside looking at the house, I will just open the window and lean out and start talking to them. You know, I'll just say, “Hello”, and introduce myself, and tell them the history of the house. Sometimes I have invited them in. At other times, I'll go down to the street and talk to them. I don't do that often, but I do it sometimes. There are opportunities around. It takes time and motivation to take them.

PH:Is it every Christian's job to evangelize?

MD: Yes, every believer should evangelize. I know some Christians think that evangelism is only for people with special gifts for it, but I don't believe the New Testament teaches that. While Paul does say that some believers have the call to be evangelists, all of us have the responsibility of evangelism. Similarly, he talks about gifts of ‘mercy’. Nevertheless, we are all called to be merciful. He talks of gifts of faith, but we are all called to have faith. So all of us are called to evangelize, while some are specially gifted for this ministry.

The Apostle Peter addresses Christians in general in 1 Peter 3:15 when he says, “[be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you”. One of the first great evangelists we encounter in the book of Acts is not an apostle or an elder, but a deacon—Phillip, who witnessed to the Ethiopian eunuch. Personally, I think it's unhelpful to suggest that the task of evangelism is essentially the responsibility of ministers. I know some scholars like John Dickson take this view, but I disagree with it. John has written a lot of good things about evangelism, but on this point, I think that he is wrong. The Great Commission is not just for paid professionals.

I realize that John is probably trying to help some people overcome their guilt because they find evangelism hard, and I sympathize with his intention. I agree with him that some believers are faithful in the way that they live, but at the end of the day, they will not share the gospel with as many people as someone else who has special gifts from God. As a pastor, I have the opportunity every week to share the gospel publicly in a way that most of the members sitting in our church do not. However, that doesn't absolve them of the responsibility for reaching others with the gospel. I recognize that not all of us may have the same abilities and talents in sharing the gospel. But I want to keep the heat on all of us for getting the good news out there. I don't see a clerical class in the New Testament to which evangelism has been delegated. Preaching is not the only way to evangelize; it can happen in everyday conversations too. And you don't need a special gift to witness to the Lord in these situations.

PH:How important is the ordinary Christian's conversation in spreading the gospel as opposed to formal preaching?

MD: It's difficult to answer that question. We certainly need both. We need the word proclaimed so that we hear the gospel clearly, but then it's also very natural to have people talk about the Christian faith in ordinary conversation. In 1 Corinthians, the wife goes home after church and talks to her husband about the questions that were raised by the sermon. Again, I am sure that Paul had a lot of questions and answers going on after his lectures in the hall of Tyrannus. Furthermore, Peter in chapter 3 seems to suggest that there are a lot of informal situations where people can discuss the meaning of the Christian faith. So I think that there are many things in the New Testament that show us that the godliness of our conversation plays an important evangelistic role. The apostles are clear that we mustn't limit the explicit sharing of the gospel to formal preaching. It can also happen in ordinary conversations.

PH:I notice in your book that you mention John Bunyan and a very critical sort of conversion that came not so much from preaching, but from ordinary conversation.

MD: Yes, Bunyan hears the washer women talking as if they knew God. I don't know if I have ever told you this, but there is the story of the conversion of the famous Puritan William Perkins. Perkins was an undergraduate at Cambridge. One day, as he was walking along, he heard this town woman (i.e. not a student) slapping her little son and rebuking him. She said, “Watch it, boy, or you'll end up like drunken Perkins”. Perkins was suddenly overwhelmed that his name had become a byword in the town for the life of a wastrel. He realized that he had become a moral cautionary tale, and the Lord used that mother's words to convict him of his sins. Suddenly he woke up to his spiritual plight, and he was converted. So, yes, God can use even stray, honest comments to bring people to himself.

PH:You have said that it's not simply the fact that we talk about Christ that's important; it's the way we talk about him that is also vital.

MD: Yes, that's certainly the case. It's what I hope both myself and my Christian friends will do. I heard Maurice Roberts at a dinner conference refer to the privilege he had of ministering to the Scots in the Highlands where the people spoke freely, naturally and fully of the things of Christ. He said it was music to his ears. I know exactly what he means; it's music to my ears as a pastor. I don't mind talking about a football game—that's fine. I don't want Christians to be unnatural. But I do want to hear them talking fully, freely and naturally of the things of the Lord in their own lives too.

PH:What do you think produces that sort of thing?

MD: It's obviously the grace of God. Part of it must be a very humble, straightforward trust in God and in Scripture that enables you to evaluate life in a childlike way. It means you can say, “All right, I know the Lord God is a powerful reality. He has captured my heart. This is what I am going to talk about.” I remember someone coming to Capitol Hill Baptist in the midst of the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal. They were with us for about an hour while we were in discussions. At the end of our meeting, this visitor came up and said, “I can't believe it. I have just been with all you people—many of whom work in politics—for an hour and I haven't heard one person mention Clinton or Lewinsky. The whole of Washington is abuzz with this scandal, but I haven't heard a word of it here. It's amazing! This church is like an oasis. People here obviously have much more important things to talk about.”

PH:You have said that when we evangelize, we must maintain a balance between honesty, urgency and joy. What do you mean by that?

MD: I think that it is possible for us Christians to be unbalanced on any one of those three points. We can either focus on one or ignore one. Let me give you an example. Let's say that you want to do everything out of the joy that comes from knowing the Lord. Well, a lot of people aren't built like that emotionally. If they think that some sort of feeling is the basis for their action, they are going to feel justified sitting around, although they are going to feel bad that they have never taken one step of obedience because their heart is cold.

Again, let's say you don't want to stress the urgency of the gospel. Imagine that you are a hyper-Calvinist, and you just figure that people's salvation is a matter for the sovereignty of God. Well, if that's the case, there will never be the heartfelt pleading that you would see in a Spurgeon or an Edwards, or in the Apostle Paul where he pours out his heart in Romans 9 and 10 for the Jewish people. If joy or urgency are missing from our presentation of the gospel, then our testimony to Christ will be missing that sort of fullness that we find in the New Testament.

PH:What about the element of honesty?

MD: Well, I think that honesty in presenting the gospel goes out the window when you want people to respond to the message, but you are prepared to accept any sort of response. Of course, the only true response is heartfelt repentance and faith. However, if you don't feel the need to be honest in your presentation, then you will calibrate your presentation of the gospel to whatever gets the response you want. So you ask yourself, “What must I say to get people to pray the sinner's prayer?” But that's not faithful gospel preaching. You can't work backwards like that. I heard about a pastor in a church of 5,000 people who employed two seminary students whose main responsibility was to get four new people baptized each week. When asked, “What happens if they can't meet the quota?”, his response was, “Then I'll find two students who can”. This man wasn't even remotely interested in true gospel preaching. He was results-driven.

PH:You say that in our desire to make evangelism relevant, we become advocates of irrelevant non-evangelism. What do you mean by that? And to what extent should evangelists be prepared to offend people?

MD: If you are not offending people, then you are not an evangelist. If you look at Paul in 1 Corinthians 1, there is no gospel without the offence. This is God's wisdom. It never seems sensible to us in our flesh. Too often preachers want to deal with people simply at the level of publicly accessible reason. We participate with them in their own epistemology. But this is not New Testament preaching. We have a message that is not from this world; it is from God. We don't know it by our own cleverness; we know it because God has revealed it.

PH:Are there some dangers in thinking that a personal testimony is the same as evangelism?

MD: Sure, because people today are very open to others getting help from their own religious sources, whatever those sources may be. It's, again, an ‘offence’ question. Most people are glad for somebody else to share their own story of how they have found spiritual help. The problems start when you begin to universalize your story—when your narrative becomes authoritative and begins affecting their lives as well. If you say that the gospel lays a claim upon them, then you are invading their personal space, and they feel as though you have no right to be there. Now we don't even begin preaching the gospel until we get into their personal space and they feel the demands of God upon them.

Testimonies are great things about what the Lord has done for us, but no-one will be offended when you talk about what God has done for you. You need to be specific about sin, about Christ's death on the cross, about others' need for a saviour, and about their need to repent and trust in Christ.

PH:Is it easy to mistake apologetics for evangelism?

MD: Yes, it is. The reason is because you are often talking about things that are related to the gospel, and you are defending the Christian faith. So you are doing some of the same things that you do with the gospel. However, the difference between apologetics and evangelism is that in apologetics, you are answering objections that the world raises, whereas in evangelism, you are bringing the message that Christ brought. So unbelievers tend to set the agenda in apologetics, and you set the agenda in evangelism. And to evangelize properly by delivering the gospel, we need to follow God's agenda.

PH:There is a growing focus within the evangelical church on apologetics. Do you think that is helpful?

MD: There's nothing wrong with it in itself. I love people thinking about apologetics. I just think that we have to be careful. We need to realize that we can argue about evolution or the existence of God or any number of things, but until we tell people the message of the cross, we have not evangelized them. It's fine to deal with people's doubts and explain why they have good reasons to believe in Christ. But until we tell them the good news of Jesus Christ, we haven't done our job. They need a saviour that God has provided them in Christ. Once they know that, we can do as much apologetics as we need to.

PH:In large numbers of evangelical churches over the last 25 years, people have almost equated church growth with evangelism. Is there some inherent danger in there?

MD: Yes, because we can't know at any given time how God will bless our faithful witness. So the apparent numerical growth of the church is never a good guide to how faithful we have been in evangelism. That's not an excuse to say that if I am pastoring a church where I have never seen anybody come to Christ, then there's nothing wrong. I assume that normally the Lord will be bringing people to himself through the instrumentality of the preached word. However, we have to be very careful that we don't assume that if we are ‘X’ faithful in evangelism, then we will see ‘Y’ results right now. It doesn't work like that. There are times when the gospel just seems to be powerfully at work in a nation, and thousands upon thousands are converted. If you think about what has happened in Latin America, Africa and East Asia all in the last hundred years, it is breathtaking. We have seen an expansion of the gospel as we have never seen before in the history of the church.

PH:So what is your view on religious awakenings? Should we be looking for a more powerful work of the Holy Spirit?

MD: Yes, but I don't have any way to control the Spirit or create revival. I pray that the Holy Spirit would move upon the church, but at the same time, I want to busy evangelizing. I am not one of those people who moan and pray for revival all the time, but do nothing. Sadly, there are some fine Christian people who believe that the only way to advance the gospel is to pray for revival and nothing else. You don't know if they have any non-Christian friends or if they have ever shared the gospel with anybody in the last 30 years. It's depressing going to prayer meetings like that. I don't want to pray like that. I do want to pray for the Lord to glorify himself and, yes, I also will pray for an outpouring of his Spirit, but I also will rejoice in what he is doing now, and I will try to be a faithful steward of the gospel by preaching it “in season and out of season”, as Paul reminds us (2 Tim 4:2). So I want to be careful not to make an idol out of revival, or to rely upon it to the point where I don't plan for evangelism.

PH:Should you be discouraged if you don't see immediate results in evangelism?

MD: No, it's fine to talk and pray with friends about why that is. Obviously, the sovereignty of God is a factor, but we need to ask if there is anything else going on. Sometimes we have to wait a long time to see conversions. In the last two weeks, I have had two members of my congregation tell me about, in each case, two of their grandparents who were saved in the last year. Both sets of grandparents were in their 70s. What a wonderful testimony!

Then there's the famous story about a young man called Luke Short who once heard John Flavel preach in Portsmouth in England. Shortly afterwards, he left for New England, and as a 100-year-old man, he was out ploughing his field one day, and sat down and remembered that sermon from 85 years ago, and was convicted of his sins and converted right there. Isn't that an amazing story? It should give us renewed confidence in the preaching of the gospel.

PH:So how should that affect you as a pastor if you are not actually seeing a lot happen, but you are being faithful and sowing the seed?

MD: Keep going until you get good counsel that is persuasive for you that you should go elsewhere. I don't want to say that it's always a sin to leave that situation and go to another one, but I do want to point out the fallacy of thinking that if I were in the right place, I would be seeing an immediate response. Charles Simeon spent his first 12 years at Holy Trinity Cambridge in discouraging circumstances. Similarly, William Carey's first years in India were full of disappointment. There are just too many stories like this in the history of the church. Remember how God was so patient with Israel. Again, don't forget how difficult it was for Paul went he first went to Corinth. The Lord spoke to him and said, “Look, I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:10). Of course, that didn't prevent him from going to other places. The Lord did give him direct guidance. I don't know if we are going to get that same kind of direct guidance today, but I do believe in subjective guidance, and I think that it's fine if we decide to move on after having taken counsel from wise friends. If we feel that our ministry has come to an end in one place, then it seems reasonable to move on.

Copyright Australian Presbyterian, March 2008. Used with kind permission.

Endnotes

¹ Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, Crossway, Wheaton, 2007, pp. 13-15.

² Ibid., pp. 15, 104.

³ Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 2000, p. 255.

The Rev Michael Horton (PhD) is a professor of historical theology and apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido, California. Dr Horton did his doctoral research under Alister McGrath at Oxford University on the Puritan, Thomas Goodwin. He has also done post-doctoral research at Yale University.

Dr Horton is the editor of Modern Reformation magazine, and the author of number of books including A Better Way (on worship), Where in the World is the Church? (on vocation), The Covenant and Eschatology, Lord and Servant (both on Covenant theology), Covenants of Promise (on covenant), The Law of Perfect Freedom (on the Ten Commandments) and Putting Amazing Back Into Grace. Dr Horton speaks regularly on White Horse Inn, a national syndicated radio program and is a minister in the United Reformed Churches in North America. He lives with his wife, Lisa, and four children in Escondido, California.

Michael, many Christians today believe that we can only justify art, science, music or entertainment in terms of their spiritual value or evangelistic usefulness. Are the arts only valuable because they can be used in evangelism, or do these fields of knowledge exist in their own right?

Yes, I think these fields of knowledge and endeavour exist in their own right. We see this in the earliest history of the human race where culture undergoes some significant development in the line of Cain. Cain, as you know, built the city of Enoch. This happened after he murdered his brother. The Bible writer tells us that God gave him protection so that he could build the city, thereby giving it its own distinctive culture (Gen 4:15). In the genealogy listed in 4:18-22, we discover that some of Cain's descendants were responsible for developing the fields of metallurgy, engineering, music and animal husbandry. All of these are significant cultural achievements. The interesting thing is that God allows these developments to occur through his common grace, even though they originated in a city renowned for its violence and wickedness. If God had dealt with Cain on the basis of strict justice by punishing him with death, then it's possible that these cultural developments may never have taken place. It seems that they occurred because of God's common grace.

But how do you answer Christians who say that these cultural developments came from the ungodly line of Cain? They point to the line of Seth, which was distinguished by its worship, and say that we ought to be devoted to church-related activities rather than general cultural pursuits.

Well, I would remind them that Christians are always citizens of two cities. God's providence often has Christians in different circumstances, so our responses to situations will vary depending on where the Lord has placed us. For instance, think of Daniel and how God used him in extraordinary ways in Babylon: God located him in the court of Nebuchadnezzar.

What interests me here is that Daniel's spiritual influence with the king is not lessened because of his secular education and training. He was a leading scholar in the Babylonian academy, just as Joseph had been in Pharaoh's court. In both Daniel and Joseph, we have examples of believers being faithful to the Lord and yet also being able to participate in the common culture of the nation. When Daniel refused to surrender to the culture of Babylon, he only did so in the area of religion. He refused to surrender his faith in Yahweh, or compromise that faith through the cultic idolatry in which he was expected to participate. I think that Daniel is a great example for us here. Being a Christian doesn't mean that we have to renounce every aspect of popular culture and learning. It just means that if we are involved in secular education (whether the arts or sciences), we should think about our new-found knowledge from a Christian viewpoint.

Obviously the examples of Joseph and Daniel are influential guides on this issue, but is there any theological justification for thinking that Christians can embrace the arts and sciences?

It's interesting that when John Calvin criticized the radical Anabaptists (who, by and large, rejected secular culture), he said that all of the gifts we find in secular culture are given by the Holy Spirit. It really is a remarkable statement. When we normally think of the Holy Spirit's work, we usually confine it to the sphere of the church. Yet Calvin (and, I think, with good exegetical support) regarded the Spirit as being at work in creation, providence and redemption. In other words, the Holy Spirit's work in the world extends well beyond the work of salvation.

This means that when science comes upon a great discovery that alleviates a particular disease, we should send up our praises to God. We need to recognize that the Holy Spirit is active in the creation, and still upholds everything through Christ's providence. Once we realize that, we are no longer required to have a Bible verse to justify every great work of art. Nor do films have to include a compulsory conversion scene to validate them in the eyes of Christians. In fact, God doesn't have to be mentioned explicitly anywhere to make a work of art or science legitimate. For instance, while the book of Esther contains no explicit reference to God, his presence is assumed everywhere throughout it. Nor does the Song of Solomon have to be allegorized as a love story about Christ and his church. It's possible that it's just a celebration of human life. Our problem is that we want to elevate creation above creation. We automatically think that there's something that's wrong with creation; we've got to ‘Christianize’ it in some way. Actually, the problem is in our thinking. The Bible says that the creation itself is fine; the real problem is that, as a result of our sin, creation has been subjected to bondage and death. So creation, as a sphere, is not sinful or evil; it's just that what is good is a perpetual victim of human sin and distortion.

And Christians are part of that too. We often think that Christians must be always right and good. Well, I've got some news for people who think like that: have they forgotten that it was a very pious and devout Christian like Kaiser Wilhelm who developed Germany's war policy of ‘Deutschland uber Alles’? Again, Otto von Bismarck is another example: he went to church and was supposedly an evangelical pietist. Well, thanks for two World Wars. We'll send you the bill! Christians often have this mistaken view that if only Christians were in charge, things would be going well. Well, it's just not so. Christians can make a mess of things. There have been a lot of times when Christians were in charge, and it hasn't gone well. I'm firmly with Luther on this one: I'd rather be governed by a wise Turk than a stupid Christian!

Calvin also made another interesting point: he said that God has given special gifts and insights to people. He poses the question, “Are we going to say that the investigations of the astronomers are the ravings of mad men? Are we going to say that those who invented medicine for our use aren't profitable because they're not converted? Are we going to say that those who wrote great literature are utterly devoid of anything beautiful and sound in their thinking?” Here both Calvin and Luther offer a helpful distinction. They remind us that we need to keep in mind the difference between things earthly and heavenly.

Obviously, when it comes to heavenly things, non-Christians are devoid of understanding. As Paul says, “no one seeks after God, no not even one” (Rom 3:11). Nor do they understand the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14). However, in things earthly, they can still get a lot done. And when you're looking for a good architect for a building, you might want to make sure that you find the best architect, not just the most devout one. I remember that my dad, who was a very devout Christian, often said that he never used the Christian Yellow Pages. He said he had been burned so many times by people with a fish on their business card that the ‘Christian Yellow Pages’ was basically a guide to people you shouldn't do business with. I know he was exaggerating, but there was enough truth in what he said to make us all have a chuckle. I think everyone understands what he was talking about.

Unfortunately, there's an idea in some Christian circles in America that it's all right to do a sloppy job for another Christian. Business often circulates among members of the church, and you normally feel duty-bound to hire a plumber who says he's a Christian. Personally, I have found it wonderfully liberating to say, “You know, the Bible says that God has called us to be good plumbers, not just to have a Christian plumbing business”. Someone once asked Luther, “What will happen if you throw all the monks out of the monastery and make them work for a living? How will their work be Christian?” And Luther said, “Well, maybe they can make a good shoe and sell it at a fair price!”

Here Luther gives us the foundation of a good work ethic: it's based on the theology of vocation. The problem with so many evangelicals today is that they don't feel that they are ‘called’ to anything unless they are engaged in full-time church ministry. However, the Bible says that everyone has a ‘calling’. Our trouble in the church today is that we have gone back to a Roman Catholic understanding of vocation and calling. We think that ‘calling’ or ‘vocation’ only refers to ‘full or part-time ministry’ in a church or para-church context. But that's completely wrong and contrary to the teaching of the Reformation. I am surprised that evangelicals have bought it.

Christians see full-time evangelistic activity and missionary work as being of fundamental importance. But why do they have such difficulty in seeing ordinary callings as being worthwhile in the same way?

It's all to do with our faulty view of creation. It's an area that we haven't thought about enough. For instance, when we present the gospel to people, we almost always start with the Fall and redemption. But can we really understand the Fall unless we start with creation? Prior to the Fall, nothing that God created was evil in its essence or inferior to anything else. When Adam was tilling the soil or when Eve was going about her daily work, were they conscious that this work was inferior to their acts of formal praise and worship? I don't think so. The problem is that since the Fall, we all know there's something wrong. However, the difficulty is not with the creation; it's with sin. It's not that certain things that God made are now off-limits, but that everything that God has made has been plunged into corruption because of our sin.

Christians should have a positive view of the creation because Jesus tells us to look forward to the restoration of all things, which includes the resurrection of the body. Our hope is not to die on earth and go to heaven in some spirit-form; our hope is the resurrection of the body in the life everlasting. This is a very tangible hope. It is the reality of a creation restored that also basks in the everlasting peace and Sabbath rest of God. This is something Adam never reached. However, the second Adam has entered into that for us, and will bring us with him in glory. And so, “the whole creation”, Paul says, “is waiting for that day with us” (Rom 8:23). It will be a glorious day. If you have a theology that doesn't have much time for creation, then you are probably not thinking much about the new heavens and earth. However, if you have a strong theology of creation and renewal, then you are more likely to take your work in this world seriously.

It's interesting that Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, “Make it your ambition to live a quiet life, mind your own business, and work well with your hands so that you'll win the respect of outsiders and have something to give to those in need”. Now, I know that doesn't seem like a very ambitious and world-transforming recipe, but it does remind us that we can be highly effective witnesses through our vocations. I think it's really striking that he said, “mind your own business; don't turn your office into an evangelistic headquarters. Sure, be a witness wherever God has placed you, but don't think that somehow you have to convert your business into a ‘Christian organization’ in order for it to be a blessing to people.”

Unfortunately, we've forgotten that non-Christians can be a blessing to others when they fulfill their callings well. They are called to their vocations every bit as much as Christians are. Therefore, when they carry out their callings with excellence, they're serving and blessing us. They're a blessing of God's common grace. And so we should receive gratefully whatever non-Christians produce that is good, true and beautiful.

Can you give us some examples of how Christians have taken their calling seriously and have actually transformed the culture around them through the way they have done their work?

Sure. There's the great epistle to Diognetus in the second century that expresses beautifully the view of the early Christians. The writer says Christians don't differ outwardly from non-Christians; they participate in many of the same functions; they stand side-by-side at the office (I'm paraphrasing here), and yet they have a hope that non-Christians don't share. Basically he's saying that in outward circumstances such as language, dress and appearance, Christians look much the same as others, but when it comes to the things that really drive us, they couldn't be more different.

What I find so interesting in the church today is that the opposite is the case: Christians nowadays tend to be very distinctive in their style, language and dress. For example, Christians might wear certain T-shirts and use a certain language—“Brother, are you saved? ” To somebody who has never been inside a church, this seems strange and cultish. What does concern me is that at the very time that Christians are being identified by external factors, our churches are becoming less distinctively Christian. This means that our distinctiveness now rests in external matters rather than in our commitment to the ministry of the Word and sacrament. This is exactly the reverse of what was happening in the early church. Back then, the reason why the early Romans thought that Christians were strange was because of their faith and practice, not their lingo, dress and style.

Did the Reformers ever set out to transform their culture?

No. I think it's important to remember that that was not the Reformation's aim. Christendom had already tried that at an earlier time, and Calvin called it the ‘contrived’ empire. It's a good lesson to remember if we ever feel tempted to turn our nations into Christian republics. There has only ever been one ‘holy’ republic in the history of redemption, and that was Israel. And we know what happened there. So in this ‘in between’ time, there are no Christian nations; there is no such thing as ‘redemptive politics’. Every government set up on earth—even Nero's—is actually instituted by God. This was one of the major contributions of the Reformers; they realized the legitimacy of secular government, of secular business and of secular art and literature. From the Reformation onwards, painters no longer had to receive their daily bread from commissions through the church. They were now employed by merchants or, as in the case of Rembrandt, they worked for various trade guilds. The church was no longer the principal patron in Protestantism, and so painters were now free to paint whatever interested them. They were no longer duty-bound to produce only ‘Christian art’. Incidentally, this allowed artists to thrive in their secular callings, and it also reduced the opportunity for churches to be adorned with idolatry.

This meant that the Reformers never tried to transform culture into ‘Christian’ culture; rather, they sought to liberate culture—not in a godless way, but so that it could exist in its own right. For example, the Reformers thought it was legitimate for artists to paint pictures of people or natural scenes without introducing some religious setting in order to justify them as pieces of art. This is something that Christians need to learn again today. Christians can engage in work and service for reasons other than evangelism.

The Reformers believed that Christians demonstrate their faith best by being really good at their callings and showing that their true motive at work is to love their neighbours by serving them well. There are a lot of Christians today who think that the only reason for having non-Christian friends is so that we can lead them to Christ. Again, some Christians believe that the only reason why we should work in a non-Christian workplace is because it gives us a good opportunity to witness. Others think, “If I help my neighbour fix his roof, maybe I'll have a chance to share the gospel with him”. Have they ever bothered to think that it would be okay to help their neighbour fix his roof because it was leaking? What a liberating concept! This is especially so because non-Christians can smell ulterior motives a mile away. Most Christians have never realized that they might actually have more luck having conversations about the gospel if they just fixed their neighbour's roof because it needed repair. I like the line by Luther when he says, “God doesn't need your good works; your neighbour does”. What a relief that is! It's so true. God doesn't need me to do things for other people so that I can get points; it's my neighbour who needs me.

What are some of the approaches that Christians have taken towards culture throughout the history of the church?

Actually, I have written about this in my book, Where in the World is the Church? There I outlined a number of different approaches that Christians have taken towards ‘culture’—that is, the ‘tastes’ of a particular people—throughout different periods of history. I based my analysis on an earlier work—Christ and Culture by Richard Niebuhr from Yale University. Niebuhr used a number of sweeping typologies to describe these approaches which make it easier for us to get our heads around the different views.

The first view that he dealt with was ‘Christ Against Culture’. This tended to be the view of the earliest Christians because they experienced such intense persecution. It's hard to have a very optimistic view about your impact on the culture when you're being fed to the lions! Tertullian expressed the early church's attitude in his famous saying, “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?” In later times, the Anabaptists took this view during the Reformation when they largely retreated from any involvement with society, and refused to be in the army or participate in public life. Christians who hold this view are suspicious of culture and the arts. Basically, their attitude is, “This world is going to hell, so let's go out and rescue it”. It's summed up by DL Moody's saying, “The Lord has given me a life raft and I need to save as many as I can”.

At other end of the spectrum is the view ‘The Christ of Culture’. Those who take this approach tend to equate Christ with their particular culture. For them, Christ simply embodies the prevailing values of their society. When Christians in America think that our nation is a Christian country, they have equated Christ with western secular values. It's what I call ‘cultural Christianity’. When church leaders in Nazi Germany pledged allegiance to Hitler and supported his nationalistic plans for the Fatherland, they expressed the same view.

A third view is what Niebuhr describes as ‘Christ Above Culture’. This view is a bit more nuanced than the previous ones as it suggests neither antagonism nor assimilation. It is the Christendom model where the church stands over the culture and tells it what to do. It's an attempt to synthesize Christ and culture without actually ‘baptizing’ the culture. Niebuhr thinks that Thomas Aquinas, the medieval theologian, is the best exponent of this view.

Niebuhr's fourth option is what he calls ‘Christ and Culture in Paradox’, which he describes as the Lutheran view. However, I am not convinced that it's necessarily limited to Lutheranism. This view says that every Christian is a citizen of two cities—the City of God and the City of Man. Each of these spheres is separate, and they have different purposes. Luther expressed this idea in his doctrine of the ‘two kingdoms’. On this model, one cannot coerce faith, nor can one accommodate faith to secular modes of thought. However, it's possible to live out one's faith in the light of special revelation so that the wider culture can experience the influence of Christianity. Calvin and Augustine also expressed similar ideas.

The last view is called ‘Christ, the Transformer of Culture’. People who hold this view are under no illusion that human culture will be completely transformed by Christian influence this side of heaven, however they do expect partial victories from time to time. Furthermore, they believe that since God is both creator and redeemer, he not only renews souls, but is interested in making everything new. This is the view of Augustine, Calvin and the Reformed tradition.

I think we can dispose of the first three views pretty easily. But how about ‘Christ and Culture in Paradox’ and ‘Christ Transforming Culture’? I think the Reformed approach includes aspects of both, but I think the ‘Christ and Culture in Paradox’ expresses some important truths that we need to hold to in order to keep a realistic view of life in the here and now and what we can expect in the future. We sometimes get overwhelmed with our sense of importance and forget that Jesus said that in this intervening period, the wheat and the weeds grow together, and will be separated only at the end when he returns. So this isn't the period when we transform the kingdoms of this world into the kingdom of Christ; it's the period in which we participate in the joys and sorrows of this fallen world. And in this intervening period until Christ returns, we are to participate as citizens of two cities. It's that dual citizenship we often forget; we want to transform one into the other.

So what do you think is the prevailing mood in modern Evangelicalism?

Oh, it's definitely ‘Christ Transforming Culture’. That's certainly the view in American Revivalism. Charles Finney said that the church is a society of moral reformers, and revivalism has really given us the Christian Left and the Christian Right in America. Ironically, in my judgement, both the religious Left and the religious Right go back to Charles Finney.

What essentially is wrong with those positions?

Well, I think, first of all, they're completely consistent with the theology that undergirds them. The problem is that Finney's beliefs were heretical. He mistakenly believed that people are not inherently sinful; all we need are a few good rules to follow. Furthermore, he said that Christ's death was not a substitutionary atoning sacrifice for helpless sinners. Instead, he claimed that God forgave people based on their repentance. He even went so far as to claim that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is another gospel. He said that we have to regenerate ourselves. In every sense of the word, he was a Pelagian.

What is interesting is that the former disgraced president of the National Association of Evangelicals Ted Haggard shared Finney's theology. That was why I wasn't surprised that Haggard said in an interview with Christianity Today that he was happy to announce that he had a weekly conference call with the President to speak on behalf of evangelicals. He said he encouraged him on the war in Iraq and urged him to spread American democracy around the world. He also said that America has a unique role in the world to bring peace, capitalism and free enterprise to the ends of the earth. You've got to hand it to him, don't you? He's at least consistent with his theology. However, what troubles me even more are Reformed people who have this cheery, optimistic view about how they're going to transform the government, the arts, the sciences, the entertainment industry, as well as sports and education, into citadels of Christ's kingdom. It just seems to me that if the Holy Spirit is the author of all that is true, good and beautiful in the world (even in non-Christians), then we should neither renounce culture nor attempt to transform culture into something cultic.

What implication does your understanding of this issue have for Christian schooling?

Ooh, you had to go there, didn't you! Of course, the ‘Christ Transforming the Culture’ model (especially as it is identified with Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch theologian) has played a big role in the Christian school movement, especially in the USA. I have a lot of respect for Kuyper and for Christian schools: they have played a significant role in shaping the lives of so many young people. However, I don't believe that pastors and elders should require Christian parents to send their kids to Christian schools just because they claim to be Christian. In my opinion, it's a wisdom issue; it's a matter of prudence.

In my experience, having been a student in both Christian schools and public schools in the same town in northern California, the Christian school I attended was more debilitating and corrosive to genuine faith than the public school. At least in the public school I knew that the teachers weren't Christians, and I had to be on my guard and know what I believed. The problem in the Christian school, which was very Arminian in its theology, was that although there was a lot of talk about the Bible, it was distorted in serious ways, and this led to some tremendous problems and crises in many of our lives. I can't remember many kids who went to that school who remained committed Christians once they went to the public high school.

To what extent should Christians try to engage the world intellectually? For example, is it a sign of compromise if a Christian studies philosophy?

No, it's not. The simple fact is that some of the greatest theologians in the history of the church were trained in philosophy. Some of the greatest philosophers in the history of civilization were trained in theology. There hasn't always been antagonism between philosophy and religion. For example, the current president of the American Philosophical Association is Alvin Plantinga, an evangelical Christian. He's president of the American Philosophical Association because he is an excellent philosopher.

If we follow Paul's advice to the Thessalonians to “live quietly, mind our own affairs, work with our hands so as to win the respect of outsiders, and provide for others' needs”, then we have done everything we need to with respect to our vocations. This is how we serve God and our neighbours. So it's possible to serve God using your mind as a philosopher. Many Christians are doing this today in the United States. Some of them have reputations as leading thinkers.

Obviously, there will be times when Christian philosophers will find themselves in conflict with the academy. If that happens, then we have to dare to be a Daniel: we have to stand up for what we believe. As Reformed Christians, we believe that there is no such thing as a neutral intellectual position. All of our thinking is shaped by our ultimate presuppositions, but not all of those presuppositions have to be explicit in our work. A Christian working for a pharmaceutical lab may go to work presupposing such things as creation, fall and redemption. However, she may never publish that in a journal, and may never have the opportunity to express it to her colleagues. Of course, she may get opportunities to witness to Christ at work, but that's certainly not the reason why she should think that her vocation is meaningful.

Do Christians compromise themselves when they use non-theological sources of knowledge like medicine or psychology to help themselves cope better with life and some of its more traumatic experiences?

Well, I think that we face certain dangers when we are dealing with sources of knowledge that are non-scriptural. One of them, to which pastors are particularly prone, is to abandon their specialized knowledge that comes from Scripture, and give away that domain of authority to other so-called experts. For instance, pastors too easily relinquish matters of spiritual care to experts in human psychology. For instance, if one of our parishioners is receiving psychological counselling and is being told, “You shouldn't feel guilty because you're not really responsible”, then as pastors we should be very concerned about that. I would certainly want to uphold a scriptural view of guilt and how we should deal with it. Actually, pastors are better authorities on that question because God speaks directly on the matter.

However, when it comes to diagnosing certain disorders (especially those that fall more typically within the province of medicine), pastors must recognize their limitations. Sometimes that's difficult. Although I'm not engaged in regular counselling as a minister, pastors often tell me that this is a pressing problem for them. They want to know when to acknowledge their limitations. This area is fraught with problems, especially when pastors can be sued for giving wrong advice if someone gets hurt as a result of it. Don't forget that if a jury of your peers can convict you of criminal negligence through offering certain advice, then there's something wrong with a theory that says there's a spiritual answer for every question. If we were only spirits and our problems were only of a spiritual nature, then we'd have no difficulty. However, we have both physical and spiritual sides to us and that makes us complex creatures. Furthermore, sin is an equally complex phenomenon: we can sin as well as be sinned against. Sometimes that requires medical treatment; sometimes it requires revisiting the circumstances of our past that led us to becoming victims. It's very easy to criticize the culture of victimization, but we also have to be careful that we don't trample over people who really are victims. Sometimes we're not competent to assess that.

Is it possible that someone like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who analyzed the various stages of dying, may have something to contribute to pastoral care as a person approaches the end of their earthly life?

Not necessarily. To be able to describe the various phases of death is not the same as providing hope and comfort in the face of it. This is an area where I imagine that Christian pastors are better equipped than anyone else. Pastors may not be trained for many other eventualities, but this is one where they really do have something positive to say. I know that there is now a trend for others to challenge the involvement of pastors at events like weddings and funerals. However, I think it's important for pastors to retain their traditional functions with respect to those who are dying. I know some pastors think they're too busy to be handling lots of funerals, but if we're too busy to comfort the dying and the grieving, then we're too busy, because that's our ministry. Pastors ought to be specialists in dying. They should be more specialized in that field than any psychologist.

However, I am not saying that pastors have nothing to learn from secular disciplines such as psychology. However, I think it's very important for us as pastors and lay people to be thoroughly trained in these areas so that we really know how to bring people the best pastoral care available. This means that we have to be thoroughly conversant with what we believe and why we believe it. We need to be able to use our sanctified common sense and say, “This is where the psychological experts have it wrong. This therapist is transgressing into the territory that I really know something about. It's in direct conflict with the word of God.” I am firmly convinced that the idea that every spiritual problem has a therapeutic answer has got to be challenged by pastors. Theology is wonderfully therapeutic if it's not turned into therapy. We need to know the difference between the two, and be well-trained in biblical theology and pastoral practice so that we don't fall into either a blind embrace or rejection of these other secular fields.

Paul calls us to demolish every argument and every pretension that is raised against God. What place does apologetics have in a Christian's life? How well-trained should Christians be for that particular intellectual engagement? Is it a calling for all Christians?

Apologetics has a place in every Christian's life, but ministers should have a more specialized knowledge of it. Ministers are called to proclaim the gospel in a way that is distinct from the calling that every Christian has to be a witness. This means that they need special training for that vocation. It's really amazing how many seminaries, including evangelical ones, are now doing without apologetics. There seems to be an anti-apologetic mood around at the moment. I suspect that part of it has to do with a retreat from the confidence of modernism (the ‘I have all the answers’ approach) to postmodernism's more sceptical attitude toward people like that. Nowadays, a lot of people are saying non-Christians don't want people coming to them with a lot of arguments. They want people to come to them and show them a Christlike life.

If you speak to someone like William Lane Craig, he will say that he meets lots of people who become Christians on the basis of rational presentation of argument. What do you say?

It's certainly true that people have real questions that they want answered, but we need to remember that they never ask those questions from a neutral standpoint. We ask all of our questions either as believers or unbelievers. Nevertheless, there are unbelievers who are really curious, and it's our duty, as the Apostle Peter said, to be ready to have an answer for anyone who asks us about the hope that we have (1 Pet 3:15).

So do you have an apologetics component here at Westminster?

Absolutely! Apologetics is definitely part of the core curriculum here. However, I have noticed that a number of seminaries are changing the name from apologetics to philosophical theology. It doesn't always reflect a paradigm shift, but I think it's indicative of an emerging trend. It's kind of like the shift from theology departments to religion departments. There's a place for philosophy and even for philosophical theology in university graduate programs. But seminaries should have apologetic departments. We are meant to be training pastors and elders who can defend “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). So apologetics is not just philosophical theology, it's apologetics. We teach it with the specific aim of equipping pastors to be able to persuade and convince non-Christians of the truth of the gospel, and to strengthen doubting believers in their congregations. I think we are fooling ourselves if we think that our churches are not made up of people who don't ask a lot of questions.

It seems that many within the evangelical community are contesting biblical doctrines that once supported the Christian view of work and vocation. What do you think is going to be a consequence of that?

I think the first consequence will be that many Christians will find that they get less joy from the jobs that they perform over five or six days of the week. If we don't believe our normal jobs are as important as church-related activities, then for five or so days a week, we are going to have a pretty meaningless life. If we don't have any biblical justification for our work other than the opportunities it gives us for evangelism and ‘Christian ministry’, then it might become hard to get excited about our jobs, especially if a lot of our work is done alone and gives us few opportunities for witness. So with these doctrines in eclipse, Christians are going to be impoverished. Their lives are going to grow increasingly meaningless, except at the point that they're writing cheques for missionaries. If they lose their doctrine of vocation, then their main reason for going to work will be so that they can support the church.

What happens when you lose the Reformational understanding of ‘calling’?

Many years ago, a band called ‘Lover Boy’ wrote a song called ‘Working for the Weekend’. That's what's happening today: everyone's living for the weekend. We have lost the idea of Christian calling and the fact that we can find joy in the assignments that God has given us. Sadly, that's often true of Christians too. I often find that Christians are not only living for the weekend, they are totally consumed with Christian activities throughout the week as well. I remember growing up with prayer meetings, Bible studies—you know, all of those things that go on mid-week in Christian circles. But today, it's not even prayer meetings and Bible studies as much as it is men's groups, women's groups, children's groups and the like. At the moment, the church caters for every niche demographic. It's all driven by the idea that we have to satisfy the felt needs of that particular demographic and where they are in their stage of life. In other words, it's focusing on marketing, rather than on what Christians need to hear.

Before marketing took over the church, we had Bible studies and prayer meetings for people of all ages, backgrounds, problems, ethnic histories and so forth. But now, we have an alternative culture going on so that a Christian can actually be involved in the Christian ghetto 24 hours a day, listening to Christian radio and Christian music, going to Christian functions, taking the kids to Christians sports to the point where they don't actually know a non-Christian. And no-one at their work would know that they're Christians because they don't have any deep relationships with any of their co-workers. They're so busy with other Christians all the time.

I think it would be great if churches really got back to Bible teaching and catechesis, and word and sacrament ministry. Then we could stop all this mid-week stuff and let Christians have those six days back that you find in the Ten Commandments. If we did that, Christians could really be a part of the world and excel in their vocations. Then they would get to know their non-Christian friends, neighbours and co-workers.

Copyright Australian Presbyterian November 2007. Used with permission.

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7. Train them to habits of diligence and regularity about public means of grace

Tell them of the duty and privilege of going to the house of God and joining in the prayers of the congregation. Tell them that wherever the Lord's people are gathered together, there the Lord Jesus is present in an especial manner, and that those who absent themselves must expect, like the Apostle Thomas, to miss a blessing. Tell them of the importance of hearing the Word preached, and that it is God's ordinance for converting, sanctifying and building up the souls of men. Tell them how the Apostle Paul enjoins us not “to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is” (Heb 10:25), but to exhort one another, to stir one another up to it, and so much the more as we see the day approaching.

I call it a sad sight in a church when nobody comes up to the Lord's table but the elderly people, and the young men and the young women all turn away. But I call it a sadder sight still when no children are to be seen in a church, excepting those who come to the Sunday School and who are obliged to attend. Let none of this guilt lie at your doors. There are many boys and girls in every parish, besides those who come to school, and you who are their parents and friends should see to it that they come with you to church.

Do not allow them to grow up with a habit of making vain excuses for not coming. Give them plainly to understand that so long as they are under your roof, it is the rule of your house for everyone in health to honour the Lord's house upon the Lord's day, and that you reckon the Sabbath-breaker to be a murderer of his own soul.

See to it, too, if it can be so arranged, that your children go with you to church and sit near you when they are there. To go to church is one thing, but to behave well at church is quite another. And believe me, there is no security for good behaviour like that of having them under your own eye.

The minds of young people are easily drawn aside, and their attention lost. Every possible means should be used to counteract this. I do not like to see them coming to church by themselves; they often get into bad company by the way, and so learn more evil on the Lord's day than in all the rest of the week. Neither do I like to see what I call ‘a young people's corner’ in a church. They often catch habits of inattention and irreverence there which it takes years to unlearn, if ever they are unlearned at all. What I like to see is a whole family sitting together, old and young, side by side—men, women, and children, serving God according to their households.

But there are some who say that it is useless to urge children to attend means of grace, because they cannot understand them.

I would not have you listen to such reasoning. I find no such doctrine in the Old Testament. When Moses goes before Pharaoh (Exod 10:9), I observe he says, “We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters: for we must hold a feast unto the Lord.” When Joshua read the law (Josh 8:35), I observe, “There was not a word which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them.” “Thrice in the year,” says Exodus 34:23, “shall all your men-children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel”. And when I turn to the New Testament, I find children mentioned there as partaking in public acts of religion as well as in the Old. When Paul was leaving the disciples at Tyre for the last time, I find it said (Acts 21:5), “They all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of the city: and we kneeled down on the shore, and prayed.”

Samuel, in the days of his childhood, appears to have ministered unto the Lord some time before he really knew Him: “Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him” (1 Sam 3:7). The apostles themselves do not seem to have understood all that our Lord said at the time that it was spoken: “These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him” (John 12:16).

Parents, comfort your minds with these examples. Be not cast down because your children see not the full value of the means of grace now. Only train them up to a habit of regular attendance. Set it before their minds as a high, holy, and solemn duty and, believe me, the day will very likely come when they will bless you for your deed.

8. Train them to a habit of faith

I mean by this you should train them up to believe what you say. You should try to make them feel confidence in your judgement, and respect your opinions as better than their own. You should accustom them to think that, when you say a thing is bad for them, it must be bad, and when you say it is good for them, it must be good—that your knowledge, in short, is better than their own, and that they may rely implicitly on your word. Teach them to feel that what they know not now, they will probably know hereafter, and to be satisfied there is a reason and a needs-be for everything you require them to do.

Who indeed can describe the blessedness of a real spirit of faith? Or rather, who can tell the misery that unbelief has brought upon the world? Unbelief made Eve eat the forbidden fruit: she doubted the truth of God's word: “Ye shall surely die”. Unbelief made the old world reject Noah's warning and so perish in sin. Unbelief kept Israel in the wilderness: it was the bar that kept them from entering the promised land. Unbelief made the Jews crucify the Lord of glory: they believed not the voice of Moses and the prophets, though read to them every day. And unbelief is the reigning sin of man's heart down to this very hour—unbelief in God's promises—unbelief in God's threatenings—unbelief in our own sinfulness—unbelief in our own danger—unbelief in everything that runs counter to the pride and worldliness of our evil hearts. Reader, you train your children to little purpose if you do not train them to a habit of implicit faith—faith in their parents' word, confidence that what their parents say must be right.

I have heard it said by some that you should require nothing of children which they cannot understand—that you should explain and give a reason for everything you desire them to do. I warn you solemnly against such a notion. I tell you plainly I think it an unsound and rotten principle. No doubt it is absurd to make a mystery of everything you do, and there are many things which it is well to explain to children in order that they may see that they are reasonable and wise. But to bring them up with the idea that they must take nothing on trust—that they, with their weak and imperfect understandings, must have the ‘why’ and the ‘wherefore’ made clear to them at every step they take—this is indeed a fearful mistake and likely to have the worst effect on their minds.

Reason with your child if you are so disposed, at certain times, but never forget to keep him in mind (if you really love him) that he is but a child after all—that he thinks as a child, he understands as a child, and therefore must not expect to know the reason of everything at once.

Set before him the example of Isaac in the day when Abraham took him to offer him on Mount Moriah (Gen 22). He asked his father that single question: “Where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?” and he got no answer but this: “God will provide Himself a lamb.” How, or where, or whence, or in what manner, or by what means—all this Isaac was not told, but the answer was enough. He believed that it would be well because his father said so, and he was content. Tell your children, too, that we must all be learners in our beginnings—that there is an alphabet to be mastered in every kind of knowledge—that the best horse in the world had need once to be broken—that a day will come when they will see the wisdom of all your training. But in the meantime, if you say a thing is right, it must be enough for them; they must believe you and be content.

Parents, if any point in training is important, it is this. I charge you by the affection you have to your children, use every means to train them up to a habit of faith.

9. Train them to a habit of obedience

This is an object which it is worth any labour to attain. No habit, I suspect, has such an influence over our lives as this. Parents, determine to make your children obey you, though it may cost you much trouble and cost them many tears. Let there be no questioning, reasoning, disputing, delaying and answering again. When you give them a command, let them see plainly that you will have it done.

Obedience is the only reality. It is faith visible, faith acting and faith incarnate. It is the test of real discipleship among the Lord's people. “Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you” (John 15:14). It ought to be the mark of well- trained children—that they do whatsoever their parents command them. Where, indeed, is the honour which the fifth commandment enjoins if fathers and mothers are not obeyed cheerfully, willingly, and at once?

Early obedience has all Scripture on its side. It is in Abraham's praise, not merely he will train his family, but “he will command his children, and his household after him” (Gen 18:19). It is said of the Lord Jesus Christ himself that when “He was young He was subject to Mary and Joseph” (Luke 2:51).

Observe how implicitly Joseph obeyed the order of his father Jacob (Gen 37:13). See how Isaiah speaks of it as an evil thing when “the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient” (Isa 3:5). Mark how the Apostle Paul names disobedience to parents as one of the bad signs of the latter days (2 Tim 3:2). Mark how he singles out this grace of requiring obedience as one that should adorn a Christian minister: “a bishop must be one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity”. And again, “Let the deacons rule their children and their own houses well” (1 Tim 3:4,12). And again, an elder must be one “having faithful children, children not accused of riot, or unruly” (Titus 1:6).

Parents, do you wish to see your children happy? Take care, then, that you train them to obey when they are spoken to—to do as they are bid. Believe me, we are not made for entire independence; we are not fit for it. Even Christ's freemen have a yoke to wear: they “serve the Lord Christ” (Col 3:24). Children cannot learn too soon that this is a world in which we are not all intended to rule, and that we are never in our right place until we know how to obey our betters. Teach them to obey while young, or else they will be fretting against God all their lives long, and will wear themselves out with the vain idea of being independent of his control.

Reader, this hint is only too much needed. You will see many in this day who allow their children to choose and think for themselves long before they are able, and even make excuses for their disobedience, as if it were a thing not to be blamed. To my eyes, a parent always yielding and a child always having its own way are a most painful sight—painful, because I see God's appointed order of things inverted and turned upside down—painful, because I feel sure the consequence to that child's character in the end will be self-will, pride and self-conceit. You must not wonder that men refuse to obey their Father which is in heaven if you allow them, when children, to disobey their father who is upon earth.

Parents, if you love your children, let obedience be a motto and a watchword continually before their eyes.

10. Train them to a habit of always speaking the truth

Truth-speaking is far less common in the world than at first sight we are disposed to think. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is a golden rule which many would do well to bear in mind. Lying and prevarication are old sins. The devil was the father of them: he deceived Eve by a bold lie, and ever since the fall, it is a sin against which all the children of Eve have need to be on their guard.

Only think how much falsehood and deceit there is in the world! How much exaggeration! How many additions are made to a simple story! How many things left out, if it does not serve the speaker's interest to tell them! How few there are about us of whom we can say, we put unhesitating trust in their word! Verily the ancient Persians were wise in their generation: it was a leading point with them in educating their children that they should learn to speak the truth. What an awful proof it is of man's natural sinfulness that it should be needful to name such a point at all!

Reader, I would have you remark how often God is spoken of in the Old Testament as the God of truth. Truth seems to be especially set before us as a leading feature in the character of him with whom we have to do. He never swerves from the straight line. He abhors lying and hypocrisy. Try to keep this continually before your children's minds. Press upon them at all times that less than the truth is a lie; that evasion, excuse-making and exaggeration are all halfway houses towards what is false, and ought to be avoided. Encourage them in any circumstances to be straightforward and, whatever it may cost them, to speak the truth.

I press this subject on your attention not merely for the sake of your children's character in the world (though I might dwell much on this). I urge it rather for your own comfort and assistance in all your dealings with them. You will find it a mighty help indeed to be able always to trust their word. It will go far to prevent that habit of concealment which so unhappily prevails sometimes among children. Openness and straightforwardness depend much upon a parent's treatment of this matter in the days of our infancy.

11. Train them to a habit of always redeeming the time

Idleness is the devil's best friend. It is the surest way to give him an opportunity of doing us harm. An idle mind is like an open door, and if Satan does not enter in himself by it, it is certain he will throw in something to raise bad thoughts in our souls.

No created being was ever meant to be idle. Service and work is the appointed portion of every creature of God. The angels in heaven work; they are the Lord's ministering servants, ever doing his will. Adam, in Paradise, had work: he was appointed to dress the garden of Eden and to keep it. The redeemed saints in glory will have work: “They rest not day and night singing praise and glory to Him who bought them.” And man*—weak, sinful man—must have something to do, or else his soul will soon get into an unhealthy state. We must have our hands filled and our minds occupied with something, or else our imaginations will soon ferment and breed mischief.

And what is true of us is true of our children too. Alas, indeed, for the man that has nothing to do! The Jews thought idleness a positive sin: it was a law of theirs that every man should bring up his son to some useful trade, and they were right. They knew the heart of man better than some of us appear to do.

Idleness made Sodom what she was: “This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her” (Ezek 16:49). Idleness had much to do with David's awful sin with the wife of Uriah. I see in 2 Samuel 11 that Joab went out to war against Ammon, “but David tarried still at Jerusalem.” Was not that idle? And then it was that he saw Bathsheba—and the next step we read of is his tremendous and miserable fall.

Verily, I believe that idleness has led to more sin than almost any other habit that could be named. I suspect it is the mother of many a work of the flesh—the mother of adultery, fornication, drunkenness, and many other deeds of darkness that I have not time to name. Let your own conscience say whether I do not speak the truth. You were idle, and at once the devil knocked at the door and came in.

And indeed I do not wonder, everything in the world around us seems to teach the same lesson. It is the still water which becomes stagnant and impure; the running, moving streams are always clear. If you have steam machinery, you must work it, or it soon gets out of order. If you have a horse, you must exercise him; he is never so well as when he has regular work. If you would have good bodily health yourself, you must take exercise. If you always sit still, your body is sure at length to complain. And just so is it with the soul. The active moving mind is a hard mark for the devil to shoot at. Try to be always full of useful employment, and thus your enemy will find it difficult to get room to sow tares. Reader, I ask you to set these things before the minds of your children. Teach them the value of time, and try to make them learn the habit of using it well. It pains me to see children idling over what they have in hand, whatever it may be. I love to see them active and industrious, and giving their whole heart to all they do—giving their whole heart to lessons, when they have to learn—giving their whole heart even to their amusements, when they go to play.

But if you love them well, let idleness be counted a sin in your family.

12. Train them with a constant fear of over-indulgence

This is the one point of all on which you have most need to be on your guard. It is natural to be tender and affectionate towards your own flesh and blood, and it is the excess of this very tenderness and affection which you have to fear. Take heed that it does not make you blind to your children's faults and deaf to all advice about them. Take heed lest it make you overlook bad conduct, rather than have the pain of inflicting punishment and correction.

I know well that punishment and correction are disagreeable things. Nothing is more unpleasant than giving pain to those we love, and calling forth their tears. But so long as hearts are what hearts are, it is vain to suppose, as a general rule, that children can ever be brought up without correction.

Spoiling is a very expressive word and, sadly, full of meaning. Now it is the shortest way to spoil children to let them have their own way—to allow them to do wrong and not to punish them for it. Believe me, you must not do it, whatever pain it may cost you, unless you wish to ruin your children's souls.

You cannot say that Scripture does not speak expressly on this subject: “He that spareth his rod, hateth his son; but he that loveth him, chasteneth him betimes” (Prov 13:24). “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying” (Prov 19:18). “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child: but the rod of correction shall drive it from him” (Prov 22:15). “Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell” (Prov 23:13, 14). “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest, yea, he shall give delight to thy soul” (Prov 29:15, 17).

How strong and forcible are these texts! How melancholy is the fact that in many Christian families, they seem almost unknown! Their children need reproof, but it is hardly ever given; they need correction, but it is hardly ever employed. And yet this Book of Proverbs is not obsolete and unfit for Christians. It is given by inspiration of God, and it is profitable. It is given for our learning, even as the Epistles to the Romans and Ephesians. Surely the believer who brings up his children without attention to its counsel is making himself wise above that which is written, and greatly errs.

Fathers and mothers, I tell you plainly, if you never punish your children when they are in fault, you are doing them a grievous wrong. I warn you this is the rock on which the saints of God, in every age, have only too frequently made shipwreck. I would fain persuade you to be wise in time and to keep clear of it. See it in Eli's case. His sons Hophni and Phinehas “made themselves vile, and he restrained them not”. He gave them no more than a tame and lukewarm reproof when he ought to have rebuked them sharply. In one word, he honoured his sons above God. And what was the end of these things? He lived to hear of the death of both his sons in battle, and his own grey hairs were brought down with sorrow to the grave (1 Sam 2:22-29, 3:13).

See, too, the case of David. Who can read without pain the history of his children, and their sins? Amnon's incest—Absalom's murder and proud rebellion—Adonijah's scheming ambition: truly these were grievous wounds for the man after God's own heart to receive from his own house. But was there no fault on his side? I fear there can be no doubt there was. I find a clue to it all in the account of Adonijah in 1 Kings 1:6: “His father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?” There was the foundation of all the mischief. David was an over-indulgent father—a father who let his children have their own way—and he reaped according as he had sown.

Parents, I beseech you, for your children's sake, beware of over-indulgence. I call on you to remember that it is your first duty to consult their real interests, and not their fancies and likings;—to train them, not to humour them—to profit, not merely to please.

You must not give way to every wish and caprice of your child's mind, however much you may love him. You must not let him suppose his will is to be everything, and that he has only to desire a thing and it will be done. Do not, I pray you, make your children idols, lest God should take them away and break your idol, just to convince you of your folly.

Learn to say ‘No’ to your children. Show them that you are able to refuse whatever you think is not fit for them. Show them that you are ready to punish disobedience, and that when you speak of punishment, you are not only ready to threaten, but also to perform. Do not threaten too much.⁴ Threatened folks and threatened faults live long. Punish seldom, but really and in good earnest; frequent and slight punishment is a wretched system indeed.⁵

Beware of letting small faults pass unnoticed under the idea ‘it is a little one’. There are no little things in training children; all are important. Little weeds need plucking up as much as any. Leave them alone and they will soon be great. Reader, if there be any point which deserves your attention, believe me, it is this one. It is one that will give you trouble, I know. But if you do not take trouble with your children when they are young, they will give you trouble when they are old. Choose which you prefer.

13. Train them remembering continually how God trains his children

The Bible tells us that God has an elect people—a family in this world. All poor sinners who have been convinced of sin and who have fled to Jesus for peace make up that family. All of us who really believe on Christ for salvation are its members. Now God the Father is ever training the members of this family for their everlasting abode with him in heaven. He acts as a husbandman pruning his vines—that they may bear more fruit. He knows the character of each of us—our besetting sins—our weaknesses—our peculiar infirmities—our special wants. He knows our works and where we dwell, who are our companions in life, and what are our trials, what our temptations, and what are our privileges. He knows all these things, and is ever ordering all for our good. He allots to each of us, in his providence, the very things we need in order to bear the most fruit—as much of sunshine as we can stand, and as much of rain—as much of bitter things as we can bear, and as much of sweet. Reader, if you would train your children wisely, mark well how God the Father trains his. He doeth all things well; the plan which he adopts must be right.

See, then, how many things there are which God withholds from his children. Few could be found, I suspect, among them who have not had desires which he has never been pleased to fulfil. There has often been some one thing they wanted to attain, and yet there has always been some barrier to prevent attainment. It has been just as if God was placing it above our reach and saying, “This is not good for you; this must not be”. Moses desired exceedingly to cross over Jordan and see the goodly land of promise, but you will remember his desire was never granted.

See, too, how often God leads his people by ways which seem dark and mysterious to our eyes. We cannot see the meaning of all his dealings with us; we cannot see the reasonableness of the path in which our feet are treading. Sometimes so many trials have assailed us—so many difficulties encompassed us—that we have not been able to discover the needs-be of it all. It has been just as if our Father was taking us by the hand into a dark place and saying, “Ask no questions, but follow Me”. There was a direct road from Egypt to Canaan, yet Israel was not led into it but round, through the wilderness. And this seemed hard at the time. “The soul of the people,” we are told, “was much discouraged because of the way” (Exod 13:17; Num 21:4).

See, also, how often God chastens his people with trial and affliction. He sends them crosses and disappointments; he lays them low with sickness; he strips them of property and friends; he changes them from one position to another; he visits them with things most hard to flesh and blood; and some of us have well-nigh fainted under the burdens laid upon us. We have felt pressed beyond strength, and have been almost ready to murmur at the hand which chastened us. Paul the Apostle had a thorn in the flesh appointed him—some bitter bodily trial, no doubt—though we know not exactly what it was. But this we know: he besought the Lord thrice that it might be removed, yet it was not taken away (2 Cor 12:8, 9).

Now, reader, notwithstanding all these things, did you ever hear of a single child of God who thought his Father did not treat him wisely? No, I am sure you never did. God's children would always tell you that, in the long run, it was a blessed thing they did not have their own way, and that God had done far better for them than they could have done for themselves. Yes! And they could tell you, too, that God's dealings had provided more happiness for them than they ever would have obtained themselves, and that his way, however dark at times, was the way of pleasantness and the path of peace.

I ask you to lay to heart the lesson which God's dealings with his people is meant to teach you. Fear not to withhold from your child anything you think will do him harm, whatever his own wishes may be. This is God's plan. Hesitate not to lay on him commands, of which he may not at present see the wisdom, and to guide him in ways which may not now seem reasonable to his mind. This is God's plan.

Shrink not from chastising and correcting him whenever you see his soul's health requires it, however painful it may be to your feelings, and remember medicines for the mind must not be rejected because they are bitter. This is God's plan.

And be not afraid, above all, that such a plan of training will make your child unhappy. I warn you against this delusion. Depend on it, there is no surer road to unhappiness than always having our own way. To have our wills checked and denied is a blessed thing for us: it makes us value enjoyments when they come. To be indulged perpetually is the way to be made selfish, and selfish people and spoiled children, believe me, are seldom happy.

Reader, be not wiser than God: train your children as he trains his.

14. Train them remembering continually the influence of your own example

Instruction and advice and commands will profit little, unless they are backed up by the pattern of your own life. Your children will never believe you are in earnest, and really wish them to obey you, so long as your actions contradict your counsel. Archbishop Tillotson made a wise remark when he said, “To give children good instruction, and a bad example, is but beckoning to them with the head to show them the way to heaven, while we take them by the hand and lead them in the way to hell”.

We little know the force and power of example. No one of us can live to himself in this world; we are always influencing those around us, in one way or another, either for good or for evil, either for God or for sin. They see our ways, they mark our conduct, they observe our behaviour, and what they see us practise that they may fairly suppose we think right. And never, I believe, does example tell so powerfully as it does in the case of parents and children.

Fathers and mothers, do not forget that children learn more by the eye than they do by the ear. No school will make such deep marks on character as home. The best of schoolmasters will not imprint on their minds as much as they will pick up at your fireside. Imitation is a far stronger principle with children than memory. What they see has a much stronger effect on their minds than what they are told.

Take care, then, what you do before a child. It is a true proverb that “Who sins before a child, sins double”. Strive rather to be a living epistle of Christ such as your families can read, and that plainly too. Be an example of reverence for the word of God, reverence in prayer, reverence for means of grace, reverence for the Lord's day. Be an example in words, in temper, in diligence, in temperance, in faith, in charity, in kindness, in humility. Think not your children will practise what they do not see you do. You are their model picture, and they will copy what you are. Your reasoning and your lecturing, your wise commands and your good advice—all this they may not understand, but they can understand your life.

Children are very quick observers—very quick in seeing through some kinds of hypocrisy, very quick in finding out what you really think and feel, very quick in adopting all your ways and opinions. You will often find as the father is, so is the son.

Remember the word that the conqueror Caesar always used to his soldiers in a battle. He did not say “Go forward”, but “Come”. So it must be with you in training your children. They will seldom learn habits which they see you despise, or walk in paths in which you do not walk yourself. He that preaches to his children what he does not practise is working a work that never goes forward. It is like the fabled web of Penelope of old who wove all day and unwove all night. Even so, the parent who tries to train without setting a good example is building with one hand and pulling down with the other.

15. Train them. remembering continually the power of sin

I name this shortly in order to guard you against unscriptural expectations. You must not expect to find your children's minds a sheet of pure white paper, and to have no trouble if you only use right means. I warn you plainly you will find no such thing. It is painful to see how much corruption and evil there is in a young child's heart, and how soon it begins to bear fruit. Violent tempers, self-will, pride, envy, sullenness, passion, idleness, selfishness, deceit, cunning, falsehood, hypocrisy, a terrible aptness to learn what is bad, a painful slowness to learn what is good, a readiness to pretend anything in order to gain their own ends—all these things, or some of them, you must be prepared to see, even in your own flesh and blood. In little ways they will creep out at a very early age. It is almost startling to observe how naturally they seem to spring up. Children require no schooling to learn to sin.

But you must not be discouraged and cast down by what you see. You must not think it a strange and unusual thing that little hearts can be so full of sin. It is the only portion which our father Adam left us; it is that fallen nature with which we come into the world; it is that inheritance which belongs to us all. Let it, rather, make you more diligent in using every means which seem most likely, by God's blessing, to counteract the mischief. Let it make you more and more careful, so far as in you lies, to keep your children out of the way of temptation.

Never listen to those who tell you your children are good and well brought up, and can be trusted. Think, rather, that their hearts are always inflammable as tinder. At their very best, they only want a spark to set their corruptions alight. Parents are seldom too cautious. Remember the natural depravity of your children, and take care.

16. Train them remembering continually the promises of Scripture

I name this also shortly in order to guard you against discouragement. You have a plain promise on your side: “Train up your child in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart from it” (Prov 22:6). Think what it is to have a promise like this. Promises were the only lamp of hope which cheered the hearts of the patriarchs before the Bible was written. Enoch, Noah, Abrahanm, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph—all lived on a few promises and prospered in their souls. Promises are the cordials which in every age have supported and strengthened the believer. He that has got a plain text upon his side need never be cast down. Fathers and mothers, when your hearts are failing and ready to halt, look at the word of this text and take comfort.

Think who it is that promises. It is not the word of a man, who may lie or repent; it is the word of the King of kings, who never changes. Hath he said a thing and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good? Neither is anything too hard for him to perform. The things that are impossible with men are possible with God. Reader, if we get not the benefit of the promise we are dwelling upon, the fault is not in him, but in ourselves.

Think, too, what the promise contains before you refuse to take comfort from it. It speaks of a certain time when good training shall especially bear fruit: “when a child is old”. Surely there is comfort in this. You may not see with your own eyes the result of careful training, but you know not what blessed fruits may not spring from it long after you are dead and gone. It is not God's way to give everything at once. ‘Afterwards’ is the time when he often chooses to work, both in the things of nature and in the things of grace. ‘Afterward’ is the season when affliction bears the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Heb 12:11). ‘Afterward’ was the time when the son who refused to work in his father's vineyard repented and went (Matt 21:29). And ‘afterward’ is the time to which parents must look forward if they see not success at once: you must sow in hope and plant in hope.

“Cast thy bread upon the waters,” saith the Spirit, “for thou shalt find it after many days” (Eccles 11:1). Many children, I doubt not, shall rise up in the day of judgement and bless their parents for good training, who never gave any signs of having profited by it during their parents' lives. Go forward then in faith, and be sure that your labour shall not be altogether thrown away. Three times did Elijah stretch himself upon the widow's child before it revived. Take example from him, and persevere.

17. Train them, lastly, with continual prayer for a blessing on all you do

Without the blessing of the Lord, your best endeavours will do no good. He has the hearts of all men in his hands, and except he touch the hearts of your children by his Spirit, you will weary yourself to no purpose. Water, therefore, the seed you sow on their minds with unceasing prayer. The Lord is far more willing to hear than we to pray—far more ready to give blessings than we to ask them—but he loves to be entreated for them. And I set this matter of prayer before you as the top-stone and seal of all you do. I suspect the child of many prayers is seldom cast away.

Look upon your children as Jacob did on his. He tells Esau they are “the children which God hath graciously given thy servant” (Gen 33:5). Look on them as Joseph did on his: he told his father, “They are the sons whom God hath given me” (Gen 48:9). Count them with the Psalmist to be “an heritage and reward from the Lord” (Ps 127:3). And then ask the Lord with a holy boldness to be gracious and merciful to his own gifts. Mark how Abraham intercedes for Ishmael because he loved him: “Oh that Ishmael might live before thee” (Gen 17:18). See how Manoah speaks to the angel about Samson: “How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?” (Judg 13:12). Observe how tenderly Job cared for his children's souls: “He offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all, for he said, It may be my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually” (Job 1:5). Parents, if you love your children, go and do likewise. You cannot name their names before the mercy-seat too often.

And now, reader, in conclusion, let me once more press upon you the necessity and importance of using every single means in your power, if you would train children for heaven.

I know well that God is a sovereign God, and doeth all things according to the counsel of his own will. I know that Rehoboam was the son of Solomon, and Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, and that you do not always see godly parents having a godly seed. But I know also that God is a God who works by means, and sure am I, if you make light of such means as I have mentioned, your children are not likely to turn out well.

Fathers and mothers, you may take your children to be baptized and have them enrolled in the ranks of Christ's church; you may get godly sponsors to answer for them, and help you by their prayers; you may send them to the best of schools, and give them Bibles and Prayer Books, and fill them with head knowledge; but if all this time there is no regular training at home, I tell you plainly, I fear it will go hard in the end with your children's souls. Home is the place where habits are formed; home is the place where the foundations of character are laid; home gives the bias to our tastes and likings and opinions. See then, I pray you, that there be careful training at home. Happy indeed is the man who can say, as Bolton did upon his dying bed to his children, “I do believe not one of you will dare to meet me before the tribunal of Christ in an unregenerate state”.

Fathers and mothers, I charge you solemnly before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, take every pains to train your children in the way they should go. I charge you not merely for the sake of your children's souls; I charge you for the sake of your own future comfort and peace. Truly, it is your interest so to do. Truly, your own happiness in great measure depends on it. Children have ever been the bow from which the sharpest arrows have pierced man's heart.

Children have mixed the bitterest cups that man has ever had to drink. Children have caused the saddest tears that man has ever had to shed. Adam could tell you so; Jacob could tell you so; David could tell you so. There are no sorrows on earth like those which children have brought upon their parents. Oh! Take heed, lest your own neglect should lay up misery for you in your old age. Take heed, lest you weep under the ill-treatment of a thankless child in the days when your eye is dim and your natural force abated.

If ever you wish your children to be the restorers of your life and the nourishers of your old age—if you would have them blessings and not curses—joys and not sorrows—Judahs and not Reubens—Ruths and not Orpahs—if you would not, like Noah, be ashamed of their deeds, and, like Rebekah, be made weary of your life by them—if this be your wish, remember my advice betimes, train them while young in the right way.

And as for me, I will conclude by putting up my prayer to God for all who read this paper that you may all be taught of God to feel the value of your own souls. This is one reason why baptism is too often a mere form, and Christian training despised and disregarded. Too often parents feel not for themselves, and so they feel not for their children. They do not realize the tremendous difference between a state of nature and a state of grace, and therefore they are content to let them alone.

Now the Lord teach you all that sin is that abominable thing which God hateth. Then, I know you will mourn over the sins of your children, and strive to pluck them out as brands from the fire.

The Lord teach you all how precious Christ is, and what a mighty and complete work he hath done for our salvation. Then, I feel confident you will use every means to bring your children to Jesus that they may live through him. The Lord teach you all your need of the Holy Spirit to renew, sanctify and quicken your souls. Then, I feel sure you will urge your children to pray for him without ceasing, and never rest till he has come down into their hearts with power and made them new creatures.

The Lord grant this, and then I have a good hope that you will indeed train up your children well—train well for this life, and train well for the life to come; train well for earth, and train well for heaven; train them for God, for Christ, and for eternity.

Read Part 1.

Endnotes

⁴ Some parents and nurses have a way of saying, “Naughty child,” to a boy or girl on every slight occasion, and often without good cause. It is a very foolish habit. Words of blame should never be used without real reason.

⁵ As to the best way of punishing a child, no general rule can be laid down. The characters of children are so exceedingly different that what would be a severe punishment to one child would be no punishment at all to another. I only beg to enter my decided protest against the modern notion that no child ought ever to be whipped. Doubtless some parents use bodily correction far too much, and far too violently, but many others, I fear, use it far too little.

Read Part 2.

“Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Prov 22:6)

I suppose that most professing Christians are acquainted with the text at the head of this page. The sound of it is probably familiar to your ears, like an old tune. It is likely you have heard it, or read it, talked of it, or quoted it, many a time. Is it not so?

But, after all, how little is the substance of this text regarded! The doctrine it contains appears scarcely known, the duty it puts before us seems fearfully seldom practised. Reader, do I not speak the truth? It cannot be said that the subject is a new one. The world is old, and we have the experience of nearly 6,000 years to help us. We live in days when there is a mighty zeal for education in every quarter. We hear of new schools rising on all sides. We are told of new systems, and new books for the young, of every sort and description. And still for all this, the vast majority of children are manifestly not trained in the way they should go, for when they grow up to man's estate, they do not walk with God. Now how shall we account for this state of things? The plain truth is, the Lord's commandment in our text is not regarded, and therefore the Lord's promise in our text is not fulfilled.

Reader, these things may well give rise to great searchings of heart. Suffer then a word of exhortation from a minister about the right training of children. Believe me, the subject is one that should come home to every conscience, and make every one ask himself the question, “Am I in this matter doing what I can?”

It is a subject that concerns almost all. There is hardly a household that it does not touch. Parents, nurses, teachers, godfathers, godmothers, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters—all have an interest in it. Few can be found, I think, who might not influence some parent in the management of his family, or affect the training of some child by suggestion or advice. All of us, I suspect, can do something here, either directly or indirectly, and I wish to stir up all to bear this in remembrance.

It is a subject, too, on which all concerned are in great danger of coming short of their duty. This is pre-eminently a point in which men can see the faults of their neighbours more clearly than their own. They will often bring up their children in the very path which they have denounced to their friends as unsafe. They will see motes in other men's families and overlook beams in their own. They will be quick sighted as eagles in detecting mistakes abroad, and yet blind as bats to fatal errors which are daily going on at home. They will be wise about their brother's house, but foolish about their own flesh and blood. Here, if anywhere, we have need to suspect our own judgement. This, too, you will do well to bear in mind.¹

Come now, and let me place before you a few hints about right training. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost bless them, and make them words in season to you all. Reject them not because they are blunt and simple; despise them not because they contain nothing new. Be very sure, if you would train children for heaven, they are hints that ought not to be lightly set aside.

1. First, then, if you would train your children rightly, train them in the way they should go, and not in the way that they would

Remember children are born with a decided bias towards evil, and therefore if you let them choose for themselves, they are certain to choose wrong. The mother cannot tell what her tender infant may grow up to be—tall or short, weak or strong, wise or foolish he may be any of these things or not—it is all uncertain. But one thing the mother can say with certainty: he will have a corrupt and sinful heart. It is natural to us to do wrong. “Foolishness,” says Solomon, “is bound in the heart of a child” (Prov 22:15). “A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Prov 29:15). Our hearts are like the earth on which we tread: let it alone, and it is sure to bear weeds. If, then, you would deal wisely with your child, you must not leave him to the guidance of his own will. Think for him, judge for him, act for him, just as you would for one weak and blind; but for pity's sake, give him not up to his own wayward tastes and inclinations. It must not be his likings and wishes that are consulted. He knows not yet what is good for his mind and soul any more than what is good for his body. You do not let him decide what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and how he shall be clothed. Be consistent and deal with his mind in like manner. Train him in the way that is scriptural and right, and not in the way that he fancies.

If you cannot make up your mind to this first principle of Christian training, it is useless for you to read any further. Self-will is almost the first thing that appears in a child's mind; and it must be your first step to resist it.

2. Train up your child with all tenderness, affection, and patience. I do not mean that you are to spoil him, but I do mean that you should let him see that you love him

Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct. Kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, forbearance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys—these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily—these are the clues you must follow if you would find the way to his heart. Few are to be found, even among grown-up people, who are not more easy to draw than to drive. There is that in all our minds which rises in arms against compulsion; we set up our backs and stiffen our necks at the very idea of a forced obedience. We are like young horses in the hand of a breaker: handle them kindly, and make much of them, and by and by you may guide them with thread; use them roughly and violently, and it will be many a month before you get the mastery of them at all.

Now children's minds are cast in much the same mould as our own. Sternness and severity of manner chill them and throw them back. It shuts up their hearts, and you will weary yourself to find the door. But let them only see that you have an affectionate feeling towards them—that you are really desirous to make them happy, and do them good—that if you punish them, it is intended for their profit, and that, like the pelican, you would give your heart's blood to nourish their souls. Let them see this, I say, and they will soon be all your own. But they must be wooed with kindness if their attention is ever to be won. And surely reason itself might teach us this lesson. Children are weak and tender creatures, and, as such, they need patient and considerate treatment. We must handle them delicately like frail machines, lest by rough fingering we do more harm than good. They are like young plants, and need gentle watering—often, but little at a time.

We must not expect all things at once. We must remember what children are, and teach them as they are able to bear. Their minds are like a lump of metal—not to be forged and made useful at once, but only by a succession of little blows. Their understandings are like narrow-necked vessels: we must pour in the wine of knowledge gradually, or much of it will be spilled and lost. “Line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little,” must be our rule. The whetstone does its work slowly, but frequent rubbing will bring the scythe to a fine edge. Truly there is need of patience in training a child, but without it nothing can be done.

Nothing will compensate for the absence of this tenderness and love. A minister may speak the truth as it is in Jesus, clearly, forcibly, unanswerably, but if he does not speak it in love, few souls will be won. Just so you must set before your children their duty—command, threaten, punish, reason—but if affection be wanting in your treatment, your labour will be all in vain.

Love is one grand secret of successful training. Anger and harshness may frighten, but they will not persuade the child that you are right, and if he sees you often out of temper, you will soon cease to have his respect. A father who speaks to his son as Saul did to Jonathan (1 Sam 20:30) need not expect to retain his influence over that son's mind.

Try hard to keep up a hold on your child's affections. It is a dangerous thing to make your children afraid of you. Anything is almost better than reserve and constraint between your child and yourself, and this will come in with fear. Fear puts an end to openness of manner; fear leads to concealment; fear sows the seed of much hypocrisy, and leads to many a lie. There is a mine of truth in the apostle's words to the Colossians: “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col 3:21). Let not the advice it contains be overlooked.

3. Train your children with an abiding persuasion on your mind that much depends upon you

Grace is the strongest of all principles. See what a revolution grace effects when it comes into the heart of an old sinner—how it overturns the strongholds of Satan—how it casts down mountains, fills up valleys, makes crooked things straight and new creates the whole man. Truly nothing is impossible to grace. Nature, too, is very strong. See how it struggles against the things of the kingdom of God—how it fights against every attempt to be more holy—how it keeps up an unceasing warfare within us to the last hour of life. Nature indeed is strong.

But after nature and grace, undoubtedly, there is nothing more powerful than education. Early habits (if I may so speak) are everything with us, under God. We are made what we are by training. Our character takes the form of that mould into which our first years are cast.²

We depend, in a vast measure, on those who bring us up. We get from them a colour, a taste, a bias which cling to us more or less all our lives. We catch the language of our nurses and mothers, and learn to speak it almost insensibly, and unquestionably we catch something of their manners, ways and mind at the same time. Time only will show, I suspect, how much we all owe to early impressions, and how many things in us may be traced up to seeds sown in the days of our very infancy by those who were about us. A very learned Englishman, Mr. Locke, has gone so far as to say “That of all the men we meet with, nine parts out of ten are what they are, good or bad, useful or not, according to their education”.

And all this is one of God's merciful arrangements. He gives your children a mind that will receive impressions like moist clay. He gives them a disposition at the starting-point of life to believe what you tell them, to take for granted what you advise them, and to trust your word rather than a stranger's. He gives you, in short, a golden opportunity of doing them good. See that the opportunity be not neglected and thrown away. Once let slip, it is gone forever. Beware of that miserable delusion into which some have fallen—that parents can do nothing for their children, that you must leave them alone, wait for grace, and sit still. These persons have wishes for their children in Balaam's fashion: they would like them to die the death of the righteous man, but they do nothing to make them live his life. They desire much and have nothing. And the devil rejoices to see such reasoning, just as he always does over anything which seems to excuse indolence, or to encourage neglect of means.

I know that you cannot convert your child. I know well that they who are born again are born, not of the will of man, but of God. But I know also that God says expressly, “Train up a child in the way he should go,” and that he never laid a command on man which he would not give man grace to perform. And I know, too, that our duty is not to stand still and dispute, but to go forward and obey. It is just in the going forward that God will meet us. The path of obedience is the way in which he gives the blessing. We have only to do as the servants were commanded at the marriage feast in Cana—to fill the water-pots with water, and we may safely leave it to the Lord to turn that water into wine.

4. Train with this thought continually before your eyes—that the soul of your child is the first thing to be considered

Precious, no doubt, are these little ones in your eyes, but if you love them, think often of their souls. No interest should weigh with you so much as their eternal interests. No part of them should be so dear to you as that part which will never die. The world with all its glory shall pass away: the hills shall melt, the heavens shall be wrapped together as a scroll, the sun shall cease to shine. But the spirit which dwells in those little creatures whom you love so well shall outlive them all, and whether in happiness or misery (to speak as a man) will depend on you.

This is the thought that should be uppermost on your mind in all you do for your children. In every step you take about them—in every plan and scheme and arrangement that concerns them—do not leave out that mighty question “How will this affect their souls?”

Soul love is the soul of all love. To pet and pamper and indulge your child, as if this world was all he had to look to and this life the only season for happiness—to do this is not true love, but cruelty. It is treating him like some beast of the earth, which has but one world to look to and nothing after death. It is hiding from him that grand truth, which he ought to be made to learn from his very infancy—that the chief end of his life is the salvation of his soul.

A true Christian must be no slave to fashion if he would train his child for heaven. He must not be content to do things merely because they are the custom of the world—to teach them and instruct them in certain ways merely because it is usual; to allow them to read books of a questionable sort merely because everybody else reads them; to let them form habits of a doubtful tendency merely because they are the habits of the day. He must train with an eye to his children's souls. He must not be ashamed to hear his training called singular and strange. What if it is? The time is short; the fashion of this world passeth away. He that has trained his children for heaven rather than for earth—for God, rather than for man. He is the parent that will be called wise at last.

5. Train your child to a knowledge of the Bible

You cannot make your children love the Bible, I allow. None but the Holy Ghost can give us a heart to delight in the Word. But you can make your children acquainted with the Bible, and be sure they cannot be acquainted with that blessed book too soon, or too well.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is the foundation of all clear views of religion. He that is well-grounded in it will not generally be found a waverer and carried about by every wind of new doctrine. Any system of training which does not make a knowledge of Scripture the first thing is unsafe and unsound. You have need to be careful on this point just now, for the devil is abroad and error abounds. Some are to be found amongst us who give the church the honour due to Jesus Christ. Some are to be found who make the sacraments saviours and passports to eternal life. And some are to be found in like manner who honour a catechism more than the Bible, or fill the minds of their children with miserable little storybooks, instead of the Scripture of truth. But if you love your children, let the simple Bible be everything in the training of their souls, and let all other books go down and take the second place. Care not so much for their being mighty in the catechism as for their being mighty in the Scriptures. This is the training, believe me, that God will honour. The Psalmist says of him, “Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name” (Ps 138:2), and I think that he gives an especial blessing to all who try to magnify it among men.

See that your children read the Bible reverently. Train them to look on it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, written by the Holy Ghost himself—all true, all profitable and able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

See that they read it regularly. Train them to regard it as their soul's daily food—as a thing essential to their soul's daily health. I know well you can not make this anything more than a form, but there is no telling the amount of sin which a mere form may indirectly restrain.

See that they read it all. You need not shrink from bringing any doctrine before them. You need not fancy that the leading doctrines of Christianity are things which children cannot understand. Children understand far more of the Bible than we are apt to suppose.

Tell them of sin, its guilt, its consequences, its power, its vileness. You will find they can comprehend something of this.

Tell them of the Lord Jesus Christ and his work for our salvation—the atonement, the cross, the blood, the sacrifice, the intercession. You will discover there is something not beyond them in all this.

Tell them of the work of the Holy Spirit in man's heart—how he changes and renews and sanctifies and purifies. You will soon see they can go along with you in some measure in this. In short, I suspect we have no idea how much a little child can take in of the length and breadth of the glorious gospel. They see far more of these things than we suppose.³

Fill their minds with Scripture. Let the Word dwell in them richly. Give them the Bible—the whole Bible—even while they are young.

6. Train them to a habit of prayer

Prayer is the very life-breath of true religion. It is one of the first evidences that a man is born again. “Behold,” said the Lord of Saul, in the day he sent Ananias to him, “Behold, he prayeth” (Acts 9:11). He had begun to pray and that was proof enough.

Prayer was the distinguishing mark of the Lord's people in the day that there began to be a separation between them and the world: “Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 4:26).

Prayer is the peculiarity of all real Christians now. They pray for they tell God their wants, their feelings, their desires, their fears, and mean what they say. The nominal Christian may repeat prayers—and good prayers too—but he goes no further.

Prayer is the turning-point in a man's soul. Our ministry is unprofitable and our labour is vain till you are brought to your knees. Till then, we have no hope about you.

Prayer is one great secret of spiritual prosperity. When there is much private communion with God, your soul will grow like the grass after rain; when there is little, all will be at a standstill: you will barely keep your soul alive. Show me a growing Christian—a going forward Christian, a strong Christian, a flourishing Christian—and, sure am I, he is one that speaks often with his Lord. He asks much and he has much. He tells Jesus everything, and so he always knows how to act.

Prayer is the mightiest engine God has placed in our hands. It is the best weapon to use in every difficulty and the surest remedy in every trouble. It is the key that unlocks the treasury of promises, and the hand that draws forth grace and help in time of need. It is the silver trumpet God commands us to sound in all our necessity, and it is the cry he has promised always to attend to, even as a loving mother to the voice of her child.

Prayer is the simplest means that man can use in coming to God. It is within reach of all—the sick, the aged, the infirm, the paralytic, the blind, the poor, the unlearned—all can pray. It avails you nothing to plead want of memory, want of learning, want of books and want of scholarship in this matter. So long as you have a tongue to tell your soul's state, you may and ought to pray. Those words, “Ye have not, because ye ask not” (Jas 4:2), will be a fearful condemnation to many in the day of judgement.

Parents, if you love your children, do all that lies in your power to train them up to a habit of prayer. Show them how to begin. Tell them what to say. Encourage them to persevere. Remind them if they become careless and slack about it. Let it not be your fault, at any rate, if they never call on the name of the Lord. This, remember, is the first step in religion which a child is able to take. Long before he can read, you can teach him to kneel by his mother's side, and repeat the simple words of prayer and praise which she puts in his mouth. And as the first steps in any undertaking are always the most important, so is the manner in which your children's prayers are prayed, a point which deserves your closest attention. Few seem to know how much depends on this. You must beware lest they get into a way of saying them in a hasty, careless, and irreverent manner.

You must beware of giving up the oversight of this matter to servants and nurses, or of trusting too much to your children doing it when left to themselves. I cannot praise that mother who never looks after this most important part of her child's daily life herself. Surely if there be any habit which your own hand and eye should help in forming, it is the habit of prayer. Believe me, if you never hear your children pray yourself, you are much to blame. You are little wiser than the bird described in Job, “which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without fear” (Job 39:14-16).

Prayer is, of all habits, the one which we recollect the longest. Many a grey-headed man could tell you how his mother used to make him pray in the days of his childhood. Other things have passed away from his mind perhaps. The church where he was taken to worship, the minister whom he heard preach, the companions who used to play with him—all these, it may be, have passed from his memory and left no mark behind. But you will often find it is far different with his first prayers. He will often be able to tell you where he knelt, what he was taught to say and even how his mother looked all the while. It will come up as fresh before his mind's eye as if it was but yesterday.

Reader, if you love your children, I charge you, do not let the seed-time of a prayerful habit pass away unimproved. If you train your children to anything, train them, at least, to a habit of prayer.

Read Part 2.

Endnotes

¹ As a minister, I cannot help remarking that there is hardly any subject about which people seem so tenacious as they are about their children. I have sometimes been perfectly astonished at the slowness of sensible Christian parents to allow that their own children are in fault, or deserve blame. There are not a few persons to whom I would far rather speak about their own sins than tell them their children had done anything wrong.

² “He has seen but little of life who does not discern everywhere the effect of education on men's opinions and habits of thinking. The children bring out of the nursery that which displays itself throughout their lives.” (Cecil).

³ As to the age when the religious instruction of a child should begin, no general rule can be laid down. The mind seems to open in some children much more quickly than in others. We seldom begin too early. There are wonderful examples on record of what a child can attain to, even at three years old.

Joe Radkovic, a missionary with the Church Missionary Society Australia (CMS) shares with us a year of his life on the mission field in Kenya.

8 May 2007

The wet season seems to have fizzled out a little early here, which means the roads haven't deteriorated as badly as usual, but I dare say the farmers would like a little more rain. Ben's work paving the entrance at the medical clinic means that even when it does rain, the clinic remains fairly clean—people are not traipsing mud through nearly so much.

I am working at adjusting how the clinics both run—the Korogocho Clinic where the maternity is being built, and the Kibera Clinic. The plans are to get each clinic to take on a lot of the administrative tasks rather than the main office, to get both clinics working the same way so staff can go from one to the other and know what to expect, and to have both clinics telling the gospel to people often. Kibera clinic does not know the three aims yet—treat everyone with respect, treat everyone with quality medical care and treat everyone with ‘Gospel Care” (because medical care only goes so far in helping people).

Me outside the maternity clinic

Since I now have a staff of 19 people to look after, and more when the maternity opens, I am feeling the need to increase my management/business skills. So it is back to school for me. I have just applied to do a distance learning course part time for the next few years. Writing essays is not attractive to me (I failed my first attempt at an essay at Moore College). I feel my brain is fusing as the hair over it gets greyer and thinner, but being equipped to do my job better is attractive. The approval from the Church Missionary Society (CMS) came last week, and so I have just sent off the application to the University of New South Wales. The first subject I will take is Project Management, starting late July.

We were planning a holiday in July, but my work permit renewal is taking a long time, and it is hard to book things without knowing if our passports will be in order.

12 June 2007

The good news is that the clinics are going well. I am making changes to the way they run and it seems to be going well. For instance, the bank account signatories have been changed so we can write cheques again, and some staff positions have been adjusted. However there is still no progress on the maternity clinic construction yet.

The big, big problem is my work permit: the Anglican Church has delayed its renewal and it is now out of date. That makes me in the country illegally, and I will need to go to the CID [Criminal Investigation Department] to give an explanation. Hopefully they will accept it or I will be in real trouble and may be held by them.

The school year has ended for the kids and Sue. The kids are rapidly getting bored and are missing their friends. Most have left for the US or Korea or wherever, and many will not be coming back. The last day of school was a teary affair. There was an all-school farewell ceremony for teachers (six of them!) and students who were leaving.

You may have heard a bit about some violence here. Six police have been killed by Mungiki followers recently and the police have retaliated by killing dozens of young men that they say are Mungiki. Mungiki followers are young men who belong to a traditional religious sect. They are basically thugs that a few politicians use occasionally for their own purposes. Mostly they gain income by charging matatus (buses) to use their routes. The police have decided to try and stop them, and the Mungiki are retaliating. In some towns, they are causing havoc. The clinics are unaffected by all this which is very generous of God. It is not affecting suburban Nairobi either.

Hopefully I will write the next prayer points from here in Kenya (and not in custody!)

18 June 2007

Armed with a letter from the Anglican Church of Kenya explaining the delay, and a copy of my letter to Immigration explaining why I was till in the country three months after my work permit expired, and a visitor's pass in my Passport, I went off to the CID to present myself as an illegal alien.

It all went so well! One hour, and I was through and cleared. The officer read my letters, and saw that I was legal again because of the visitor's pass (though I'm not sure he could work out how I managed to get one!), and then approved me for a certificate of good conduct, which should take away the red flag I have at Immigration. So now my Work Permit renewal can proceed, and the only issue is if Immigration now find some other reason (or just decide on a whim) to refuse my renewal.

So God is very good, and I am so thankful to him for allowing the CID to approve me, instead of teaching me another lesson in humility. Maybe I am learning slowly, and maybe God knows just how far he can push me before I crack.

20 July 2007

Our break down the coast was great, apart from a few too many showers. But it was very relaxing. The kids are still enjoying sleeping in, going on morning walks, playing on the computer, reading, and so on.

Construction of the maternity clinic is being restarted after a seven-month stoppage. It will be good to get things there underway again. Costs of building materials here are continuing to skyrocket. The peace in Sudan and the reconstruction going on there is taking huge amounts of steel and cement north over the border! It's very good for Sudan, but difficult for here.

The clinics are now on a surer footing than they ever have been, but this is still Kenya and things happen. I have pushed for a meeting of all the social welfare groups at church. There are a few of us! It would be helpful to know each other and help each other. One of my aims is to encourage gospel proclamation through these loving ministries. I have introduced Two Ways to Live at the Kibera clinic, so we'll see how keen they are to use it. If they memorize it in English, they get lunch on me, and again when they learn it in Swahili. That is a big deal as normally lunch at the clinic is cheap (costs 30c AUS per person), and to go to a restaurant or café is something they never do.

10 September 2007

I finally have my work permit!!! I have been granted an extension to my work permit as a missionary for three years to August 2010. It will go into my passport in two weeks, but it is all signed and paid for. This is quite a relief! It has been hard to plan and think about the future without knowing if we are staying in the country or not.

Last year was very difficult for me, not knowing whether I was wanted by the church here to continue my work or not. It was not handled very well by them, and it caused a lot of stress and grief to me. Then it was all settled in my favour in April this year when I was not only allowed to continue the work, but I was given charge of the clinics ministry. In May, the issue of my work permit came up and the church that had been providing sponsorship for my work permit refusing to continue sponsoring me. That too has now finally been settled. In April, I thought I would have suddenly sprung back and got on with things. But emotionally I have only slowly recovered, and my recovery was delayed, I expect, by the work permit issue. It is hard not being wanted, especially when I have had little understanding of the reasons for these decisions.

If God was teaching me patience the first few years here, then the last year or two I have been learning the humility of accepting decisions enacted by others that affect me greatly, but to which I am not privy. Can't wait to see what God teaches me next!

The consequences of my difficulties for the last year and some months is that the maternity building has been stalled for 10 months: nothing significant was built from December 2006 to August 2007. This has put me offside with the donors to the maternity clinic, as has my lack of access to records. There has been delay upon delay trying to get cheques from the money already held here to continue the maternity project. The donors couldn't understand why I was not spending it as scheduled. As my emotions took a tumble, I became less able to deal with things, and became less organized and decisive. That didn't help my communications with donors either.

So now I will be staying here to finish the maternity project. I have the backing of a keen church that is positive towards me, and I can hopefully get the donors to continue sending money for the project. I feel more capable of writing reports and meeting deadlines, but my ‘recovery’ has been surprisingly slow.

9 November 2007

Kenya, like Australia is also approaching elections later this year—December 27th, while people are up country at home, visiting family. The last election went well, with very little violence compared to those before it. We are hoping for a similar result this time. The electoral commission is putting ads in newspapers and on billboards promoting peace and decrying violence. Some of the ads are graphic, showing faces that have been hacked. Sue and I don't remember ads like that in Australia around election time. We boast to people how boring elections are in Australia. As I am constantly saying to my teenage children, boring is underrated! In addition, in Australia, it doesn't matter who wins as both sides have the best interest of the people at heart. Here, politicians seem to feel it is their destiny to be impressive rulers. Each President has made both himself and those around him very wealthy. One of the candidates this time is from the ODM [Orange Democratic Movement] party, and his slogan is “One Deserving Man”, though this has been changed to One Dedicated Man lately.

Corruption is rife here, as it is seen as a quick way to get rich by many. The argument against fighting corruption is that it is backward-looking, focusing not on the future but on the past.

One of the election billboards in Nairobi

The construction of the maternity continues, and should be finished by January. Both clinics now are using Two Ways to Live to challenge patients about their relationship with God, and to encourage Christians. It has been harder to get it going in the Kibera clinic, but they are getting there. I am using Esau and Jacob motivators. I teach them about doing work for God's kingdom, and every time they tell a patient or visitor the gospel, they can have a lolly (usually chocolate éclairs). It is proving effective having a temporal motivator that is gone in a few minutes (like the lentil stew Esau focussed on), and an eternal one (like the inheritance Jacob focussed on)!

17 January 2008

A change in editorial staff! (from Joe to Sue)

Thank you all for the emails concerning our safety here in Nairobi. We are all quite okay, but many of our Kenyan friends are not. No expatriates have been targeted in the rioting; it is mainly between two tribes, the Kikuyu and the Luo. Most Kenyans we speak to are very saddened by the violence, and want people to regard themselves as Kenyans rather than from a particular tribe. One Luo man told me that Kikuyus were throwing words at him in a village where he had lived peacefully for many years. He was concerned that it might escalate to more than just words! There has been some signs of violence near us. A Coke container down the road was trashed, and some vegetable dukas (stalls) next to it were destroyed. Ya Ya, the main shopping centre near us, has only one entrance opened, and the windows are boarded up. A service station on the same road had windows smashed. We had no power on Thursday for five hours as a transformer near us was set alight. But we were amazed and thankful when it came back on at 7:00 pm.

We still haven't heard about the clinics in Korogocho or Kibera. However, many people have fled Kibera, and our church, which is a huge tent, has opened up as a refuge centre. Ben was supposed to go back to school on Tuesday but it has been postponed for a week. The Australian High Commission has rung us up and checked on how we are, but American friends have been told to be on standby with bags packed!

Brackenhurst Conference went well, although it was overshadowed by Joe being very ill, and the violence made quite a few people change their travel plans. People from Uganda were not able to drive home, and had to travel in convoy to the airport, leaving their cars here in Kenya. Tanzanians either went home a different route (which added an extra day of driving as they had to go through the Serengeti) or they organized a MAF plane to fly to Dodoma. I drove the two Australian med students, with Jono Vink and Ben as my body guards, up to Kijabe Hospital which is a very quiet and rural area. It is also home to RVA [Rift Valley Academy], the big American missionary boarding school. We stayed, along with quite a few others, an extra day at Brackenhurst and then drove down with the Archers back to Nairobi. Some shops were open so we were able to stock up along with all the other Nairobians in town!

Joe went to the conference feeling very unwell, but thought it was malaria and would recover after taking Malarone. Unfortunately he didn't, so I drove him down to the Aga Khan Hospital on very deserted roads. They also thought it was malaria, although the blood slides showed no parasites, and so they gave him a different medicine. After 24 hours, there was still no change, and after Joe and another two British doctors discussed it, they decided it was typhoid, and after taking that medicine, he slowly started to improve. He finally made it for morning tea at the conference on the last day. He is still very tired and gets dizzy easily.

12 February 2008

Things are not back to normal here. Kofi Annan is putting a great effort into getting the politicians to work out a solution, but they aren't too interested. The President will have to lose a little power at least, and that is not likely. Kenya has been one of the most stable countries in Africa, and so the instability is unexpected here.

There have been maybe 1,000 deaths since the election on December 27th, and 350,000 displaced people. Kikuyus are driven from Luo areas, and Luos are driven from Kikuyu areas. The government tries to play things down, and so tries to disband the camps so the problem isn't visible. There is a displaced persons camp near us at the show grounds, and numbers are increasing despite it being officially closed a few weeks ago.

Schools all started late after Christmas as people couldn't travel during the worst clashes. Our kids weren't so disappointed with that. Both our children's schools have supplies of food and bedding in case the kids can't leave due to riots. Some days they leave school early if the schools are worried about getting buses through areas where there are riots developing. Some students have left the country, and most people are prepared to if necessary. It all makes for a tense environment. Our passports have just been renewed, and we have US dollars on hand if a quick flight to Tanzania becomes necessary.

The slums are more tense and disrupted than the rest of the city. Continuing the construction of the maternity clinic has not been possible since Christmas as we can't get materials in. The next step was glazing, but taking in $2,000 of glass is not feasible. The good news is that the staff are all well, and their families and the buildings are undamaged. Korogocho clinic is opening most days, but Kibera clinic opens half the time. If the situation gets too tense, the clinics close early. I did manage to get into Korogocho a few weeks ago during a lull in the riots, and found my way out blocked by thugs taking advantage of the situation by robbing people. A lot of gangs of youths with knives have sprung up. On the whole, though, Korogocho has been remarkably stable, but Kibera is still very tense.

It is hard for displaced people to go back to their homes in the slums when the environment is still hostile. Their house may have been looted and burned. It is also hard to restart a business when it may get burned down again and when your previous customers are hostile towards you. Even if the politics were settled tomorrow, people will take years till they trust each other again, if ever.

We (the Radkovic family) are fine and not very stressed. The shops around us are open and well-stocked. We can drive around Nairobi as normal again. It is not possible to drive to other cities like Naivasha or Nakuru or further west though.

My health is improving. It seems I had acute Bilharzia (Katayama Fever). It is cause by a worm from Lake Victoria giving me high fevers and weakness. In late November, we were on a boat on Lake Victoria. It was very choppy and windy at the shore, so I helped my family get off the boat by standing in the water. I'm never going to be so helpful again! The worms went through the skin of my legs and up to my liver and other organs, and five weeks later, I was very ill. Last weekend the diagnosis was made and treatment given. These last few days, I have been eating properly, but I still get tired easily. So I am not doing much. My brain is now clear enough to write emails and read a bit, but my memory is worse than usual (it never was very good!).

5 March 2008

God has been very gracious to me, and I am feeling much better. I still can't keep going the whole day without getting very fatigued afterwards, but it's improving.

The political situation in Kenya has improved, with a power-sharing deal by all parties brokered by Kofi Annan after six weeks of meetings. There are still people in displaced persons camps, but hopefully that number will fall. Many will not go back to their houses, but will end up in their tribal areas—their traditional homelands, even though some have little connection with anyone there. The regions of Kenya are now more ethnically homogenous. It may take some time for mixing to occur again. Other tribes have also been involved. It seems God has been trying to tell Kenyans not to be so reliant on leaders for their future, and to be reliant on him instead. It would be great if the chaos brought people under Jesus' rule.

I will begin a six-week teaching series for pastors this month, emphasizing what are the main issues of Christianity and what features in their church are just local traditions. Kenyan churches tend to a lot of style, with the substance often taking a backseat. I would like the pastors to be clear about what is worth dying over and what isn't.

It has not been easy to get the maternity clinic finished. Thugs have been emboldened by the chaos, and getting materials into Korogocho slum has been problematic. I hope we can now get things going again so that we can finish soon, then get equipment and staff and licensing. A wonderful person in Canberra fundraised for us to have an ultrasound machine. It will be so good to be able to see the unborn babies, to check for twins and to clarify due dates!

Let me remind you again of the three aims of the clinic:

1. Treat everyone with dignity and respect.
2. Treat everyone with good medical care (we are a clinic, after all).
3. Treat everyone with gospel care.

Christians need the encouragement of the gospel because being a Christian is tough going. Non-Christians need to be encouraged to get right with God. So telling the gospel is so important. Medical care is good, but limited. Everyone gets sick again, and in the end, medical care fails because everyone dies. Gospel care benefits people in so many ways forever! I am excited by this formal teaching of pastors I am planning. If all goes well, I am hoping to start preaching in slum churches when I return in October.

Some of us Radkovics