“When ‘Catholic’ is not ‘catholic’”

This is my review of Roman but Not Catholic by Jerry Walls and Ken Collins, and it's my first review for the Reformation21.org site: http://www.reformation21.org/featured/when-catholic-is-not-catholic.php. “This is a book that I wish had been written in the 1970's, when I was first looking at the question of whether I should remain Roman Catholic.”

Rome was against Bible reading before they were for it

Richard Phillips at Reformation 21 has provided a helpful survey of all the times when “Bible reading in the vernacular” was condemned, prior to it being accepted at Vatican II:

Rome's suppression of Scripture. To say the least, it is extensive! Consider the following:

• Pope Gregory VII: forbade access of common people to the Bible in 1079, since it would "be so misunderstood by people of limited intelligence as to lead them into error."
• Pope Innocent III: compared Bible teaching in church to casting "pearls before swine" (1199).
• The Council of Toulouse (France, 1229): suppressed the Albigensians and forbade the laity to read vernacular translations of the Bible.
• The Second Council of Tarragon (Spain, 1234) declared, "No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over. . . that they may be burned."
• In response to the labors of John Wyclif, the English Parliament (under Roman Catholic influence) banned the translation of Scripture into English, unless approved by the church (1408).
• The Council of Constance (Germany/ Bohemia, 1415) condemned John Hus and the writings of Wyclif because of their doctrine of Scripture and subsequent teachings. Hus answerd: "If anyone can instruct me by the sacred Scriptures. . . , I am willing to follow him." He was burned at the stake.
• Archbishop Berthold of Mainz threatened to excommunicate anyone who translated the Bible (1486).
• Pope Pius IV expressed the conviction that Bible reading did the common people more harm than good (1564).

It is true that in many cases, the papacy suppressed Scripture because it was being used to teach against the church. But this is exactly the point the Reformers argued: Rome would not allow the Scripture to speak with authority and for that reason suppressed it. Wyclif wrote: "where the Bible and the Church do not agree, we must obey the Bible, and, where conscience and human authority are in conflict, we must follow conscience." For this doctrine and its further implications, his body was exhumed and burned, his ashes scattered in a nearby river, and his Bible translation banned. So much for the Protestant "canard" regarding the Roman Catholic attitude to Bible translation, teaching, and distribution!

Van Til vs Barth

Highly recommended: Van Til’s Critique of Barth’s Christology:

If what we have said above about Barth's thought is correct, then we must stand with Van Til in his fundamental contention: Barthianism is not simply a different expression of Christianity, but a different religion altogether. Or, to put the matter in the form of a question: is there any way to conceive of Barthianism and (Reformed) Christianity as friends? The answer must be Nein!

For this reason, we find the recent dismissals of Van Til's critique by current evangelical theologians somewhat troubling. What is perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that Barth's theology is being readily received today as being friendly toward Reformed orthodoxy. Whatever the reasons for this, it is time to once again exercise discernment, as Van Til did. In addition, we would do well to read Barth, carefully and closely as Van Til did, seeking to understand truly the deep structures of his thought and their implications for Christian doctrine and life. And when we have done that, we must stand in witness and testimony to the self-attesting Christ of Scripture.

In the choice between “catholicity” and “correctness”, “correctness” should win every time

The topic of Biblicism is being raised again, in a way that is not helpful.

For example, citing this article, I think (the provided link simply went to a TGC page), Mark Jones has made this statement on Reformation21:

Theology, thankfully, has never been done in terms of "pure biblicism." When it has, the consequences have always been deleterious. "Pure biblicism" is a Socinian way of theologizing, historically speaking. And biblicism can lead someone to hell.

And Ryan McGraw writing at The Aquila Report makes this statement:

Frame unashamedly notes that he includes less historical theology than other comparable works because he wants to be biblical. While this sounds appealing to many Christians, it is impossible to do theology in a historical vacuum… Ignoring historical theology as a conversation partner in the name of producing a theology that is more biblical gives readers a false impression and threatens to confuse Frame’s innovations with a bare reading of Scripture.

A third writer picks up McGraw's argument and takes it further:

Of all of Frame’s bizarre constructions, the one which seems to have gained favor among the confessional-revisionists of our circles is his claim to adopt an approach that is “something close to biblicism.” This sounds quite admirably sola-scripturish, but ultimately it amounts to readily discarding the confessional formulations of the church anytime that the Christian, alone with his Bible, arrives at a personal interpretation distinct from confessional orthodoxy.

First of all, no “Biblicist” that I am aware of advocates “readily discarding the confessional formulations of the church anytime … [a Christian] … arrives at a personal interpretation distinct from confessional orthodoxy”. This is just simply a mischaracterization of what is being said.

Second, Jones shows, in making the statement that I cited above, that he has failed to read the original article he cited with any discernment:

Puffing Newman

I'm curious as to why Ref21 would publish this hagiographic review of a biography on Cardinal Newman:

http://www.reformation21.org/articles/john-henry-newman-a-biography.php

I'm not saying Newman doesn't merit biographies. And I'm not saying Newman doesn't have some useful things to say. But the review is utterly one-sided. 

Let's not forget that Newman largely squandered his great gifts in defense of an unworthy cause. 

There's a place for Newman scholarship, but it needs to be discerning. To take a comparison:

http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199548132.001.0001/acprof-9780199548132

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/catholic_historical_review/v097/97.2.strange.html

A 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration

Paul Levy recently posted an article at Reformation21 on the topic of ministers who lose their ministries through sexual sin, but a paragraph caught my eye: “Sex within marriage is God's answer to immorality”:

Love the wife of your youth. Work hard at your marriage. Don’t be dumb enough to neglect this. As men we should be far more brutal in battering one another when we see we’re neglecting our marriages. Spend time together. Don’t just do things like going to the cinema or watching a dvd which means you don’t communicate. My advice to folk in marriage is go to the pub and go there often. The reason being is that there’s nothing you can do in the pub apart from talk, even playing darts or pool you still have to talk. I realise in America you don’t have pubs, you just have bars with 1000’s of TV’s playing basketball and American football and men and women in suits who all look the same discussing trivia. In the US you’ll just need to find somewhere else to go. Sex within marriage is God’s answer to immorality, and so Christians need to work really hard at having good sex lives. In all cases of marital breakdown that I’ve faced this is the area which was cited first.

The flip side of sexual immorality is to be engaged in a life-long marriage. “Love the wife of your youth”, all through a long life, because it is God’s creational plan for a man and a woman.

I was able to see the fruit of that – and its opposite yesterday, as I went to a “50th Wedding Anniversary” party for my aunt and uncle. They invited several hundreds of guests to take part in this tremendous witness of a lifetime, and such an event is a great witness to our world today. Among the guests were those who had an eye on a similar goal, along with a very large number of relatives who would never be able to celebrate such an event, including those who had lost spouses to death, and those who had undergone divorces and remarriage.

God’s plan is a life-long marriage, and it is one of the benefits to observing Gods’ laws.

For my part, I had a tremendous opportunity to enjoy much good conversation, wonderful food and drink, to dance with my wife and daughters, to talk with them about the pure goodness of God’s plans (even when they seem inconvenient), and to come home to an amorous wife who, after 26+ years of marriage and a bout of leukemia, has maybe not much hope of seeing a 50th wedding anniversary, but the understanding that God can and does provide such gifts to people.

Why Roman Catholic Apologists Are the Way They Are

They have a long history of it. This description from Trent, by John W. O'Malley, "a Jesuit who teaches at Georgetown University and writes from a moderately critical perspective" and "a very able historian":

Theologians [as opposed to "the Magisterium"] ... were the primary voice communicating the views of the Reformers in formal sessions to the voting members of the body - bishops, superior generals of the mendicant orders, and abbots. The accuracy of their expositions, though, is questioned by O'Malley, who suggests a great weakness of the council was a penchant for "proof-texting" the Reformers and lifting their comments out of context.

There is no other way to defend Roman Catholicism. They figured this out right from the beginning of the Reformation.

Roman Catholic Shell Game: Now You See It, Now You Don’t

Leonardo De Chirico has posted an article at Reformation21 that is (finally!) uncharacteristically blunt and honest in its portrayal of the dangers of Roman Catholicism, illustrating one not-so-subtle practice that Roman Catholicism is guilty of: re-defining a word (or concept) when no one is seemingly looking.

Francis Turretin long ago commented on this characteristic of Rome’s attempting to re-define words (or concepts in its own favor. Turretin said that his opponents would not actually discuss facts, but “to this day … (although they are anything but the true church of Christ, they) still boast of their having alone the name of the church and do not blush to display the standard of that which they dispose. In this manner, hiding themselves under the specious title of the antiquity and infallibility of the Catholic church, they think they can, as with one blow, beat down and settle the controversy waged against them concerning the various and most destructive errors [which they] introduced into the heavenly doctrine” (Vol 3, pg 2).

Now De Chirco says that Rome is doing that very same thing with their “New Evangelization” – a phrase coined by John Paul II, among other places, in the apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineute, in an effort to its latest effort to try to expand the boundaries of the Roman church. The way that JPII put it, he “insist[s] that we must rekindle in ourselves the impetus of the beginnings and allow ourselves to be filled with the ardour of the apostolic preaching which followed Pentecost. We must revive in ourselves the burning conviction of Paul, who cried out: ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel’ (1 Cor 9:16)”.

It seems fairly certain to me that this effort will fail, given that Rome does not actually “preach the Gospel”. What it preaches is itself and its sacraments, which are not “the Gospel”.

However, Roman Catholic writer George “I-had-dinner-with-the-pope” Weigel is attempting to take that one step further with what De Chirico blatantly calls an attempt at a re-definition of “Evangelical” in his work “Evangelical Catholicism”.

As I mentioned above, De Chirico is uncharacteristically bold in his description of this attempt of Weigel’s:

The recent book by George Weigel, Evangelical Catholicism (New York: Basic Books, 2013) is a clever attempt to re-engineer the word by overlooking its Biblical focus, by severing its historical roots and replacing them with other roots, by changing its doctrinal outlook, by staffing its experiential ethos differently, and by renegotiating its religious use. In other words, this is a genetic modification of a word.

The basic thesis of the book is that Evangelical Catholicism (EC) is a qualifier of present-day Roman Catholicism as it stemmed from the magisterium of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), was expounded by Vatican II (1962-1965), found its champion in John Paul II (1978-2005), and was again reinforced by Benedict XVI (2005-2013). It is a new account of the word Evangelical. Whereas previous scholarship referred to this time in Catholic history as marked by "ressourcement" (i.e. re-appropriation of sources: Scripture and Tradition) and "aggiornamento" (i.e. update of approach, not of doctrine), Weigel calls it "Evangelical" Catholicism.

According to Weigel, Evangelical is a qualifying adjective, not a noun. The noun which carries "thick" meaning is Catholicism. Curiously, what used to be termed as "Roman Catholicism" is now shortened to "Catholicism" alone. All the Roman elements of Roman Catholicism are nonetheless part of EC: sacraments, Mariology, hierarchy, traditions, papacy, devotions, etc. To this "Catholicism" Weigel adds the adjective "Evangelical," which basically refers to the depth of convictions and the passion to make them known. EC is a full orbed Roman Catholicism practiced with strong impetus and missionary zeal. Catholicism is the doctrinal and institutional hardware, while "Evangelical" is the sociological and psychological software. While doctrine deeply remains Roman Catholic, the spiritual mood is called Evangelical.

As I said, whereas there may be some bold Roman Catholics (like the CTC gang) who are “evangelical” (“qualifying adjective”) in their efforts, most Roman Catholics just won’t “get it”. Rome simply doesn’t preach “the Gospel”, it preaches “sacraments, Mariology, hierarchy, traditions, papacy, devotions”.

Weigel, as well, seems to be out of touch with the things Pope Bergoglio is saying and doing, actually seeking to “re-define” “Church” in a way that’s more Eastern Orthodox than Roman Catholic.

On the other hand, confessional Protestants are fond of criticizing modern Evangelicals. They had better be careful of assisting Rome in its efforts to re-define the word.

God expects his word to be obeyed

Over at Reformation21, Scott Oliphint is working through the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF). At Chapter 1.4, he writes:

iv. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.

One of the first things that must be firmly embedded in our minds, both as Christians and consequently as biblical apologists, is the absolute self-attesting authority of Scripture. It is generally agreed that, if any section of the Westminster Confession of Faith was more carefully crafted than another, it was the section that deals with Holy Scripture. You can, no doubt, understand some of the reasons for that, particularly in the face of opposition from Roman Catholicism. The Confession is concerned, particularly in section four of chapter one, to show that it is in Scripture's authority that we see its divinity and inspiration represented.

Notice first of all, that the divines are interested here in the authority of Scripture. And the intent of the paragraph is to set out for us the ground or reason why the Scriptures are authoritative, and thus why they ought to be believed and obeyed. They set out, very clearly, that the authority of Scripture does not, in any way, rest on the Church or its councils. Rather, its authority rests on its author, God, and is to be received because it is His Word. This is sometimes called the autopiston of Scripture, translated as self-attesting, or self-authenticating. What does that mean?

It does not mean self-evident. Self-authentication is an objective attribute, whereas self-evident refers more specifically to the knowing agent. It therefore does not mean that revelation as self-authenticated compels agreement. That which is self-authenticating can be denied. It does mean that it needs no other authority as confirmation in order to be justified and absolutely authoritative in what it says. This does not mean that nothing else attends that authority; there are other evidences, which the next section makes clear. What it does mean is that nothing else whatsoever is needed, nor is there anything else that is able to supersede this ground, in order for Scripture to be deemed authoritative. This is, at least in part, what God means when he says, in Isaiah 55, that His Word, simply by going out, will accomplish what He desires. This is the case because of what God's Word is in itself. It always goes out with authority, because it carries His own authority with it.

That, in a nutshell, is how “God’s word” works. It works. As the author of Hebrews writes, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

It requires no “interpretive paradigm”.

Michael Liccione said in a comment:

(1) The Catholic IP [“interpretive paradigm”] is preferable to the Protestant IP because the former, unlike the latter, supplies a principled distinction between divine revelation and human theological opinions.

I’m sure he’s outlined an argument for this somewhere. But what is it that makes it “preferable”? Preferable to himself, maybe, because he wants Rome’s views to come out on top, and this seems to me to be just a fancy way of stacking the deck.

Is this “IP” preferable to God? When has God ever outlined that this is preferable?

In speaking of God’s immutability, Bavinck writes, “God is as immutable in his knowing, willing, and decreeing, as he is in his being” (Vol 2 pg 154). Citing Augustine, he writes:

The essence of God by which he is what he is, possesses nothing changeable, neither in eternity, nor in truthfulness, nor in will (The Trinity, IV).

And citing Confessions:

For even as you totally are, so do you alone totally know, for you immutably are, and you know immutably, and you will immutably. Your essence knows and wills immutably, and your knowledge is and wills immutably, and your will is and knows immutably. (Confessions, XIII, 16)

He continues, “Neither creation, nor revelation, nor incarnation (affects, etc.) brought about any change in God. No new plan ever arose in God. In God there was always one single immutable will. He notes that this immutability as one of the incommunicable attributes of God is not questioned by the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutherans, nor Reformed theologians.

Furthermore, as Steve Hays has said elsewhere, “Christianity is a revealed religion… Only God knows his own mind. We lack direct access to the mind of God. Intentions are hidden. We don’t know God’s intentions unless he tells us. That’s not something we can intuit or infer from the natural order.”

In the “35,000 foot view” model, John Currid, in his Genesis commentary (Vol 1) is able to make the statement that “Genesis 3:15 is Messianic. And the identity of the said descendant is clear from genealogies such as Luke 3 … Genesis 3 is the prophecy that God will send a redeemer to crush the enemy. Jesus is the seed who is descended from Eve and went to do battle against Satan. The remainder of Scripture is an unfolding of the prophecy of Genesis 3:15. Redemption is promised in this one verse, and the Bible traces the development of that redemptive theme.

God is consistent in time. In his plan, in his will, in his method of revelation, God is unchanging. And when we perceive something different, such as the movement between the “old covenant” and the “new covenant”, we see, as the writer of Hebrews tells us, the old was merely “copies of the heavenly things”. Christ himself revealed “the heavenly things themselves” (Hebrews 9:23)

It is in that way that He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1:3).

Where, then, in Revelation [“we don’t know God’s intentions unless he tells us”] does God posit, even in some “implicit, seed form” that having “a principled distinction between divine revelation and human theological opinions” is “preferable”?

I’ve cited Beale’s work on Adam, but Beale continues to show that God’s command to Adam continued through to the Patriarchs, then to Moses, where it was written down. Same set of commands:

To Adam:

And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

To Noah:

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. … And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

To Abraham:

“I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. … I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.

He says the same to Isaac, and Jacob, and repeatedly to the nation of Israel:

And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands.

He traces this same phenomenon all through the OT. And even though history continued to occur, and prophets continued to speak, the “living voice”, so to speak, faded away, superseded by what was written, and what was written was authoritative.

God expects his command to be obeyed, without providing “a principled distinction between divine revelation and human theological opinions”. He doesn’t use the precise wording every time, but his intention nevertheless is never said to be in question. (Even though “people interpret it wrongly”).

Where, in all of Old Testament history, does the immutable God provide the model for the “IP” which you say is preferable?

The Church of England, and the rest of us

Paul Levy “shows some love for Anglicans” by providing a brief review of Persistently Preaching Christ, a work discussing the ministry of St Andrew’s the Great Church [STAG] in Cambridge.

I do want to commend the book because it's haunted me since I read it. The story of the last 50 years in the life of the church is recounted. Interspersed with this are testimonies of people who have passed through STAG and been profoundly influenced by it. I found myself thanking God for this church in Cambridge that I've never set foot in. There are enormous amounts of practical wisdom in it and STAG, with many of the people it's produced, could so very easily be proud and full of itself and yet the book is laced through with an humility which is inspiring.

The Word has been preached and been applied to the congregation and it has done a remarkable work. I would want to commend this book to every minister. There will be points you will be frustrated and disagree with it and yet you will finish the book I hope with profound thankfulness for what God can do in a local congregation through the power of his Word.

In part, the Church of England, the Anglican church, believes itself not to be a part of the Reformation, but a continuing portion of the ancient church. They threw off the papacy but not much else. They retained an “episcopacy”, not entirely based on Scriptural principles, and they were rivals of the Puritans and the Scottish Presbyterians. It’s all another messy – but enlightening – portion of Reformation history, and it’s all a part of our heritage as Reformation Christians.

Nevertheless, their 39 Articles are thoroughly Reformed in their doctrine. And the conservative Anglicans among them struggle mightily to retain this identity.

We who are outside of the CofE need to be very careful in our criticisms. In the last 40 years we have seen strong Bible teaching, Reformed Anglican Churches thriving in many places. On the non conformist side of the bench it's probably not seen as much growth. We need to be humble enough to see that and recognise God has and is doing great things in many of our Anglican churches. My conscience couldn't allow me to be in the CofE. Part of me can't understand they're in it, but they are. I would love them all to come out and be Presbyterian but in all likelihood if they did we'd all split within 5 years over minutiae. What the future holds for them I have no idea and they are going to have to fight and contend for the truth, that is the imperative of the gospel. It could well be that they are turfed out before too long. So my new policy to my conservative evangelical brothers is, if they're fighting I must be praying and be grateful for them.

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Here's my Ref21 Christmas article:

http://www.reformation21.org/articles/its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year.php

“Depraved or not depraved, that is the question”

And the answer is, “I trust that these exchanges can help bring fuller clarity and precision about these things.”

We have an opportunity today that is unprecedented in the history of the Christian church. It’s an opportunity to discuss and resolve problems that would have (and did) cause major, long-term schisms in the past. And better, we’ve all just witnessed this in a circle of blog posts among three leading Reformed Christians, and it happened within the space of less than two weeks.

Tullian Tchividjian, Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, wrote the article Are Christians Totally Depraved? on November 19.

More recently, Rick Phillips (senior minister of the historic Second Presbyterian Church of Greenville, South Carolina. He is the chairman of the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology) posted a significant response on Reformation21: Thank God that Christians Are Not Totally Depraved. He responds:

Tchividjian asks, "Are Christians Totally Depraved?" and answers, Yes. Regenerate believers in Christ are, he says, totally depraved. It is true, he admits, that Christians differ from unbelievers in that God's grace has enabled us to believe the gospel, yet total depravity describes both believers and unbelievers with respect to our inability to live so as to please God. He concludes his post with a punchy summary: "Because of total depravity, you and I were desperate for God's grace before we were saved. Because of total depravity, you and I remain desperate for God's grace even after we're saved."

Phillips picks up on something else Tchividjian says: “Many Christians think that becoming sanctified means that we become stronger and stronger, more and more competent. And although we would never say it this way, we Christian's (sic) sometimes give the impression that sanctification is growth beyond our need for Jesus and his finished work for us: we needed Jesus a lot for justification; we need him less for sanctification.” And he presses home the point:

Notice the dichotomy. To believe that in sanctification we are becoming stronger and stronger, and more spiritually competent, must mean we think that we no longer need Jesus and his finished work. Conversely, those who rely on Jesus should not expect to grow stronger or more competent.

This is contrary to the Bible's approach to sanctification…

More recently still, Michael Kruger, cites a work of his own from earlier this year, and then picks up on the Phillips article and comments:

… the problem is that we don’t talk as much about how a person’s dark heart is changed after regeneration. We don’t talk as much about the new man. Thus, we can begin to believe that no one really changes. No one can really be holy. Totally depravity becomes the unfortunate justification for declaring everyone is equally as sinful as everyone else…

… We are certainly still dealing with sin in the totality of our beings, but thank God that we are no longer totally depraved. Praise God that, as Paul wrote, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Tchividjian’s point is not, however, that Christians cannot make progress in sanctification. Just yesterday he popped onto Kruger’thjkmjhgfdfghjkl;s blog and commented:

A careful reading of what I actually said in that article reveals that Christians are not totally depraved in one sense and they are in another. I made it very clear that, as understood and articulated by theologians for centuries, the idea of “total depravity” means more than one thing.

In the sense that the phrase “total depravity” pertains to Christians, I make it clear that what I mean specifically is even after God saves us, there is no part of us that becomes sin free–we remain sinful and imperfect in all of our capacities, in the “totality” of our being. Even after God saves us, our thoughts, words, motives, deeds, and affections need the constant cleansing of Christ’s blood and the forgiveness that comes our way for free. This is what J.C. Ryle was getting at when he wrote, “Even the best things we do have something in them to be pardoned.”

And Kruger responded, “Thanks, Tullian. Great to hear from you. And I appreciate your comments and clarifications. Thanks for explaining your original article more clearly. I agree that there are different senses in which total depravity applies to Christians. I trust that these exchanges can help bring fuller clarity and precision about these things.”


The whole exchange took about 10 days. Any perceived misrepresentations were clarified, in writing and in public, in a way that persists in a form that I can write about it here, and explain it to a whole bunch of people.

Consider, however, the saga of Nestorius and Cyril. These two provided a spark for the Christological controversies of the fifth century. Their feud led to the councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), and culminated in what, according to Samuel Moffett “it irreversibly split the church not only east and west but also north and south and cracked it into so many pieces that it was never the same again”. These schisms arguably were worse than any others in the history of Christianity, geographically and in terms of sheer numbers. They weakened both the North African churches and the Middle Eastern churches, and paved the way for the expansion of Islam into these areas.

The disagreements themselves began with Cyril misrepresenting something that Nestorius said – to be sure he was following Nestorius’s line of thinking “to its logical conclusion”. But Nestorius wasn’t making that conclusion. Cyril ended up [through brute force] getting the best of the Council of Ephesus. Nestorius spent the rest of his life in exile, and had his name attached to a heresy that he was not responsible for. And yet, major scholars are concluding today, “Nestorius was not guilty of Nestorianism”.

Imagine if Cyril had posted his complaints on the Internet, and allies of Nestorius had shouted him down. Imagine if Luther and Zwingli had been able to hash out their arguments via email before things got too great.

We have opportunities today to explore all of these kinds of questions in great detail, in public. And quickly.

It’s good to see how these things can be, and are, working out.

Assurance and “Fear and Trembling” from the text of Paul’s letters

Over at Reformation21, Noel Weeks has posted the second part of his two-part series, Background in Biblical Interpretation.

Weeks offers a piece of guidance that is always important to keep in mind, especially in discussions of Sola Scriptura with Roman Catholics:

First and most important of all, the biblical text must have priority. If the explanation does not fit what the text itself tells us, it is wrong.

How different is this thought from the notion that “the Church has the authority to tell us what the interpretation is”.

From one of the best funeral sermons ...

http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2012/05/the-best-funeral-sermon-my-mat.php

If you have never thanked God for the death of Christ in your place, if you have never thanked God for forgiving and accepting you through Christ’s death, if you have never boasted in God’s grace and your weakness, if you have never gloried in the cross Christ, and never set aside other boasting, then please do so now. Boast in Christ’s cross.

If you have gloried in the atoning death of Christ, boasted in the cross of Christ in the past, but neglected to do so more recently in your own life, or in your ministry, then please repent now, ask for God’s forgiveness and change your practice. Boast in Christ’s cross.

If you have gloried in anything other than the cross of Christ, in your achievements, your success, your promotion, your recognition, your popularity, your gifts, your experiences, then please repent now, ask God for forgiveness, and change your practice. Boast in Christ’s cross.

If you have gloried in Christ but not in his cross, not in his atoning death as our substitute and our Saviour, then please repent now, adore your Saviour, and boast and glory in his cross.

I appeal to you now, that you would, like Paul, bear the marks of the cross of Christ in yourself, boast in Christ’s cross, and let that Lord Jesus Christ and that cross shape and form your life and ministry.