My Slender Apparatus

"What are those ministers to do who have a slender apparatus? By a slender apparatus I mean that they have few books, and little or no means wherewith to purchase more. This is a state of things which ought not to exist in any case."

Charles Spurgeon, Letters to My Students

I love books. I preached a message several years ago that I titled, "Read Books," and I believe that reading is an important spiritual discipline. There are a couple of interesting blog posts related to reading. T.B. Vick has an obsession with books, and a bookseller in Kansas City has a particularly morbid way to promote reading. Though I wouldn't say my apparatus is particularly "thin," I am becoming more and more frustrated at just how many books I need to buy but just can't afford. Ben Meyer's list of must-read theology books is only adding to my frustration. What am I to do?

Spurgeon gives seven suggestions to those with a slim apparatus:

1. Purchase only the very best. "If he cannot spend much, let him spend well."


2. Master those books you have. "A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed, lapping at them, as the classic proverb puts it "As the dogs drink of Nilus."


3. Do a little judicious borrowing. By judicious, Spurgeon means that you must return your books to their lenders if you hope to borrow more. Libraries are my friend. (I just feel like I can't thoroughly digest a book without being able to make notes in the margin.)


4. Spend much time with the most important book, the Bible. It is so easy to become consumed with books about the Bible that we fail to turn to the Bible itself. One goal of theological reading should be that when we return to the biblical text we are able to read with greater understanding.


5. Make up for lack of books by much thought. "Without thinking, reading cannot benefit the mind."


6. Keep your eyes open. Be observant of your world.


7. Learn from people around you:

• Study yourself. "Study the Lord's dealings with your own souls, and you will know more of His ways with others."


• Read other people. "A man who has had a sound practical experience in thing of God Himself, and watched the hearts of his fellows, other things being equal, will be a far more useful man than he who knows only what he has read."


• Learn from experienced saints.


• Learn from inquirers


• Learn from those who are about to die.

And we might well add reading blogs.

Is Islam Evil?

I am hearing the question, or rather the affirmative answer, coming up from a lot of places right now. Rabbi Avi Lipkin, for instance, thinks Judaism = good; Christianity = good; Islam = evil, evil, evil. At school my friend Silas is convinced that Muslims are unknowingly worshipping Satan. Read his letter to the editor of his undergrad paper to get a feel for who he is. Even when I disagree I really enjoy letters like this. Most recently, Derek told me he's convinced that Islam is demonic. (I was supposed to play lead guitar with Derek at Bobfest this weekend, but my wife's grandfather died a couple days ago, so we will be traveling to the funeral this weekend instead.)

So concerning Islam, I am just a little uncomfortable with what seems to be the party line among my friends. I want to at least express some reasons for being uncomfortable.

Ten years ago, my wife and I spent two weeks in Israel. Two sites in Jerusalem struck me in particular, and in a way they seem to serve as metaphors for religion. The first site was the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

This is a picture of the inside the church. The church is built over the site traditionally associated with Jesus' crucifixion, preparation for burial, and burial site itself. It is one of the most spiritually oppressive places I have ever visited. There is only one entrance/exit to the church, so one can easily feel "trapped" after entering. The entire building is dark. The air is thick and stale, as if layers and layers of incense have never fully dissipated but continue to linger for months. At the spot that is thought to be the site of crucifixion, people were on their knees to touch and even kiss a rock in the ground. I'm not sure if it is the inappropriate veneration of the saints and relics (which I can't help but view as idolatry) or the morbid fascination with the torture and crucifixion of Jesus, but the place just gave me the creeps. I felt like I was walking into a den of religious demons.



The second site was the Dome of the Rock, pictured here. In contrast to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome was bright, it was peaceful. In the middle was a rock - an ugly rock, to be sure, but just a rock. Nobody was kissing it or touching it to gain indulgences or transferred holiness or any such drivel. I thought to myself, if I had to pick one of the two places to pray for an hour, the Dome wins hands down. I was quite surprised since I had always bought the party line that Islam was pure evil.

What does it prove? Nothing directly, I suppose. But I have to consider this fact: Observant Muslims pray and worship several times daily to the creator of the Universe as the creator of the Universe. Even if their conception of who that creator is is vastly mistaken, would not the creator of the Universe receive their worship? And even if they have a radically different understanding of the character and attributes of the creator God than I do, would not the same creator God receive their worship just as he receives mine? Just because it is quite clear that Muslims and Christians have extremely different conceptions of God, it does not seem to follow that we worship a different God who stands behind those conceptions - it only follows that one or both of us are wrong in who we perceive God to be.

Keith Ward, in his excellent defense of religious beliefs, Is Religion Dangerous?, says,

...education in religion should be a primary goal. By education I mean providing a reasonably balanced view of the tradition, its history and its variety, giving a fair assessment of its place in global history, and making clear the necessity of reflective and self-critical thought in religion. There are plenty of Muslims who do this. Al-Azhar University in Cairo, perhaps the most famous Muslim university, provides such and education, and its scholars are, unsurprisingly, regarded by [militant Islamic] followers of Qutb with loathing and contempt. It is important to deprive those who fear scholarship in religion of social prestige and religious status. This is another reason why, incidentally, attacks on religion by those who think it is all blind and thoughtless provide support for the fundamentalists. For such attacks undermine the possibility of reflective theological thought as effectively as the diatribes of fundamentalists.

There are all kinds of questions going on here. In my camp the most common objection is that you cannot be saved through Islam, only through Christ. Without seeking to minimize that issue, it is important to recognize that the issue of whether Islam is evil is different question entirely.

The Value of Scholarship

"The killing fields of Cambodia come from the philosophical discussions of Paris."
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (p.7)

Ideas matter. That's why theology matters. What we believe determines our actions.

Derek recently loaned me The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright. Wright traces militant Islam to the writings of Sayyid Qutb in the mid 20th century. What I find most shocking is that he spent quite a bit of time in the US. He was appalled at the lack of morals he observed, and especially the vain philosophies undergirding them. He in turn has influenced people from three generations (so far) to become terrorists. Theology really can change the world - for good or evil. There is no reason that Christian theologians cannot have the kind of (positive) impact on the world that Qutb's (negative) theology had.

A Book Meme

Halden at Inhabitatio Dei tagged everyone who reads his blog with this book meme.


How many books do you own?: About 1000.

Last book I read: The Epistemology of Religious Experience by Keith Yandell

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me: (In the order I read them)
Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism
Richard Shweder, Why Do Men Barbecue?: Recipes for Cultural Psychology
Kevin Vanhoozer, First Theology
N.T. Wright, The Last Word
Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology (which I'm currently reading)

And now to tag five people: Freely I received; freely I give. If you read this consider yourself "tagged".

A Visit from the Mormons

I had a couple of Mormon agents stop over a couple days ago. Have you ever noticed how they never go by their first name, only by their title, elder so-and-so? They seem almost like agents from the Matrix, so I just started calling them agents.

At church we just finished a video series on Mormonism, which is perhaps a bit more fundamentalistic than I am comfortable with, but it still presents a lot of good information. Anyway, I had to let them in, having just seen the videos. I wasn't expecting them to be very open to what I had to say, but I wanted to at least try to find out why someone would believe such rubbish.

Since I have been dealing with epistemological issues recently, I was especially interested in what reasons they give for their faith. For both of the young men it all came down to, "I read the book of Mormon and I had a good feeling about it." Only one of them had experienced the "burning in the bussom," and that back when he was eight. The other converted from Roman Catholicism (with his mom) as a teenager. I asked questions like, "What makes your conversion experience different from a Muslim who reads the Koran and has a good feeling about it?" The only answer they had for me was that you just have to read the Book of Mormon and God will make it clear to you if you sincerely ask Him.

I am more convinced than ever that any truth-claim that is based on fideism (1)must be rejected as a claim to knowledge, and (2)leads to the logical problem of pluralism.

Roman Catholics

I just don't get it when people convert to Catholicism. I had a ministry friend who did it a few years back and it really freaked me out. Now I am a bit more understanding I suppose. Now Frank Beckwith, president of the Evangelical Theological Society, has just announced becoming a convert, or perhaps a re-vert, since he was a Catholic as a child. I have begun to understand some of the reasons for becoming a Catholic - for instance it is easier to accept the selection of a canon of scripture on the basis of tradition if one recognizes tradition as a legitimate source of authority. So I am perhaps more Catholic-friendly now than I once was. (I no longer wonder about whether it is even Christian or not.) But I still have several knee-jerk reactions:

1. There are better reasons to think the unity of the church is spiritual rather than organizational.

2. If I was inclined to doubt point 1, I would be more inclined to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy than Roman Catholicism.

3. Despite the standard Catholic defenses of the doctrine, I cannot accept prayer to saints as anything less than idolatry.

4. If point 3 is true, it is even more true of Mary-veneration.

5. Roman Catholicism is not properly contextualized within it's indigineous cultures. Thank God for Vatican II which allowed for the saying of mass in the vernacular. Pius XXIII seems to be pushing the tide back. His recent encyclical, for instance, encouraged the use of the latin mass and promoted Gregorian chant as the most appropriate music for worship. I see this as absolutely contrary to the catholic (small-c, as in universal) nature of the gospel. Pentecost, by its nature, should lead us to affirm diversity in language and culture.

There is a fun little online test Which theologian are you? Of all the tests like this I have taken, this one seems the best so far. I scored as Jürgen Moltmann. The problem of evil is central to my thought, and only a crucified God can show that God is not indifferent to human suffering. Christian discipleship means identifying with suffering but also anticipating the new creation of all things that God will bring about. Jürgen Moltmann 67% Charles Finney 67% Anselm 53% Friedrich Schleiermacher 47% Karl Barth 27% John Calvin 27% Paul Tillich 27% Jonathan Edwards 20% Augustine 13% Martin Luther 13% The test made me choose a tiebreaker between Moltmann and Finney in order to choose a winner, but I think they're probably both equal. I might have more points of agreement with Schleiermacher than Barth, but I would weight my agreement with Barth higher than Schleirmacher. Similarly, my agreements with Edwards are more important than my agreements with Tillich, so I would like to swap those. Let's leave Augustine at the bottom of the list. I'm surprised Luther came out so low, since I have such a respect for him, but I'm probably too influenced by the New Perspective on Paul. created with QuizFarm.com

Inerrancy

Lots of people hate the doctrine of inerrancy these days. Chris Tilling takes time to defend people who believe it, though rejecting the doctrine itself. I just want to offer a few brief thoughts.

1. A year ago, I thought one's position on inerrancy was very important theologically, and was leaning towards rejecting it. These days I am much more favorable to the doctrine but I think it is relatively unimportant. What one believes about inerrancy is less important than, say, what one believes about believer's/infant baptism.

2. Nobody in the blogsphere seems to like the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. But I don't think it's affirming everything people think it's affirming. For instance, in article XVIII: "We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture." It is wrong to hold scripture to a standard that it is not setting for itself, such as accurate chronology or exact qutoes. This point alone allows us to avoid the difficulties Lindsell encountered when he was forced to assume that Peter denied Jesus six times.

3. Note too article X: "We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original." Yes, there are copyist errors. Check out Ben Witherington's comments in response to Bart Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus.

4. Vanhoozer, according to his speech-act hermeneutics, suggests that a doctrine of infallibility is perhaps more important than a doctrine of inerrancy. There is much more that is important in scripture than the propositional truth it conveys. Through scripture the Holy Spirit exhorts us, encourages us, questions us, commands us, etc. Much more than simply giving us true information (though certainly not less, as Paul Helm seems to misunderstand), the scriptures give us everything we need to walk out our covenant relationship with God.

Vanhoozer's Epistemology

So I have this dilemma. I believe I have a call to be a vocational theologian, but I have trouble recognizing theology as knowledge – at least anything more than natural theology. It’s like playing FreeCell when you get stuck, so you keep looking and looking at the board trying to figure out how to get that last ace free – then suddenly you find a way to move the cards you need to move, and suddenly half the deck’s gone. I keep struggling to find a defense of Christian theology that I think is epistemically sound.
Last semester I approached my theology professor, Kevin Vanhoozer, for an answer. “I don’t believe theology is really knowledge,” I quipped. He offered to share with me the epistemology he had developed that he felt provided a satisfactory answer. Unfortunately we ran out of time, and he invited me back a different time. I tried to meet again but missed our appointment because of traffic delays. It hasn’t worked for me to reschedule this semester, so instead I went to his article “The Trials of Truth: Mission, Martyrdom, and the Epistemology of the Cross” in To Stake a Claim (1999). I was very hopeful, but I finished the article disappointed.
Vanhoozer believes the task of the theologian is to stake the truth-claim that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” He believes that a proper epistemology must be concerned with wisdom in addition to knowledge. If epistemology is concerned with how we know the things we claim to know, then I take it he means that we should also be concerned with how we know how to apply what we know. He goes on to say that proper epistemological task is hermeneutical: to interpret the ‘text’ of reality. Following Kierkegaard he allows that the proper starting place may rightly be labeled hermeneutical fideism – we must accept the authority of the scriptures in order to understand. He cites Kierkegaard approvingly that if this were not the case, if we could make a philosophical case for the authority of scripture, then “God and the Apostle have to wait at the gate, or in the porter’s lodge, till the learned upstairs have settled the matter.”
It is exactly here that I have always strongly disagreed with Kierkegaard, and therefore with Vanhoozer. This approach would maybe work if the only other options on the table were atheism or agnosticism. (He is primarily arguing against Van Harvey, a modernist; Nietzsche, a post-modernist; and Socrates, a rationalist.) But the Christian missionary mandate forces us into dialogue with Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, or neo-Paganism. If Koranic-fideism were to produce a similar wisdom, then would that not similarly count as evidence for the veridicality of Islam? In fact, John Hick makes essentially the same argument in defense of Normative Religious Pluralism: all the major world religions produce an equal proportion of ‘saints,’ (we could call them ‘people of wisdom’), and therefore they are all equally valid religious traditions.
But Vanhoozer argues that his system can resist collapsing into normative pluralism. He notes the need for an ethical dimension in epistemology: those who interpret reality must have epistemic virtues like passion for truth, humility, and courage to stand for one’s convictions; they must likewise avoid epistemic vices, like intellectual pride or ignoring inconvenient evidence. He notes that the wrong actions can refute a truth-claim more effectively than an opponent’s counter-argument. Through a play-on-words where the Greek root of martyr means witness, He argues that the Christian truth claim is best defended when Christians witness to the truth of their faith and are consequently persecuted for it, perhaps leading to martyrdom. Martyrdom confirms the veridicality of the doctrines of Christianity but not of Socrates or fanatics, he contends, because Socrates offered no answers, only questions; and fanatics have only a desire for truth, but lack other epistemic virtues like humility.
But again, this is not a compelling defense for the particularity of the Christian faith. Christians are not the only ones who possess these virtues. Even if it can be shown that Christians have a greater proportion of ‘true’ martyrs than other religious traditions, why this is anything more than an arbitrary standard remains a mystery. But even more disturbing is the counter-argument that follows: if epistemic vices count as evidence against one’s truth-claim, then there is significantly more evidence against Christian truth-claims than there is for it.

Evangelical Epistemology

I have been looking for an epistemological foundation for my evangelical beliefs for several years now. When I first became a Christian, I was able to dismiss all epistemological questions related to my faith because of powerful experiences with God which were based on submission to Biblical teachings, not on theological or philosophical reflection. I think that position was important during that period of my life, but after a few years I yielded to the fact that mature Christian belief should involve theological reflection if it is to resist devolving into mere superstition. Since then I have never come up with an Evangelical epistemology that I have been satisfied with.

I am currently taking a Religious Epistemology course, taught by professor Keith Yandell. The course mostly follows his book on the same topic. I am hoping to use this as an opportunity to finally hammer out my own religious epistemology. My course grade will be based entirely on a twelve-page paper, due in two weeks. I am supposed to use formal logic, which I am about as comfortable with as I was doing geometric proofs in High School (not much). I’m hoping to use this blog to sort through the issues I want to deal with in that paper, or at least to lay the groundwork in my personal thoughts so that I can write something else.

Before I begin, I shall define my terms. By Evangelical theology (E), I mean theology that is based on the authority, infallibility, inerrancy, and inspiration of the Bible. I take it that E entails the following:

E1. God exists as Trinity, one substance consisting of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
E2. Jesus Christ is God incarnate, both fully God and fully human.
E3. Jesus Christ rose bodily from the grave.
E4. Humanity is enslaved to sin and destined to spend eternity alienated from God in hell.
E5. Jesus Christ made atonement for the sins of humanity on the cross, so that those who believe in Him will receive salvation.

By salvation I mean (a) having communion with God, and (b) receiving eternal life rather than eternal damnation.

When I first began my critical reflection, my defense of E ran somewhat like this:
1. I had powerful experiences of God after believing in Jesus. (A subject for another post.)
2. Having an experience of God entails (is dependant on) having received salvation.
3. Therefore I received salvation after believing in Jesus.

4. E entails that those who believe in Jesus will receive salvation.
5. Therefore E is correct.

There are several problems with this logic, however. First, premise 2 is based on E4 and E5, but these premises are themselves based on premise 5, which they are being used to prove. E4 and E5 would need to be supported on other grounds. Perhaps with some imagination I could reword the premises in such a way that would be logically sound. But this is not my primary concern with the syllogism.

A more critical error is that Premise 5 does not follow from 3 and 4. It is a fallacy that follows the form A entails B; B; Therefore A. For example, “Someone who has an M.Div. degree has necessarily taken at least one theology class; I have taken a theology class; therefore I have my M.Div.”
One possible way to avoid this fallacy is to change it to an argument of inference to best explanation:

5*. Based on Premise 4, E provides the best explanation for Premise 3.

But it is not at all clear that E is the best explanation. Many people in contrary religions have also had experiences of God. At the very least we would need comparisons with the explanations offered by other religions. Perhaps this is best way to proceed, but it requires significantly more knowledge than I currently have (or am particularly excited about taking the time to acquire). Instead, let me propose an alternate theological system that I shall call Soteriologically Pluralistic theology (SP), which is essentially Deism without the anti-supernatural bias. SP is based on the following premises:

SP1. God exists.
SP2. God has interacted, and continues to interact, with various people at various times (i.e. through prophecy, miracles, etc.)
SP3. Individual eschatological salvation (receiving eternal life rather than eternal damnation) is available through a plurality of religions.

SP is not pluralism in the sense that it entails that the major world religions are equally correct. Rather, it is pluralistic in the sense that salvation is not limited to a particular religion. Put simplistically, SP is the idea that God is more concerned with our deeds than our creeds.

Taking account of SP, my revised defense of E looks somewhat like this:

3. I received salvation after believing in Jesus.
4'. Belief in Jesus is a religion (namely, Christianity).
5'. Therefore I received salvation through a religion.

6'. SP entails that salvation is available through a plurality of religions.
7'. Based on Premise 6' and Premise 4, SP and E provide equal explanatory power for Premise 3.

I began looking for another defense of my faith. Christian apologetics seem to place a large focus on proving the Premise, God exists, but the connection from theism to Christianity rests entirely on the Resurrection. This argument runs as so:

R1. Jesus rose from the dead.
R2. If Jesus rose from the dead then E is correct.
R3. Therefore E is correct.

R1 was easy to accept when I thought my argument from experience confirmed E. When I am trying to use R1 to establish E, suddenly the arguments seem significantly weaker. It is easy to believe in the resurrection if I already have good reasons for being an evangelical, but when those reasons start to break down, the resurrection seems much less plausible. It is definitely not plausible enough to become a foundation for soteriological exclusivism! And even if we accept R1, I’m not entirely convinced of R2.

In contrast, SP has several factors that make it epistemically preferable to E. It accounts for positive aspects of other world religions in a way that is difficult for E. It avoids the problem of declaring large swaths of humanity (especially those who have never heard, or those who lived before the time of Christ) to be eternally damned. Finally, it has the support of some strands of Biblical narrative, such as Melchizadek and the Magi.

Again, I ask for your comments. I am not very happy with what I have written here yet, but it’s good enough for the blogsphere.

Exclusivism and Pluralism

There have traditionally been three ways that theologians have attempted to deal with differences between religions, which I will try to briefly summarize.
1. Exclusivists, or more accurately called particularists, believe all other world religions but their own are wrong. (Most particularists would not exclude other denominations within their own religion. This is perhaps self-intuitive, but many Roman Catholics I have talked with refer to other Christian churches such as Baptists or Presbyterians as different religions.)
2. Inclusivists believe their own religion is ultimately true, but other world religions contain elements of truth that are ultimately compatible with their own. Examples would include the Roman Catholic conception of “anonymous Christians” among other religions, or Hindus who accept Christians as constituting another caste within Hinduism.
3. Pluralists believe that all religions are equally true. The main proponent of religious pluralism is John Hick, who argues that The Real (which is more-or-less synonymous with “God”) is ineffable, or unable to be described. As each world religion attempts to describe the Real, they inevitably describe It/Him in culturally relative terms. Therefore no religion (or at least no “nice” religion) can make a claim to exclusive truth; they are all equally true.

The more I think about these categories, the more I think they are not really getting at the heart of the issues I think are important. Though I am aware that some argue that any truth claim is oppressive, most people I have talked with seem to have no problems with truth claims in themselves. It seems obvious to me that truth claims made by proponents of various religions are at least theoretically testable, even if we don’t have any ways to test them in real life. The real issue, as far as I see it, is soteriology: who will be “saved?” I suggest making a distinction between theological exclusivism and soteriological exclusivism. Then the categories would be redefined as such:

1A. Theological exclusivists claim that their own theology is correct and contradictory claims are false. In other words, they believe Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction must extend into the realm of religious beliefs. (I include anyone making a religious truth claim in this category, not just those who affirm the existence of God. I’m not sure what word to use that would mean what I mean by theology and still encompass atheistic Eastern religions.)
2A. Theological pluralists claim that all theologies are equally correct. At the popular level, this is the belief that “what’s true for you may not be true for me.” But when I talk to people who claim to hold this view, they typically retreat to a position of theological agnostic pragmatism: since we can’t really know what is true about God, what is important is what helps you in your personal life.

1B. Soteriological exclusivists claim that there is no salvation outside of their own religion. For many, the obvious and loathsome conclusion of this position is that large swaths of humanity will be damned eternally to hell.
2B. Soteriological pluralists claim that salvation can be found in a plurality of religions.

This is where I disagree with the position of my M.Div. advisor, Harold Netland. In Encountering Religious Pluralism, he singles out two forms “pseudopluralism”: the Hinduism of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and the Buddhism of the Dalai Lama (213-218). Both systems appear to be pluraslistic, he argues, but on closer inspection they are really just forms of inclusivism. Now I will freely admit that I am not terribly familiar with either of these systems so I may well be misrepresenting them. But it seems that the attractiveness of them lies precisely in their soteriological pluralism, not in any form of theological pluralism. They are not claiming you will go to hell if you disagree with them.

The problem many of my friends have with Evangelical Christianity, I would suggest, is not its claim to theological exclusivism. It is rather in the fact that traditional evangelical theology includes a harsh pronouncement of soteriological exclusivism. I am not convinced that our faith has a strong enough epistemic foundation to make such bold exclusivist claims. I think what people find offensive is not when we claim “Jesus is Lord,” but when we claim “if you don’t believe the gospel you will go to hell.” To conflate the two forms of exlusivism and then defend theological exclusivism seems to me a rhetorical sleight-of-hand which does not really address the issues my non-Christian friends typically have.
I don’t know that all this really makes sense like I want it to, but I think it’s good enough for blogging. I would appreciate any feedback you would like to give. Thanks!

Roger Williams' Mandate for the American Church

This is a paper I wrote for my American Church History class. I was pretty excited about it and I think there's more potential here. Some day I would like to clean up some of the awkward working, fill out the details, and try to get it published somewhere. In the meantime, blogging is still publishing, of sorts.
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America’s Radical Reformer
Roger Williams, the primary founder of Rhode Island, often invoked the illustration of a garden surrounded by wilderness, recalling imagery from Genesis 2. The garden represents God’s people, the church, while the surrounding wilderness represents the rest of the world, which is hostile to the things of God. Throughout history, “by degrees the gardens of the churches of saints were turned into the wilderness of whole nations, until the whole world became… Christendom.”[1] The term Christendom represented all the evils that resulted from the marriage of church and state.
In a nation that places a high value on freedom of religion, historians have tended to find the historical significance of Roger Williams in his views on civil government. The principal mandate for the state, said Williams, is to protect the freedom to worship as one’s conscience directed, which must extend even to non-Protestants like “Jews, Turks, and Papists.”[2] For the officials of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Williams presented a subversive challenge to the role that the government should play in the promotion of religion. As Gaustad states, “Williams advocated the scariest political heresy of his day: namely, that a civil institution could survive without the supporting arm of the church.”[3]
Yet Williams himself preferred theology to political science. His passion was to cleanse the Church of all impurities. Though the American Puritans had made substantial strides forward, they had not gone far enough, and he was determined to complete the process. By proposing a new prophetic mandate for the church, Roger Williams subverted the dominant Puritan orthodoxy regarding civil government, church government, and dissenting congregations.
The process by which he arrived at this new mandate continued through the first half of his life.

A New Mandate for the Church
Williams came from England to Massachusetts with his wife in 1630. He was offered a pastoral position at the Boston church, but turned it down because they had not officially broken their ties with the Church of England. As a strict separatist, he soon found himself drawn to the Plymouth colony which had been founded by the original separatist pilgrims. However, he became disenchanted with them when he learned that they allowed members to attend worship with the Church of England when they returned abroad. In allowing this practice to continue, they showed themselves to be impure separatists, a position Williams could not tolerate.
Williams was a puritan in the true sense of the word, believing that the church must be absolutely purified of every trace of defilement. The separatist platform based the rejection of the Church of England on the fact that, as a national church, it did not challenge the membership of nominal or backslidden Christians. Additionally, its bishops received their authority through a lineage that included the Roman Catholic Church, which had become universally identified with the biblical anti-Christ.[4] But in his rejection of the Plymouth church, Williams went beyond separatism to become one of the first advocates of secondary separation, or the rejection of all churches that did not hold to strict separatism.[5]
He left there and found a site to settle which he named Providence. He gathered with other marginal movements, which had formed their own nearby communities, to found the colony of Rhode Island. He stood solidly for a policy of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience for all. Through a thorough re-examination of his beliefs, he soon concluded that his baptism, received as an infant by the Church of England, was invalid. After having himself re-baptized, this time as an adult believer, he proceeded to baptize a small group followers. This group became the first of the Baptist congregation in America.
Membership in the new Baptist congregation required one to be able to give a compelling account of conversion in good Puritan style. The standard Puritan conversion was expected to follow a general pattern: conviction of sin, exposure to true Biblical teaching, identification of personal hypocrisy, self-examination, and finally evidence of God’s individual election.[6] To this standard Puritan requirement, Williams added the additional requirement that a membership candidate must fully renounce the Church of England.
By 1652, at the publication of The Hireling Ministry None of Christ’s, Williams’ view of the Church had been fully formed. As with most of his writings, nearly every page contained some provocative doctrine, guaranteeing the alienation of nearly all his readers. Nevertheless, this essay was highly influential and spelled out his views on the mission of the Church. Starting with the book of Revelation, he rejected the dominant post-millennial theology held by the Puritans in favor of his own unique interpretation.[7] The first of the four horsemen of Revelation 6, the white horse who was given to conquer, represented the original apostolic mission to the nations, whose time was now ended. The church was now represented by the two prophets of Revelation 11, and should expect nothing but persecution and martyrdom. This prophetic ministry would bring about the downfall of Babylon in chapters 18-19, which was the ‘Romish Beast’ of ‘Popery’. The downfall of the beast was probably soon, however, and in chapter 19 the ministry of the white horseman would be restored and the fullness of the Gentiles would be brought in.
The mandate for the church at the present time, said Williams, is to fulfill the “Ministrie of Prophesie.” Christians are to take their stand with the revolutionaries that have lived all through the history of the church. Putting forth Foxe’s Book of Martyrs as the standard for true Christian ministry, several groups were singled out for special mention:

Look upon Berengarius with the Saints, enlightened by him; Look upon Waldus, with his Waldenses in France, Wickliffe in England, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague in Bohemia, Luther in Germany, Calvin in Geneva, those Parts and other places, and Countries… wherin they Witnessed against the False, against the usurpations and Abominations of Antichrist, and therein they were the Infallible Witnesses, and Prophets of Christ Jesus, Preaching, and oft times Suffering to the Death for his Name sake.[8]

For the present time, the church was to take up the sword of the spirit rather than the physical sword. In other words, the mandate of the church is to preach truth and leave the results up to God. For the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, this new mandate struck at the very heart of the Puritan experiment.

Liberty of Conscience
For the Puritan establishment, the most significant aspect of Williams’ mandate for the church was his insistence that the church remain entirely independent of the civil government. No church should be allowed to use the resources of the civil government in order to compel people to worship.
The Puritans saw themselves as establishing God’s kingdom on earth. They looked to the Old Testament as a model for a Christian government where civil laws are grounded in biblical revelation. In contrast to them, Williams’ proposed a biblical defense for pluralism. In his book, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, he argued that the church must remain separate from the civil government if it is to remain truly Christian. Christ Himself did not come to found an earthly kingdom, but if that were the goal, He surely would have.[9]
Williams was drawn into a huge debate with John Cotton over the interpretation of the Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43).[10] While Cotton minimized the distinction between the weeds and the wheat (it was the inability of the servants to distinguish between the two until they were fully grown that prevented them from uprooting them), Williams argued that the weeds represented people who were openly opposed to the gospel. The field clearly represents the world, not the church and believers are called to live peacefully with everyone.
Williams was also opposed to all uses of force to reach the Native Americans.[11] Instead, missionaries must speak truth to them and allow them to come to their own conclusions. However, by the time of the publication of The Hireling Ministry, Williams had moved to reject all forms of missionary activity as the improper mandate for the church at the present time. In fact, he came to reject the very validity of the local church government and pastoral ministry.

“Seeker” Sensitive
Shortly after the foundation of the first Baptist church in North America, Williams began to reexamine the moorings for the local church itself. It was not enough for the church to separate from impure churches and clarify the relationship between the church and the civil government. The church must have a clear understanding of its mission and place in the world. It was in seeking to clarify this direction that Williams came to the doctrine that was perhaps the most controversial: rejection of all pastoral ministry and local church government. For the Puritans, this moved him from being a marginal Puritan or Baptist to become a heretical Seeker.
Mainstream Puritans, who held the upper hand during the English Revolution under Oliver Cromwell, gave pejorative titles to all the groups who opposed them. With censorship laws no longer in effect in England, every sort of sect was allowed to form. The Puritans tended to group them together for polemical reasons, whether they agreed with such groupings or not.[12] Those who rejected all church authority structures were called Seekers, though few would choose this label for themselves. This is the term many Puritans subsequently used to describe him.
Williams produced four reasons to reject modern pastoral ministry.[13] First, those who claim to stand in apostolic succession do not demonstrate any of the gifts of an apostle. Here Williams is anticipating a similar argument that would be made later in our nation’s history, primarily by holiness and Pentecostal movements. Both argued that supernatural signs should follow valid Christian ministry, but unlike those that would come after him, Williams did not think they were currently operational.
Second was that no minister had any way to receive a valid calling. The only true New Testament church was one established by a true apostle. Subscribing to a view of apostolic succession similar to the Roman Catholic view, which was in turn inherited by the Church of England, Williams believed that a true apostle must be able to trace directly back to the original apostles, who in turn received their authority from Jesus Himself. However, unlike Rome or Canterbury, he did not think such an apostolic succession had survived much past Constantine. Instead, he argued, the church had been taken over by anti-Christ. Therefore, no true church was possible any longer.
Third was confusion over the work of ministry – what was the proper field of evangelism? The great commission of Matthew 28 specified the nations as the proper field. Modern ministry does not take place among the heathen but rather among the so-called Christian nations. If the nation was truly Christian, then it was an improper field for evangelism, and therefore invalidated all ministries in those places.[14]
Fourth, and most importantly for Williams, was the problem of pastoral wages. Whereas Jesus commanded his followers to freely give, modern ministry was based on a sort of careerism where pastors negotiated for higher salaries and became simply hirelings.
Perhaps the consequences of this doctrine were too radical even for Williams, for he never put much effort into its promotion. He was content to allow people to worship according to their conscience without feeling the need to molest them. He seemed satisfied to hold his own religion privately without becoming an ‘evangelist’ for the seeker movement. In fact, he capitulates, he only published his treatise on the rejection of church government at the urging of friends who “importuned for more copies than I was possibly able to transcribe.”[15] Though Williams did not draw a large movement of Seekers to himself, his rejection of the church was significant nevertheless. He served as another voice for a disorganized group of people that had become dissatisfied with all local church structures.
Williams’ rejection of the church may be important for another reason as well. Rather than focus any longer on the purity of the church, he became free to focus his energies on creating a government that promoted true civility between citizens. Williams pictured the civil government as a ship: people did not have to agree on how to live their lives when they were in the cabins, but everyone must cooperate in the maintenance and steering of the ship.[16] It is unlikely that his civil vision would have been brought to fruition had his focus been on ordering cabin life.
Yet the most significant results of Williams’ views were not the changes he implemented in civil or church governments. Ironically those most positively affected were those who disagreed with him.

Radical Christianity
By proposing that the Church’s mandate was to raise a prophetic protest against all forms of false religion, Williams opened a door for other subversive groups, many of which were attracted to Rhode Island as a safe place to avoid oppression.
After Williams was first expelled, he drew a group of about 20 people and founded the first Baptist church in North America. This group became the first settlers of Providence, which would later become the capitol of Rhode Island. They determined to put a civil government in place that guaranteed radical freedom for people of every religious persuasion. Historians in the revolutionary era would look back to Williams’ mandate as a model for later radical sectarians.[17] By 1764, the Sabbatarian Baptists had become powerful enough to establish the College of Rhode Island. The college later became Brown University, one of the eight Ivy League universities.
Three years after Williams’ expulsion from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Anne Hutchinson was also expelled. Highly critical of most of the Puritan clergy, Hutchinson rejected any claim to a covenant of works, but boldly proclaimed that salvation comes by faith alone. She was labeled an anti-nomian by the Puritan establishment, who claimed she taught that Christians could ignore the law and live as they pleased, a claim she flatly denied. She was expelled after asserting that she had the ability to hear the voice of God. Though she was killed soon after in an Indian raid, her followers soon left the Massachusetts Bay Colony as well. Though Williams’ view of the prophetic mandate of the church was not yet fully formed, there was clearly a kindred spirit between the two groups. The Hutchinsonians founded the city of Portsmouth just south of Providence, as well as Newport a year later.[18]
Other groups soon followed. Williams extended a welcome to the Gortonites, led by Samuel Gorton, who were radical egalitarians. They founded the city of Warwick.[19] In the 1670s, Rhode Island began to receive a large influx of Quakers. Paradoxically, Williams himself became one of their greatest enemies, though he remained committed to his ethic to combat them through words rather than persecution. In 1672, he organized a four day debate with them, followed by a book refuting their doctrines.
As more and more religious outcasts were attracted to Rhode Island, religious diversity created an atmosphere in which pluralistic tolerance (or as Williams would say, civility) became a necessity. No one would have predicted how the landscape of America would change over the next three centuries to become the most ethnically and religiously diverse nation on the globe. The precedent set by Williams continues to be important for us today.

A Mandate for Today
We have seen how Williams’ mandate for the church presented a subversive challenge to the Puritan understanding of civil government by insisting that the church was called to promote itself through prophetic confrontation rather than legislating religion. This mandate was also subversive to local church bodies, as this prophetic ministry made pastoral “hireling” ministry invalid. His subversive message drew other radicals, helping to promote their growth. But the subversive mandate Williams laid out in the 17th century continues to be just as subversive today.
First, Roger Williams provides an alternative to the story of America as told by many modern Christians. Marshall and Manuel argue that the United States was intended by God to be a Christian nation, and the Puritans got it right.[20] In their history, Williams plays the role of a misguided and stubborn villain who needed to be “pruned from God’s vineyard”. Yet it is unclear why William Bradford, John Winthrop, John Davenport, or Thomas Hooker should have any more of a claim to establish the destiny for our nation than Roger Williams. After all, he founded a colony too.
Yet Williams also presents a challenge to those who would paint the Puritans in a negative light. Williams was himself a product of the Puritan worldview.[21] Yet he emerged as one of the strongest voices for what we might call religious tolerance, though he himself would have rejected the term because it did not provide enough protection for religious minorities. He instead spoke of civility, a guarantee that despite our differences, we will all get along.[22]
For Christians who are uncomfortable with the idea of pushing through legislation to turn the clock back to some perceived era when the government was truly Christian, Williams provides a clear biblical defense of separation of church and state in his book, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution. In fact, it serves as a sort of theology of civil government. Although it is somewhat difficult to read, given that it is written as a dialog between ‘truth’ and ‘peace’, Williams delivers several clear and cogent arguments, most of which are as relevant for evangelical Christians today as they were then.
Some may appeal to Williams’ rejection of local church government as precedent to do so today. George Barna suggests that there is a new Christian revolution that is occurring as those who are worn-out on church are “finding vibrant faith beyond the walls of the sanctuary.”[23] Perhaps this movement can look to Williams as a “spiritual father”. But on a second look, William’s reasons for rejecting church government look very foreign from our perspective over three hundred years later. Few who would embrace Barna’s revolution would be comfortable with Williams’ usage of the book of Revelation to support his views, nor his other conclusions, like the futility of a missions movement until the papacy is destroyed.
However, many modern commentators would agree with Williams on one point of his interpretation: the two witnesses of Revelation 11 are intended to refer to the ministry of the church rather than two individuals. This means that even if a general consensus of evangelical Christianity would reject much of Williams’ theology, we can still appropriate his mandate to the church to be a prophetic people. We can still look to him as a hero of the faith, willing to take a stand for truth, no matter how unpopular.

Bibliography
Byrd, James P., Jr. 2002. The Challenges of Roger Williams: Religious Liberty, Violent Persecution, and the Bible. Macon: Mercer.
Davis, James Calvin. 2001. “A Return to Civility: Roger Williams and Public Discourse in America.” Journal of Church and State 43:689-717.
Gaustad, Edwin S. 1991. Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
-----. 2005. “Roger Williams: Soul Man.” Interview in Church & State July/August 2005:157-158.
Gilpin, W. Clark. 1979. The Millenarian Piety of Roger Williams. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Irwin, Raymond D. 1994. “A Man for All Eras: The Changing Historical Image of Roger Williams, 1630-1993.” Fides et Historia 26:6-23.
Marshall, Peter and Manuel, David. 1977. The Light and the Glory: Did God have a Plan for America? Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell.
McGregor, J.F. 1984. “Seekers and Ranters” in Radical Religion in the English Revolution, ed. J.F. McGregor and B. Reay. New York: Oxford University Press.
Morgan, Edmund S. 1967. Roger Williams: The Church and the State. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
Williams, Roger. 1644 [1848]. The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for cause of Conscience, Discussed, in a Conference Between Truth and Peace. Ed. Edward Bean Underhill. London: Hanserd Knollys Society.
-----. 1652 [1847]. “The Hireling Ministry None of Christ’s: or a Discourse touching the Propagating the Gospel of Christ Jesus” in A Review of the “Correspondence” of Messrs. Fuller & Wayland: on the subject of American Slavery/ by Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor… To Which is Added a Discourse by Roger Williams, printed London, 1652, on “The Hireling Ministry.” Utica: Christian Contributor Office.

[1] Williams 1644, 155 (Chap LXIV.2).
[2] Williams 1652, 161.
[3] Gaustad 2005, 157.
[4] Morgan 1967, 18-20.
[5] Arguably, Williams’ rejection of the Plymouth church actually constituted tertiary separation, or separation from those who refuse to separate from non-separatists.
[6] Gilpin 1979, 5-7.
[7] Williams 1652, 161-5.
[8] Williams 1652, 165.
[9] Williams 1644, 92 (XXX.4).
[10] Byrd 2002, 87-127. Byrd goes into great detail regarding a controversy that we cannot do more than touch on here.
[11] Byrd 2002,189-90.
[12] McGregor 1984.
[13] These points are spelled out in Williams 1652, 166-7.
[14] One might expect Williams to follow this through to call for a new missionary movement, as William Carey would do a century later. However, Williams’ believed he was living between the times, so to speak, and therefore a missionary movement would not be effective until the downfall of the papacy.
[15] Williams 1652, 158.
[16] Gaustad 1991, 146.
[17] Irwin (1994) names John Callender, Isaac Backus, and Stephen Hopkins as the three most prominent historians from the late 18th century to praise the course set by Williams (p.11).
[18] Gaustad 1991, 51-54.
[19] Gura 1984, 276-303.
[20] Marshall and Manuel 1977, 191-9.
[21] Gilpin 1979, 2-4.
[22] Davis 2001, 691.
[23] Barna 2005. I am not suggesting that Barna himself has made the connection with Williams.

A Cover Song

I found a great cover of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday by an up-and-coming solo artist.

Disturbing Psalms

I have been listening to the band Sons of Korah for the past few weeks. Stuart Briscoe got me listening to them. Well, okay, I don't actually know Stuart. But he started promoting them to his church, and that's why the guy in their church bookstore recommended them to me. But I would like to say that Stuart did actually stop by and say hi to the bookstore salesman while he was showing me the Sons of Korah CD, so I think that counts for something.

Each of their songs are taken from a psalm or portion of a psalm set to music. I really enjoy it, especially being able to appreciate some of the psalms in a new way.

So of course I start thinking about the "difficult" psalms. I bet Psalm 137 is not high on their list of psalms to set to music, I think. Verse 9 says, "How blessed is the man who takes your babies and dashes them against the rocks!" I'm sure this will be at the end of their list and it will be interesting to hear how they pull that one off.

So imagine my surprise when I bring home their Songs of Redemption CD from the Elmbrook library, only to find that Track 1 is Psalm 137! TRACK 1! Not only did they manage to pull it off, it actually became the anchor song for the entire album, setting up our need for redemption with a heart-cry from the Jewish exiles in Babylon. What really makes is come alive is the answer to this psalm in the final track (10), based on Psalm 126, about how the Lord did bring them back from captivity. That, of course, is the substance of redemption, when God redeems His people from captivity.

Nevertheless, I must comment on the fact that they did use a looser translation of verse 9. Instead of "dash[ing] their babies against the rocks," it is "destroy[ing] your progeny." So it gives a meaning sort of like, "You destroyed all that we have done and built, so someone will one day destroy all that you have done and built." A bit of a cop-out? Perhaps. I'm still amazed at how they took one of the most disturbing psalms in the Psalter and used it to really minister to me.

Continuation of the Apostolic Office

I originally wrote this paper for a course in missions, but reworked it for a Systematic Theology class. I included it as an appendix to a position paper on supernatural gifts of the Spirit. Also, see my continuing discussion of charismatic theology.

Contemporary Apostles
Gaffin provides four lines of reasoning that link the supernatural gifts to the office of apostle. If the apostolic office has passed away, then so have the gifts; if the gifts remain, so much the apostolic office. Though Gaffin’s four arguments are not all equally compelling, he has supported his overall case. As I have made a case for the charismatic view of supernatural gifts, I also contend that the apostolic office was never intended to pass away. Taylor states that “it is a linguistic quirk of history that the term for a missionary shifted from apostle to missionary.”[1] The term “missionary” is not found in the Bible, but the Greek equivalent, found 80 times in the New Testament, is “apostelos.” From this, we get the term “apostle” and “apostolic.” Much of the current debate arises from a misunderstanding of the function of apostles and the creation of a new “missionary” office.
Wayne Grudem presents several arguments for apostolic cessation.[2] First, the primary requirement for biblical apostleship was having seen Jesus, so there can be no modern apostles . Three main passages are brought as evidence of this requirement. In Acts 1.22, the replacement for Judas Iscariot was required to have been a witness of the resurrection. Paul implies the same thing in 1 Cor 9.1-2. Finally, in 1 Cor 15, Paul places himself on equal footing with the other apostles because he has witnessed the risen Jesus.
A second argument for the cessation of the apostolic office is that the apostles had the authority to speak and write the very words of God. Since the canon of scripture is closed, the apostolic office must now be obsolete.[3] However the evidence that the apostles had this kind of authority is lacking. Grudem provides three examples. In Acts 5, lying to the apostles is equated with lying to the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 2.13, Paul asserts that his words were directly taught by the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 14.37 Paul says that the things that he writes are the Lord’s command.
Third, is the charge that anyone who takes the title apostle is probably doing so out of wrong motives. Only the arrogant would seek to apply the apostolic title to themselves.
Finally, Grudem notes that there was a non-technical usage of apostolos in the New Testament, referring simply to a messenger. This non-technical use differed from the primary use of the term, which was used to designate a special apostolic office. This non-technical usage may still be held today, though its meaning is somewhat different from the non-technical usage in the New Testament.
How shall we evaluate Grudem’s arguments? It seems appropriate to begin with an analysis of the way the New Testament uses the term, apostle. Out of 80 uses of apostle in the New Testament, 70 are found in Paul and Luke/Acts. The remaining ten usages refer specifically to the 12 apostles.[4] Paul’s clearest passage on the subject of apostleship is found in 1 Corinthians 15.7-9, where he writes that the risen Jesus, “…appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Several things are clear from this passage. First, there was a distinction between “Cephus (Peter) [and] the twelve,” and “James [and] all the apostles.” Paul does not limit the apostolic office to the original twelve apostles. For instance, Andronicus and Junia,[5] are named as apostles (Romans 16.7), though we know nothing else about them. Second, Paul seems to imply that he is not on equal footing with the twelve, but he is with the rest of the apostles. Third, Paul claims that he was the “last of all” to see the Lord, not that he was the last apostle of all.[6]
Luke, on the other hand, uses the term apostle quite often, but always in reference to the twelve. The only exceptions occur in Acts 14.4 and 14 where the term is applied to Paul and Barnabus. F.F. Bruce argues that Luke only uses the term here because he is quoting from another source, and his intention is that it be taken in the non-technical sense.[7]
From the perspective of a unified biblical canon, those whom Luke and the other biblical authors call apostles, Paul calls the twelve. Those whom Paul calls apostles are not called apostles in Luke (with the two exceptions already noted). So it is clear that the entire biblical witness reserves a special designation for the Twelve. Modern theologians, following non-Pauline usage, refer to the Twelve as Apostles (with a capital A). A second category is Paul’s non-technical use of apostle (with a small a). [8] The word apostolos was infrequently used before the New Testament period, and when it was, it was primarily for messengers sent by sea.[9] It is unlikely for the early Christians to coin a new technical use of the term only revive the non-technical usage in a small number of passages. Even if we allow this non-technical usage (apostle, small-a), Paul places himself (and James) in this category and not with the Twelve.[10] It is much more likely that there is no distinction between technical and non-technical usage, and the standard use was equivalent to our modern term missionary. Similarly, in Luke it seems likely that he made a decision as a writer to refer consistently to the twelve (and no one else) as apostles for narrative clarity.
If this is true, then there is no real distinction between apostle and missionary at all, and Jesus’ commission to the twelve was a missionary commission that applies to the entire missionary endeavor. There is no reason to believe that the apostolic-missionary office would ever “pass away”. It is notable that the same sort of reasoning used to deny the modern-day apostolic office was once used to defend our lack of missionary zeal – the apostolic mandate to reach the world with the gospel ended when the apostolic office passed away.[11]
How, then, do we respond to the claim that one requirement for an apostle is having seen the risen Jesus? For the replacement of Judas, this was not the only requirement – he was also required to have been disciple from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. These were fitting requirements to replace a member of the Twelve. Paul himself could not have met this requirement. This in fact, was probably the very kind of accusation that Paul had to respond to in 1 Corinthians 9.1-2. In chapters 8-10, Paul is building a case that we ought to lay down our rights in deference to one another. In chapter 9 he uses himself as an illustration of laying down one’s rights – the rights of an apostle to be supported financially by the community. He therefore takes verses 2 and 3 to briefly defend his apostleship: “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.” Nowhere does Paul make an explicit claim that an apostle is required to have seen the Lord. More likely, he is attempting to bolster his own claim to apostleship in order that the Corinthian church will continue to listen to him rather than being deceived by false teachings. In fact, Paul probably considered his encounter with Jesus to be the confirmation of his apostolic call, not a requirement for it.
In 1 Corinthians 15, cited above, Paul equates his sighting of Jesus with those of the other apostles. However we also noted that Paul was the last to see, not the last of the apostles in the sense that Mohammed claimed to be the last of the prophets. We must note that the apostolic office was will mentioned in the Didache (11.3-6) written as late at A.D. 150. That would mean that apostles continued to be sent out of churches for two, three, or even four more generations after Paul’s time.
Grudem’s second argument is generally the most troubling for evangelicals, who equate apostolic authority with scriptural authority. But this equation is misleading. No biblical text makes this explicit. In Acts 5, lying to the apostles is equated with lying to the Holy Spirit. However an examination of Luke’s understanding of the working of the Holy Spirit reveals that the Holy Spirit empowers the church corporately, not just the apostles. What is sinful is lying to the Spirit-empowered church represented by the apostles, not lying to the apostles qua apostles. In 1 Corinthians 2.13, Paul asserts that his words were directly taught by the Holy Spirit. But this argument cuts both ways. Paul is not here appealing to his apostolic authority, but to the fact the Holy Spirit inspired his message. By implication, the Corinthians should not listen to an uninspired apostle. In 1 Corinthians 14.37 Paul says that the things that he writes are the Lord’s command. But again, this is not an appeal to apostolic authority, but rather an appeal to authority outside of himself – the Lord’s authority. It is the content of the message rather than the position of the messenger that makes it true.
There are further problems with Grudem’s model of apostolic authority. The first is what to do with apostolic error (i.e. Peter, Galatians 2.11-14) or dispute (Paul and Barnabus, Acts 15.39). Second, this model only really works in hindsight, because the canon is closed. Traditionalists can argue for this position because it is a safe, unchangeable tradition. But there was a time in history when the apostles had not ceased to speak and canon was not yet closed. At that time the notion of apostolic authority was much riskier, especially to the traditionalist, because of the uncertainty of what they have not yet said. Third, even Paul claimed that it was his message, not his position, that made his words true (Galatians 1.8-9). Finally, five of the 27 books of the New Testament (almost 20%) were not written by apostles. On the other hand, only five of the 15 undisputed apostles[12] (30%) wrote any portion of scripture. Scripture does not appear to be especially tied to apostolic infallibility.
What about the charge of wrong motives? While this may be true of some, the definition of apostle argued for here is one of function rather than status. The church does not need more “super-apostles” who exalt themselves, but she does need more apostolic missionaries who will lay down their lives for the Kingdom of God as Paul did.
Many men have functioned apostolically through history. A short list would include Augustine of Canterbury, Boniface, Martin Luther, Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, John Wesley, Charles Finney, William Carey, and Hudson Taylor.[13] While none of these men called himself an apostle, they all instinctively fulfilled the apostolic mandate. The modern apostolic movement can look to such men as spiritual fathers.

Bibliography
Barnett, P.W. 1993. “Apostle” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
Bruce, F.F. 1988. The Book of the Acts, Revised Edition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Grudem, Wayne A. 1994 (2000). Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse.
Taylor, William D. 1999. Introduction to World Christian Missions tapes and notes from the Institute of Theological Studies course. Grand Rapids: Outreach, Inc.
Walls, Andrew F. 1999. “Missionary Societies and the Fortunate Subversion of the Church” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne. Pasadena: William Carey Library.

[1] Taylor 1999, lecture 11.
[2]Grudem 1993, 905-911.
[3] Idem, 60-67. Grudem agrees with Gaffin (1996), who then turns the argument against him to reject all supernatural gifts.
[4] With the possible exception of John 13.16, mentioned above.
[5] Or possibly the masculine name “Junias.” The Greek is not certain.
[6] Even his sighting of Jesus as “last of all” should probably not be taken in an absolute sense. Paul’s main point was not that it could never occur again, but rather that his testimony about the resurrection was valid because he too had been an eyewitness of the risen Lord.
[7] Bruce 1988, p. 271, n.7; p.276, n.36.
[8] Examples usually given include 2 Corinthians 8.16-24, referring to Titus and another apostle; Philippians 2.25, to Epaphroditus. John 13.16, seems to support this view, referring non-specifically to a person sent by a sender.
[9] Barnett 1993, p.45.
[10] The only other option is that Paul developed a third category between the technical Apostle and non-technical apostle. This seems unlikely, as there are no indications that Paul held to a ‘hierarchy of aposticity.’
[11] Walls 1999, p.234.
[12] Grudem admits Paul, Barnabus, and James.
[13] Grudem himself partially concedes this point. “Today some people use the word apostle in a very broad sense, to refer to an effective church planter, or to a significant missionary pioneer (“William Carey was an apostle to India,” for example). If we use the word apostle in this broad sense, everyone would agree that there are still apostles today – for there are certainly effective missionaries and church planters today… But there is another sense for the word apostle. Much more frequently in the New Testament the word refers to a special office, ‘apostle of Jesus Christ.’ In this narrow sense of the term, there are no more apostles today, and we are to expect no more.” (906) It is difficult to understand why it is acceptable to refer to William Carey as “the apostle to India” but not as “the apostle of Jesus Christ to India.” Whose apostle was he?

Supernatural Gifts of the Spirit

I just turned in a paper last night stating my position on supernatural gifts in the contemporary church. Thought I'd throw it up on the blog real quick. Any feedback you'd like to give would be great. I just cut and pasted, so I don't know quite how well the formating will come across. Also, check out my continuing discussion of Charismatic Gifts.

Introduction
The doctrine of supernatural gifts is one of the most exciting and pastorally relevant topics in systematic theology. All evangelical theologians agree that these gifts were operative during the period in which the New Testament was written. Luke records several instances of healing, speaking in tongues, and prophecy in the book of Acts. John the Seer similarly gives some indication of the function and usage of gifts in the cryptic book of Revelation. Paul’s letters give us a window into the way early churches used the gifts, especially speaking in tongues and prophecy, though we can easily become frustrated by how much the window obscures rather than reveals. Clearly the supernatural gifts of the Spirit comprise an integral strand of the gospel story. But the question remaining is what relationship the supernatural gifts have to our contemporary situation, or more accurately, what relationship we have to the supernatural gifts.
In particular, the debate has centered around three main groups of gifts, both derived from the key text of 1 Cor 12.8-10.[1] The first group is the revelatory (or word) gifts, which include prophecy and speaking in tongues, and often word of wisdom and word of knowledge. Speaking in tongues is the primary gift associated with the Pentecostal movement. Some later Pentecostal groups and especially charismatic groups placed a greater emphasis on prophecy. Among these groups, the word of knowledge functions very similarly to prophecy, where the recipient supernaturally obtains propositional information, and its most common usage is to call out various kinds of healings needed among a particular congregation so that people may come forward for healing. Similarly, a word of wisdom is viewed as a kind of supernatural revelation, but specifying a course of action rather than prepositional information. For instance, Solomon exercised the word of wisdom in his judgment between the two harlots (1 Kings 3.16-28).
The second group of gifts are the healing gifts, includes healing and discernment of Spirits. The focus of the healing gift is to effect physical healing. The focus of discernment is to effect spiritual healing through casting out demons.[2]
A third group, less often discussed, are the power gifts, which include faith and miracles, such as walking on water or raising the dead. These have received less attention in the relevant literature because they are not as common in Pentecostal, Charismatic, or Third Wave churches, but are gaining more prominence in what are increasingly called New Paradigm churches.[3]
Finally, a closely related topic is whether the apostolic office continues today. I include a discussion of modern apostles in an appendix.[4]

Options
One of the most vocal opponents of contemporary supernatural gifts is Richard Gaffin.[5] His position may be called the Cessationist view. Standing firmly in the reformed tradition of B.B. Warfield and the early twentieth century Princetonian school, Gaffin presents eight reasons why supernatural gifts are no longer operative. Seven focus on the revelatory group of gifts. Four are related to the cessation of the apostolic office.
1. The healing and power gifts are specifically related to the apostolic spread of the gospel. The apostolic period ended in the first century, and therefore, so did the apostolic gifts (2 Cor 12.12, Heb 2.3-4).
2. The revelatory gifts were likewise only functional during the initial stages of the church age. Paul says in Ephesians 2.20 that the church has been “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,” and since the foundation has already been laid, the revelatory gifts no longer function (cf. Eph 3.5).
3. A consistent continuationist position is self refuting, for one must affirm the modern office of apostles, which necessarily means the canon of scripture cannot be closed. Yet all who deny the modern office of the apostle are no longer consistent, have at least partially affirmed a cessationist position. Moreover, there is no non-arbitrary reason for affirming supernatural gifts while denying modern apostles.
4. The revelatory gifts threaten the authority and sufficiency of scripture by effectively adding to the canon. Several defenders of modern prophecy see no distinction between Old and New Testament prophecy, which essentially affirms an addition to the canon.[6]
5. Scripture gives no evidence that any New Testament prophecy should have less authority than scripture itself. A word from God always carries the authority of God. Those who believe in modern prophecy can no longer affirm sola scriptura.
6. Paul affirms that “when the perfect comes the imperfect [tongues and prophecies] will pass away” (1 Cor 13.8-14). In light of Ephesians 4.11-13, apostles will also continue until the perfection comes. Regardless of whatever else “perfection” may mean, tongues, prophecy, and the apostolic office must either continue together or end together.[7]
7. The eschatological aspects of the church age do not require supernatural gifts to function throughout, but merely in the initial formative years.[8]
8. Charismatics cannot even affirm that modern charismatic gifts are the same gifts spoken of in scripture. Contemporary tongues are likely to be different from the New Testament gift of tongues. Similarly, no one is quite sure what a Word of Knowledge or Word of Wisdom even is.
Many evangelicals feel the cessationists overplay their hand by stating that God never gives supernatural gifts any longer. They instead opt for a sort of mediating position between the charismatic and cessationist positions. This view, most cogently articulated by Millard Erickson, may be called an Open Agnostic view.[9] Four points of Erickson’s discussion seem particularly relevant:
1. It is difficult if not impossible to determine whether the contemporary charismatic gifts are the same as the Biblical gifts. No Biblical passages indicate that gifts would ever cease, and yet the gifts seemed to cease through most of church history.
2. Scientific studies have shown that at least some of the supernatural manifestations can be explained by other phenomena.
3. We must be cautious not to attribute the works of God to the devil instead, which amounts to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mark 3.29).
4. Because God is Sovereign, He decides who receives gifts. Therefore, “we are not to set our lives to seeking them.”
A third position holds that supernatural gifts are not only operative today, but they should be the normative experience of contemporary believers. We may call this the Charismatic view.[10] Wayne Grudem gives eight reasons for the validity of this view:[11]
1. Prophecy and tongues will continue through the church age because “the perfect” which will eliminate them in 1 Cor 13 refers to the second coming of Christ.
2. New Testament Prophecy is qualitatively different from Old Testament prophecy. It is neither infallible nor absolutely authoritative, and therefore does not constitute an addition to the canon.
3. Scripture does not limit supernatural gifts were not limited to the time of the Apostles.
4. Supernatural gifts are just as necessary in the present as the past: authenticating the gospel, demonstrating God’s mercy, equip people for ministry, glorify God.
5. Contrary to many cessationist arguments, miraculous gifts have been operative throughout church history.[12]
6. The level of power of a gift is irrelevant to whether that gift is from God. Even if contemporaneous miraculous gifts are not operating as powerfully as in scriptural times, they are no less gifts from God.
7. Many charismatic churches are stronger in evangelism, purity of life, and love for the word, than their non-charismatic counterparts.
8. Non-charismatics need charismatics (and vice versa). Each part of the body has strengths that others can (and must) learn from.

Assessment
In theology, as in so many other disciplines, where one starts determines where one ends up. I propose that the gospel is the best starting place from which to examine the arguments concerning supernatural gifts. Contrary to popular presentations, the gospel, or good news, of the New Testament is not a system for ‘going to heaven when you die,’ but rather the proclamation that Jesus is Lord.[13] In theological terms, the gospel is about Christology rather than soteriology. Of course there are soteriological implications from the gospel, but there are just as important implications for all other areas of theology as well. Most striking is the way the Jesus’ lordship impacts eschatology, so that the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated in Jesus’ ministry but waits for a future consummation. In the current age we live “between the times”, experiencing tension between aspects of the Kingdom which are “already” and those aspects which are “not yet.”[14]
Scripture is univocal in ascribing supernatural ministry to the “already” of the Kingdom tension. Jesus declares, “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12.28). When John the Baptizer sent messangers to Jesus to question whether He was really the Messianic King he had been expecting, Jesus implies (to the reader at least) that His Sovereign Rule is part of the “not yet,” and instead pointed to His supernatural works as the “already” (Matt 11.4-6). In His ministry commission to the disciples He directed His disciples that, “as you go, preach, saying, ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” (Matt 10.7-8; cf. Mark 3.14-15, Luke 9.2) His instructions to heal and preach the inauguration of the Kingdom were not limited to the twelve, but applied to the seventy also (Luke 10.9). On the day of Pentecost, Peter quotes the prophecy from Joel to explicitly link the revelatory gifts to the last days, the period of the inaugurated kingdom (Acts 2.17-21).
In view of the gospel, the good news that Jesus is Lord and that His kingdom has been inaugurated in this age, the supernatural gifts must be operational today. Despite Gaffin’s protests to the contrary, his rejection of supernatural gifts amounts to neutering of the gospel and of the Kingdom. Even Erickson’s more open stance towards the gifts clearly does not go far enough. By way of analogy, it would be simply absurd to a similar Open Agnosticism to soteriology: “It is not possible to determine with any certainty whether the contemporary salvation of the lost is indeed a work of the Holy Spirit.” The gospel simply cannot be separated from the supernatural gifts.
Revelatory gifts are clearly not on the same level with biblical authority. The primary reason for this is that scripture is a covenant document.[15] In ancient times covenants were made between suzerains and their vassals to establish a governing relationship. Under this model it is quite plausible that the suzerain may wish to communicate with his vassals after the covenant is made. Such communication would not be equal in authority to the original covenant document, though it would still carry the authority of the suzerain himself.
What of the contention that we cannot know if modern gifts are the same as those which functioned during biblical times? This boils down to an argument from experience. Charismatics seek to conform their praxis to their exegesis. We are simply doing our best to live in accordance with what the texts themselves say.
But the issue of the correspondence between modern and biblical tongues is worth singling for further examination. It is one of the most impressive gifts of the spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12.8-10 for the simple fact that anyone with the gift is able to speak in tongues at will. By contrast, a non-tongues speaker will be unable to imitate the tongues speaker. Kildahl notes, “Most people can imitate a strange language for only a few sentences, then the easy syllables become obvious, and stammering and hesitation take the place of fluency… Tongue-speakers can go on almost endlessly in a fluid, easy manner.”[16] Yet linguists claim, almost universally, that tongues are not true human languages based on standard linguistic criteria developed by Charles F. Hockett.[17] Samarin, for instance, claims that tongues only meet a portion of Hockett’s sixteen criteria for speech to be an actual language.[18] What is lacking is a conveyed meaning – or rather, a meaning that can be discerned. If tongues are in fact a “prayer language” which the Holy Spirit uses to make intercession when the petitioner does not know what to pray, as charismatics believe, then we would not expect to discern meaning any more than we would listening to a foreign language.
Arguments for Cessation or Open Agnosticism may seem more plausible when all is going well. But for the millions of believers in the pews who daily live with the pain of living in a fallen world the supernatural gifts are a pastoral necessity. Jack Deere explains the attitude he once held as a cessationist: “I didn’t need any healing miracles from God. My family and I had always enjoyed good health, and on those rare occasions when we needed a few stitches or a little medicine, our family doctors were more than adequate… I certainly didn’t need God to speak to me with any of those subjective methods he used with the people of the Bible. After all, I had the Bible now…”[19]
In light of the evidence, not only do Charismatics have warrant for their beliefs, but all Christians have an obligation to pursue supernatural gifts within the context of local churches (1 Cor 12-14).

Bibliography
Deere, Jack. 1993. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit. Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse.
Ferguson, Sinclair B. 1996. The Holy Spirit. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
Grudem, Wayne A, ed. 1996. Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse.
------. 1994 (2000). Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse.
Jensen, Peter. 2002. The Revelation of God. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
Kildahl, John P. 1974. The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues. New York: Harper & Row.
Ladd, George.E. 1993 [1974]. A Theology of the New Testament, Donald A. Hagner, ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Nida, Eugene A. 1964. Glossolalia: A Case of Pseudo-Linguistic Structure. Unpublished.
Samarin, William. 1972. Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Wagner, C. Peter. 1999. Churchquake! Ventura: Regal.

End notes
[1] Cf. similar lists in 1 Cor 12.28, Rom 12.6-8, Eph 4.11, and 1 Pet 4.11.
[2] Most Pentecostals and charismatics have a trichotomist view of human constitution, consisting of body, soul, and spirit. Within this framework, one may add the gift of teaching or counseling, which each effect the healing of the soul. Because the teaching and counseling gifts are not particularly supernatural nor controversial, they will not be addressed here. Ferguson (1996, 89) sees these as the only gifts from Pentecost that may still be appropriated today, specifically when used ‘to be Christ’s witnesses.’
[3] See Wagner 1999.
[4] I have taken a substantial portion of the appendix from a paper I wrote for DE560, Introduction to World Christian Missions. I will not discuss baptism in (or of) the Holy Spirit in this paper because it is only a topic of internal dispute among the position I refer to as Charismatic.
[5] Gaffin’s major work (1974) is Perspectives on Pentecost: Studies in New Testament Teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed). What follows is taken instead from Gaffin’s newer and more accessible essay, “A Cessationist View” in Grudem 1996, 23-64.
[6] See also Jensen 2002, 257-279.
[7] The view that the “perfection” of 1 Cor 13 is the canonization of scripture is widely recognized by all sides to be exegetically unsound. Note however Ferguson’s paraphrase, which makes this position more credible (1996, 227-8).
[8] Ferguson (1996, 223-4) notes that Charismatics cannot provide a theological reason for the historical cessation of the gifts.
[9] Erickson 1998 [1983], 892-897. The term “Open Agnostic” is mine rather than Erickson’s, who does not provide a name for his position. This position is called the “Open But Cautious” view in Grudem 1996, but this term seems bulky and imprecise. This view encompasses the majority of evangelicals today who are perhaps unwilling to either embrace or discount the charismatic experience.
[10] Though the term is not sociologically precise since it encompases the Pentecostal and Third Wave movements in addition to the charismatic movement. The differences between them are unimportant for a discussion on the frequency of supernatural gifts. The term is appropriate since the Greek charismata literally means “gifts.”
[11] Grudem 1994, 1031-46. I have reformulated Grudem’s list from a negative apologetic (defending against the attacks of cessationists) into a list of positive affirmations.
[12] Grudem especially cites the historical argument in Ruthven, Jon (1993), On the Cessation of the Charismata: the Protestant Polemic (Sheffield: Sheffield University Academic Press).
[13] Wright 2006, 91-2; 1997,39-62; Jensen 2002, 34, 45-63.
[14] Ladd 1993 [1974].
[15] Jensen 2002.
[16] Kildahl 1972, p.35.
[17] Greenberg 1963
[18] Samarin 1972. C.f. Nida 1964.
[19] Deere 1993, 15.