John H Armstrong

Controversy and Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

I believe Western civilization is at a crossroads. I have no idea where it will go long term. The Christian consensus has been lost and the influence of Islam is rising. It is doubtful that the Europe of 2050 will look anything like the Europe of 1950. Demographics alone will almost surely guarantee a radically different future. America, on the other hand, remains highly religious but with less and less understanding of what the claims of Christ really mean. While I am not a futurist I do know that the changes we are passing through are huge.

What I find particularly tragic, and quite often write about in these posts, is that the church is also at a crossroads. God’s truth remains. His Word will not pass away. But judgment begins at the household of God. God’s Word speaks of warnings and of hope. It also warns us of judgment, both remedial and final. Nations come and nations go but the church will remain. In some contexts the church flourishes while in others it is in decline or retreat. In America it is clearly in decline and much of the time in spiritual retreat. At such moments God confronts his church with her sins. He withdraws the showers of blessing (Ezekiel 34:26). The rains of his righteousness are withheld (Hosea 10:12). When this happens we find ourselves in what the prophet called “waterless pits” (Zechariah 9:11). One of the most obvious evidences of this state of things can be seen when churches become centers of conflict rather than centers of refuge and blessing. When Christians protest and fight each other the world has every right to say, “What is this all about?” And we, the righteous, should grieve and ask God to grant us repentance and trust.

I was reminded of this judgment on the church when I read the news about Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) voting to retain their new senior pastor in a specially called congregational meeting last Sunday, September 20. 

Pastor W. Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of Billy Graham, became the senior pastor of the famous church six months ago after an extensive process was followed to call him as successor to the late D. James Kennedy. Tchividjian promised, in his pastoral call, to set the church on a different path from that charted by the late Dr. Kennedy. He has done precisely what he, and the elders, said that he would do. (The elders have been strongly supportive of their pastor.) Tchividjian, 37, refuses to preach politics. He would much rather preach on a specific biblical text than on topics in the news. He also prefers contemporary music (drums, etc.) to organ music and podcasting to broadcasting.

Tchividjian’s ministry was attacked almost from the beginning. No surprise here since a core of the church was likely to feel betrayed by his call. Some people wanted the same music and the same type of sermons that had heard for years from Dr. Kennedy. Six church members, including Kennedy’s daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, began to stir up conflict. They went so far as to hand out protest fliers outside the church on Sunday morning. These members were banned from the premises for their actions. This led to a September 9 petition to call for Tchividjian’s removal as pastor. A member of the national governing body of the Presbyterian Church in America was brought in to moderate a members-only meeting held last Sunday.

In the church meeting ten people spoke for the pastor’s removal and ten for retaining him. The critics said he had failed the legacy of Dr. Kennedy and altered the church’s traditions, such as calling for people to come to Jesus at the end of every sermon. (This is particularly odd since this is a Presbyterian church.)

The ten supporters argued for retaining the pastor because attendance is increasing and the congregation should stay united. The Miami Herald reported that Tchividjian did not attend the meeting but in his early morning sermon he warned the church against choosing to honor one man instead of choosing to honor God. He issued a written statement which said, “My family and I thank the Coral Ridge family for standing behind us and supporting me as your new pastor. Change is difficult for any institution but it is especially difficult for a church which has known only one pastor in its 50-year history and I understand that.”

The final vote was 940 to 422, to retain the pastor. The margin was thus 69% to 31%. Several things stand out in that count to me. First, there are about 2,000 active members of Coral Ridge. That means that over 600 did not come to participate in the meeting. That does not speak well of the past or the present. Second, the opposition was very active in getting out the vote. My guess is that they will have very little recourse in the future thus I hope they will leave, or change their approach promptly. A church of any size, with 31% of the people wanting the pastor to resign, is in deep trouble. If these people stay and continue their effort to remove Tchividjian they will succeed in destroying this church over time. Remember, no church, regardless of its legacy, will survive spiritual breakdown over time. Most of the greatest and grandest churches in Christian history are gone today. Many, like the Hagia Spohia in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), are just museums.

Finally, I hope all of those who participated in this meeting will seek the Lord above all else. The effort to remove the pastor is thankfully over. Get back to the mission of Christ and stop the fighting. If any in the leadership of this flock read my words I plead with you: Get your perspective back and pursue the kingdom of God. Let this skirmish go and begin meetings for prayer and healing now.

Tomorrow: Lessons from the Coral Ridge Controversy

Your Church Is Too Small: An Update on My Book

Most readers know that I began work over two years ago on a book about the mission of the church and unity. That book is titled: Your Church Is Too Small. I envisioned this book about three years ago. I realized that God had clearly given me a vision of mission and that I needed to explain this vision openly and seek to create a movement of leaders and churches that shared this vision. I began to collect my thoughts and planned to write. I contracted to publish this book in November of 2008 with Zondervan. I initially expected that the book would be released by this fall. But a number of things beyond my control happened to create many delays. Further delays came as we edited the book over recent months. My original material was almost twice as long as the final book will be. Most of this "cut" material will be posted on a Web site and thus be available when the book is published.

When I gave Zondervan my manuscript last fall I gave them well over 90,000 words. This was reduced in late April to 73,000 words, by further painstaking edits I undertook. I then learned, in July, that the text needed to be cut to 62,500 words if we were to get it into a 208-plus page (cloth) book.  More cuts and edits followed. At times this process was stressful but in the end I think what we got was a more readable text. My goal was to write a book for non-specialists so that church leaders, both pastors and lay leaders, could follow my story and my argument(s) about the nature of the church, Christ’s mission and our unity in him.

Finally, two weeks ago, the edited manuscript was completed. Now the book, which is being typeset as I write, is being distributed in electronic format to a number of people who are being asked to read it and endorse it, if they choose. We hope to get a fairly wide response from Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readers. The book will appeal to evangelical Protestants in particular, but in general it is intended for all Christians who care about Christ’s mission and their unity with one another.

The book is scheduled for an April 2010 release. I expect to see my first copy by March. Between now and then a great deal is being done on the book before it is released. Besides finishing cover design, and writing a foreword (pray for the person who will do this as we are not sure yet who this will be), a Web site is being developed for the book and further plans for publicity are being developed. I will be telling you a lot more about this book in the months ahead. Your Church Is Too Small will allow me to tell my story and to promote the vision that I believe God gave to me in the 1990s, a vision to see a new ecumenism develop at the grass roots. This is where Christians really live and work together for the advance of Christ’s kingdom throughout the earth. Please pray for Your Church Is Too Small and all that still goes into its final stages of editing and promotion before its release next April.

Moderate Muslims and the Islamists

If radical Islam is to be countered in North America and Europe it seems that it will take much more than military force and positive education. The key to a successful resistance against jihad is quite likely to be found in the efforts of moderate Muslims who resist the Islamic fascists inside their own communities. Thankfully there are a number of courageous Muslims who are willing to make this very dangerous effort in the West.

The 2007 documentary film Islam vs. Islamists: Muslims Against Jihad, produced by Canadian novelist and veteran documentary filmmaker Martyn Burke, tells the story of these moderate Muslims and their efforts to resist radical Wahabbism. (Wahabbism is the radical Muslim sect that is the force behind the most militant expressions of Islam.) The story of attacks upon moderate Muslims by Muslims is very troubling. It is most troubling because Westerners have little or no grasp of the real dangers inherent in this courageous Muslim stance. This two-disc documentary ought to be required viewing for everyone who wants to understand this important struggle for the future of Islam.

I believe the West is not only ill-informed about Islam but we fear opposing the radical voices of Wahabbism lest we be guilty of intolerance and bigotry. The protection of tolerance and freedom actually requires us to be vigilant. Filmmaker Martyn Burke has given us one of the finest resources I have seen to counteract our malaise. The tragedy is that Burke’s excellent documentary has itself been overtly controversial. This should not be since Burke is not a political partisan in any meaningful sense. He is a green-card carrying Canadian and considers himself neither conservative nor liberal. His wife is a member of the ACLU. His concern, in this documentary, is to show how moderate Muslims are being silenced and intimidated by the Islamist extremists. Anyone can easily see that he keeps politics completely out of this series if they view it for themselves.

So what is so controversial about Burke’s documentary? In the spring of 2007 PBS aired a series on post-9/11 America titled “America at a Crossroads.” Originally Burke’s material was to be included in this series but it was cut because it was not completed on time (Burke denies this point) and, more importantly, because it was deemed “alarmist” and non-objective. Having seen the video I have to tell you I think that charge is unadulterated rubbish.

Burke received $700,000 from public funding to make this two-part series. He now regrets this arrangement since the public source then had the power to censure the final product. In an interview dated April 17, 2007, posted at www.frontpagemag.com, Burke explained how the project broke down and why. The real reasons are revealing and, quite frankly, deeply alarming. If you think the freedom of the press is not threatened you should check out this controversy. Whether from the left or the right freedom of press is a freedom that we far too easily surrender, especially in times of conflict.

The documentary portrays the struggle through the stories of a number of moderate Muslims in Denmark, France, Canada and the United States. Each of them has been threatened and several are even required to have body guards 24/7. Burke says, of the project, “We hired a team of journalists, some of the best we could get our hands on, who are reporters from major newspapers in France, Denmark and Toronto. We had a Pulitzer Prize nominee and a woman profiled in the New York Times for the excellence of her team. We were just about making a documentary on this topic but we found ourselves enmeshed in politics unlike I have never seen before.”

All documentaries clearly have a point of view. This is the nature of the genre and everyone knows it. Burke’s point of view was clear to PBS from the start—there are a considerable number of moderate Muslims who are afraid to speak up because of the attacks of Islamists. Burke says PBS wanted his film to become an apology for the Islamists. He says PBS wanted him to represent the Islamists as a more moderate strain of Islam and thus to downplay the real moderate forces in the Muslim world and the West.

So why did PBS finally reject Burke’s film? Their answer is that he would not fire his two partners, Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev. Both partners are political conservatives. This is not in question. PBS argued that Burke (photo right) should have checked out his associates in advance. He said he did not, and would not, blacklist anyone because of their political views even though he is not a conservative. He had known these two partners from covering other stories with them and he believed them to be good journalists. Burke said in 2007 that he had never dealt with a more “politically biased” network than PBS. (He has worked in France, Britain, Canada and the United States for more than two decades.) He said in the April 2007 interview, “It’s just raw politics taking precedence over journalism.” So much for freedom of speech.

This series, rejected by PBS, was finally aired by Fox News. Fox News is not always the best source for both sides of a debate but in this case they showed courage and proved that alternative news sources, both conservative and liberal, do have their place in a free society. You can now buy or rent these two DVDs at Netflix. I assure you that they will open your eyes to understand just how hard it is to really resist radical Islam here in the U.S. You will clearly see the duplicity of Muslim leaders who say one thing to the American press and quite another to their own followers. This is so apparent as to be beyond debate. (Do you know where most all of the money for the huge mosques in your city comes from? What if I told you it was petro-dollars from Saudi Arabia? And what if I told you it was money given based on a compromise reached after the 1979 Wahabbi uprising at Mecca?) We had better wake up and help all the moderate Muslims we can. If this war is about minds and ideas then the trench in which this war will finally be won will be filled by earnest and freedom loving Muslims. In the days ahead I intend to find and support moderate Muslims wherever possible. Through their noble and courageous efforts our long held commitment to freedom can be preserved where it really counts, in our neighborhoods and communities.

You Build Trust By Trusting

A key to any business, and its economic success, is building trust with both its employees and its customers. The world financial markets nearly collapsed last fall because people in the financial industry lacked trust. Credit almost stopped flowing. Even the biggest banks refused to lend to each other because they were not sure they would be repaid. This is the way Dov Seidman, the founder and CEO of LRN, sees it. LRN is a company that helps businesses develop ethical corporate cultures. Seidman is also the author of How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything . . . in Business (and in Life). Seidman believes we went through a time in which we took trust for granted. But this all changed last year.

Trust is absolutely essential if long-term enduring relationships are to be built in any area of business. It drives risk-taking and this leads to innovation and progress. But how do you gain this trust, especially when it has been lost? Siedman writes, "It doesn't hurt to be honest and ethical." Christians, of all people, should resonate with this observation. But what many will not resonate with is Seidman's observation about how to get trust. He says, "What most managers don't get, though, is that the best way to build trust is to extend it to others."

Read that quote again. If you want trust you have to show trust. Seidman gives a few simple examples when he writes of a donut shop in New York where the owner decided to let customers make their own change from coins left on the counter. The result was he was able to serve customers faster and they appreciated his shop all the more. He won loyal trusting customers and left his competitors behind.

Netflix, the widely known film rental company, allows its employees to take vacation whenever they want to and feel the need. And they have no "x number of vacation days" in a year. (There policy says there is "no policy of tracking.") What they do measure is results. There policy is freedom and responsibility. There policy on entertainment, expenses, travel and gifts is only five words long: "Act in Netflix's best interests." I find this amazing in our modern business climate.

The rock band Radiohead recently released a new album online for free, trusting fans to decide how much to pay. (Anyone remember Keith Green and how the Christian industry reacted when he did the same with free albums?) Radiohead says it has generated more revenue with this new approach than with any previous album they have released.

But the most amazing such story of all is the one about the University of Michigan Health System. It encourages doctors to apologize when they make mistakes, trusting patients to forgive them. They openly risk legal liability in the process. The number of malpractice suits has dwindled, and other providers are now adopting this same approach.

Seidman's own company, LRN, encourages employees to file honest expense reports. To do this they did away with tight oversight and require no pre-approval for airfares, etc. The result has been a decrease in money the company spends.

LRN seeks to inspire trust and high performance. To accomplish this they saw a need to let some people go. They extended this principle of trust to people who were being laid off and the results were rather astounding. People were allowed to have a say in the timing of their leaving and they were encouraged to take their laptops and cell phones with them. No one was asked to sign a waiver so as not to take the company to court. Outside legal counsel told Seidman not to follow this course. When former employees were surveyed 85% said they agreed with the company decision to let them go. The result? LRN is a "far more unified company now."

Seidman says managers have "lots of tools for getting what they want out of their people, most of which fall into two categories: sticks and carrots. But to inspire employees to actually care, managers should judiciously put their own trust to use."

This is an amazing story. But it is precisely what the church ought to be doing in leading the way during these challenging times. As disciples of Jesus we ought to empower people to pursue what God has placed in their hearts and then help them through our support and challenge. If pastors and church leaders really trusted their congregation (and each other) I wonder what would happen? Here's a great idea: Make trust a key element in how you treat people and build a relationship that truly helps you to manage the work of the ministry more effectively. I think I will promote this concept widely in the months ahead.

Lessons on Diet from the World's Oldest Person

It might be a sign of my advancing age but I found the recent report of the death of the world's oldest person humorous. Let me explain.

Gertrude Baines died a few days ago in Los Angeles at the ripe age of 115. Gertrude appeared in a much watched You Tube video clip last year when she voted for Barack Obama. The world's oldest person is now believed to be Kama Chinen, who lives in Japan. But Gertrude lived in Los Angeles. My first response was very very simple: "How does the world's oldest person live in L.A.?" You have to be kidding I thought to myself. L.A.? Smog, traffic and too many people. L.A.?

Gertrude Baines was born in Shellman, Georgia, on April 6, 1894, when Grover Cleveland was in the White House, radio communication was just being developed and television was still more than a half-century from becoming a ubiquitous household presence.

She was 4 years old when the Spanish-American War broke out and 9 when the first World Series was ever played. This means Gertrude actually 14 when the Cubs won their last Word Series. Amazing. There aren't many of them around. She had already only reached middle age by the time the U.S. entered World War II in 1941.

But Gertrude's diet is what really impressed me. She said that she lived to be 115 on a steady diet of crispy bacon, fried chicken and ice cream. I thought to myself, "That has to be the diet of choice for a long life!" Finally, I could stop feeling guilty about my dish of ice cream or some of my other food choices. The guilt is gone. I even enjoyed a chocolate brownie dessert yesterday with a friend. Gertrude has to be my new icon of diet and health. Who could argue with such a choice given the evidence of Gertrude Baines' long life?

The Power of Social Media and the Internet Revolution

I listen to many people in my generation who remain skeptical about the impact of the media revolution that we are clearly in the middle of in 2009. There can be a certain smugness that comes from older people who believe that the young are always talking about things that are not going to happen or will not make a real difference in the end since this was not the way things were in our day. Well, my peers could not be more wrong in this particular instance. We are seeing a huge social revolution that is impacting everything from purchasing to learning. It has helped to elect a president and it is creating interest in the claims of Christ every single day. If you want to see just how much this revolution has already changed things, and get a good feel for what is coming very soon, watch this You Tube link. It is very impressive stuff.

There is no doubt in my mind that Christians will adjust to this revolution as they have adjusted to other such changes in the past. My real concern is how fast they will adjust. In the various changes that we underwent in the twentieth century Christians were always slow to respond. I am personally committed to not being behind this curve. This is why I use Twitter and Facebook every single day. These can be badly used, like anything else, but they can be used for great good. In fact I am using them a good bit more now than I did just two weeks ago. This is also why I have become more impressed with the power of blogging every single day.

It was pretty neat to host the first ACT 3 Luncheon of this season on Wednesday and to see Dan Jones meet Chris Crimminger in person. (Chris is a pastor who lives in southern Indiana and Dan is a student of mine who lives in the Chicago suburb of Brookfield.) Before Wednesday Dan and Chris knew each only via this blog site. Now they have met and become friends.

Look my friends. this media has great potential for real friendship if it is used well. The naysayers make a valid point now and then about abuses and the craziness of some of this stuff but overall they are the modern Luddites when it comes to the Internet and all that is associated with its vast potential. Watch this video and you will see what I mean.

Judging Others

There are some obvious tensions that we encounter when we read the Scriptures. One such tension that often causes significant problems between Christians is the biblical teaching regarding judging others.

The Scriptures do teach us to avoid judgmental attitudes toward others, especially in dealing with Christians. At the same time we are clearly encouraged to developing a discerning attitude that can evaluate people and ministries carefully; e.g, 1 Cor. 5:12-13; 1 Cor. 5:1-5; 6:1-6; Matthew 7:15-20; 2 Cor. 11:10-15. This is the tension I refer to here. How can we follow both of these standards? No matter how you apply these texts you will soon have to admit that judging and discerning sometimes do get very close to one another.

The temptation to pass judgment upon the life or testimony of other individuals is clearly warned against in the New Testament. If you have lived in a Christian context where the truth of your church or mission is extremely important than the tendency will always be to err on the side of passing judgment wrongly or unfairly. I have seen more of this misuse of Scripture than I care to think about. I have also done more than my share of judging others critically and unfairly.

I recently dipped into a great resource on my shelves titled: The Quotable Oswald Chambers (Grand Rapids: RBC Ministries, 2008). Chambers had a lot of great thoughts about this subject. I find him extremely wise. Here are a few of his comments on judging others.

We say that a man is not right with God unless he acts on the line of the precedent we have established. We must drop our measuring-rods for God and for our fellow men. All we can know about God is that His character is what Jesus Christ has manifested; and all we know about our fellow men presents an enigma which precludes the possibility of the final judgment being with us.

What a marvelous reminder of our human weakness and limitations. The "enigma" precludes the possibility of final judgment residing with us.

Chambers is again insightful when he says:

We pronounce judgments, not by our character or our goodness, but by the intolerant ban of finality in our views, which awakens resentment and has none of the Spirit of Jesus in it. Jesus never judged like that. It was His presence, His inherent holiness that judged. Whenever we see Him we are judged instantly. We have to practice the presence of Jesus and work on the basis of his disposition. When we have experienced the unfathomable forgiveness of God for all our wrong, we must exhibit that same forgiveness to others.

I wish I had a dollar for all the times that I allowed my views to lead me to embrace "an intolerant ban of finality in [my] views." Chambers' ideas here are quite powerful. He says the "presence" of Jesus was judgment in itself. If my life was holy, in the best and fullest sense, then my words would not be needed to judge most situations. My life would raise all the right questions if I lived as I should.

I think the most common form of judging that I have experienced, and this is why I write about this so often in these blogs, is the judgment Christians feel they must exercise toward fellow Christians because they do not believe the "gospel" in just the way we do. Catholics do it when they say Christ is found only in the Catholic Church and its sacraments. Protestants do it when they insist that Rome teaches a false gospel and thus Catholics are all condemned by Galatians 1 for preaching a "false gospel." This very fruitless exercise harms the work of Christ profoundly and grieves the Holy Spirit. Oswald Chambers is helpful when he concludes:

Beware of mistaking suspicion for discernment; it is the biggest misunderstanding that ever twisted Christian humility into Pharisaism.

In Oswald Chambers' study of the Sermon on the Mount he wrote:

The average Christian is the most penetratingly critical individual; there is nothing of the likeness of Jesus Christ about him. A critical temper is a contradiction to all our Lord's teaching. Jesus says of criticism, "Apply it to yourself, never to anyone else." "Why do you judge your brother? . . . for we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ."

And he says in Notes on Isaiah:

The danger is lest we make the little bit of truth we do know a pinnacle on which we set ourselves to judge everyone else. It is perilously easy to make our conception of God like molten lead and pour it into our specially designed mould and then when it is cold and hard, fling it at the heads of the religious people who don't agree with us.

This is precisely how I treated Catholics for many years. I read a great deal of polemical argumentation about what was wrong with Catholic teaching and Catholic teachers. I stereotypically used the bits and pieces I collected to pour this into my designed mould. Then when these views hardened I had something to fling against other Christians. The problem here is really rather uncomplicated. First, I used teaching that I did not agree with out of misunderstanding and fear. Second, I then mixed this into a mold that made me feel like I was in the right and they were in the wrong. Then it is only a baby step to judging wrongly.

The number one mistake I encounter among evangelicals who judge Catholics to be non-Christians is in how they take a piece of theological debate, or of historical conflict, and then use it as the "right understanding" of the Catholic position. The most egregious example of this is quite common. Catholics teach that we are saved by our human works so they preach a false gospel. This statement is patently false but most who use it never bother to find out why. It is just much easier to hold on to our specially designed mould and keep throwing things around the room.

Some Final Thoughts About the Problem of Modalism

As Christian thinkers continued to deal with various errors regarding the incarnation and the Trinity they eventually developed a formula called the “communication of attributes.” This expressed the idea that although Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man, he is but one person. Because he is one person, and thus a single subject in both a psychological and grammatical sense, what is said about the person of Christ may logically be said about both God and man. For this reason it is always right to say that God was born, suffered, died and rose. But this statement is only right if we also affirm that while the Son is God, God is not only the Son but also the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Martin Luther developed this idea about the attributes even further. He wanted to stressed the communication of the attributes so profoundly that he insisted the human body of Christ possessed the divine attribute of omnipresence. This would mean that (somehow) Jesus was present in Jerusalem but at the same time he was present in his body everywhere. Luther’s opponents suggested that he compromised the humanity of Christ in the process. He insisted that he was defending it. I agree with his critics but I do not think he was guilty of a great error in any true sense of the word. But, and this is important I think, his teaching challenged a richer, fuller truth by overstating his case. On the other end of the Reformation spectrum John Calvin so stressed the human and divine in Christ that he came close to splitting him into two persons. (He never actually did this but his emphasis does seems to be slightly off, at least as many theologians have understood him.)

What all these Christian teachers had in common was their earnest belief in the divinity of Christ. They all wanted to make sure that others truly believed in him as Lord. And they took the incarnation very seriously. Contrary to liberal theology, as it developed in the last two centuries, all of these men openly stated their faith in Christ as Lord and, when called upon, would die for that faith. Praxeas, as we saw, did confess his faith in a way that could have actually cost him his life.

Harold O. J. Brown concludes:

Would modern theologians, if challenged to confess their faith in court and give their lives for it, be ready to die for their theology, or would most prefer to explain it away as only a theory or an interpretation? In the absence of persecution, it is impossible to know what others will do. Indeed, even the most orthodox and traditional Christians would be unwise to boast in advance of how they would respond to persecution and the threat of a painful death. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that one senses a tremendous urgency and genuineness in the early heretics that one misses in the more urbane and academic discussions of modern theologians (Heresies, 102).

Modalism: The Error About Christ That Keeps on Ticking

Modalism has a definite basis in Scripture, as do most false or deficient ideas about God. In the case of modalism appeal can be made to John 10:30 which says, “I and the Father are one.” And John 14:9 says, “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” Instead of seeing these verses as saying Christ is the second person in the Trinity, and thus a person who is in perfect communion with the Father, the modalist sees Christ and the Father as the same person but appearing in two different forms/modes. But John 10:30 uses the neuter hen in Greek, which means “one deity, one divine essence.” This point is missed by ordinary readers or by those who simply refuse to accept the doctrine of the Trinity because they cannot explain it to their own satisfaction. Jesus is not saying “I and the Father are one and the same person.” He is saying that he is one in essence with the Father and thus he stands in closest relationship with him.

Modalism sometimes arises because a person will not accept the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. But in most conservative circles this doctrine is strongly believed so this has very little to do with the modalism that people unwittingly embrace. It arises, when people do think about the Trinity at all, because they attempt to reduce the mystery of the Trinity to a concept that they can understand and explain with ease. In more conservative circles the loss is, generally speaking, the humanity of Jesus. Make no mistake about it this loss is immense. The longer I live, and the more I listen to conservative Christians talk about God, the more convinced I am that losing the humanity of Jesus has actually left us with a faith that lacks the ability to meaningfully relate the gospel to real human persons.

The first known modalist in church history was a man named Praxeas. It should be clearly stated that Praxeas was a committed follower of Jesus Christ. It is easy for people reading about this today to miss this important point. Fundamentalism has led many to conclude that anyone who holds to a serious error in theology is not a follower of Jesus. History proves this is patently untrue.

Praxeas was a Christian confessor. This meant that he was brought before a judge (in Asia Minor in this case) and openly confessed his faith in Jesus Christ before traveling to Rome in the year 190 A.D. Praxeas opposed the Montanists and their new, prophetic revelations. When he finally arrived in Rome the bishop, a man named Victor, openly welcomed him in his battle to put down adoptionism, a doctrine being popularized by a teacher named Theodotus the Tanner. Praxeas’ emphasis on the full divinity of Christ was a great help to the bishop. But Praxeas also taught that Jesus was God the Father and God the Father was born in time. This aroused the opposition of Tertullian who wrote a book titled: Against Praxeas. Ironically, Tertullian himself later moved into Montanism.

The late Harold O. J. Brown says, “The appearance of modalism in Rome by the last decade of the second century marks the extent of the victory of orthodoxy over Gnosticism, which had been flourishing not many years earlier” (Heresies, 100). Praxeas eventually taught that Christ revealed the Father by actually being the Father. By this means orthodoxy was attacked from the exact opposite end of the spectrum of Gnosticism and adoptionism. To avoid the doctrine that the Father suffered on the cross Praxeas made a distinction between the man Jesus and the Christ, who is God. He reasoned that Christ, who is the Father, adopted the man Jesus and dwelled in him. The struggles of adoptionism and modalism came about because people could not make clear, in their own minds and ideas, what is ultimately a supreme mystery: the doctrine of the incarnation. We must always remember that we can state this truth but we can never explain it in a way that can be completely comprehended by human understanding because revealed truth is always transcendent.

Modalism: The Most Common of All Christian Mistakes About Christ

Modalism is a word unfamiliar to ordinary Christians. This is unfortunate in a way that I want to explain the next several days. The word modalism may not be widely known but the idea is the most common theological error among people who believe they are fully orthodox. Modalism, in brief, is the idea that the three persons in the Trinity are different modes of God’s activity rather than separate/distinct persons.

Subordinationism taught that the second and third persons of the Trinity were in a secondary relationship to God the Father. Modalism tended toward a denial of any distinction between God and Christ. It taught that there was one absolute God, and thus the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were three different modes (“forms”) of God. In this view God shows himself under three names just as an actor might wear three different masks to play three different roles (persona) in a play. The most common way that I hear this idea illustrated is in analogies people employ to talk about the Trinity. A common one is to speak of me, for example, as one person while at the same time I am a father, a son and a brother. But this idea is clearly not faithful to the biblical doctrine of Trinity. I hope to show you why by explaining the problem of modalism.

Why is modalism so popular? It is the simplest way to explain the Trinity while at the same time preserving the oneness of God. Adoptionism preserved the unity of the godhead by sacrificing the deity of Christ. Modalism preserves the unity of the godhead by abandoning the personhood of Christ and the Holy Spirit but by affirming deity strongly. Modern conservatives often fall into this trap because they do insist on the deity of Christ but then have little or no grasp of the doctrine of the Trinity to support that belief.

Modalism thus occurs among conservatives precisely because in upholding the deity of Christ they do fail to see him as a distinct person vis-à-vis the Father. The modalist sees the Father at work in creation and in giving Israel the law. Modalism sees the Son coming to live and die for our salvation. And it sees the Holy Spirit coming after Christ’s ascension to reveal him to us and to live his life in us. Modalsim thus correctly avoids the idea that Christ is a second God alongside the Father. So what is the essential mistake here? Modalism abandons the diversity of persons within the godhead and thus loses the core biblical idea that Christ is our representative (advocatus) with the Father.

Modalism logically leads to the notion that the events of redemptive history are a kind of divine charade. Since the Son is not a distinct person in modalism he cannot fully represent us before the Father. But this is just the beginning of the problems this  thinking causes. Modalism is also docetic. Docetism taught that Christ only appeared to be human. He was human in appearance only, not in his essence. If he was divine then God died on the cross and God cannot die. The consequence of all this is to believe that while Christ died he could not have been truly human. He only appeared to be human. This is a major error and one that has wreaked havoc in conservative understanding. It undermines the uniqueness of our message in a way that makes it less able to affect the whole human person who is redeemed by the fully human Christ.