John H Armstrong

Joel Osteen on Divine Providence: Amazing

For many years I have been asked again and again, “Is Joel Osteen a heretic?” In many instances the question itself reveals more about the questioner than it does about this sometimes controversial preacher. Let me explain.

First, we need to ask: “What is heresy?” A modified (and helpful) answer from Wikipedia provides the following (slightly edited) insight:

In Christian history and practice heresy is the rejection of one or more established beliefs of orthodoxy. Christian heresy refers to non-orthodox practices and beliefs that were deemed to be heretical by one or more of the Christian churches. In the West, the term "heresy" most commonly refers to those beliefs which were declared to be anathema by the Catholic Church prior to the schism of 1054. In the East, the term "heresy" most commonly refers to those beliefs declared to be "heretical" by the First Seven Ecumenical Councils. However, since the Great Schism and the Protestant Reformation, various Christian churches have also used the concept in proceedings against individuals and groups deemed to be heretical by those churches. The Catholic Church considers the Protestant denominations to be heretical and considers the Eastern Orthodox schismatics. [Since Vatican II this statement has clearly been understood in a different way!]

Heresy is a controversial or novel change to the essentials found in a Christian system of beliefs that conflict with established dogma. Heresy should be clearly distinguished from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's previously confessed faith and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward Christian faith.

If this understanding is applied to Joel Osteen one could make a case that his “prosperity” message is heretical. But if we press this far enough, and are exposed broadly enough to the global Christian church, we soon learn that this prosperity error is taught in many places and by many Christian teachers who faithfully preach Christ. In spite of this error many such preachers do immense good for the gospel. This doesn’t make their error acceptable but it should make us pause and be more cautious about throwing a heresy bomb at them.

Let me go further. Osteen is controversial because his message is at times jumbled and seems to not be clearly thought out. He is not a biblical scholar nor a student of systematic theology. Those who attack him, and there is a lot of ammunition for them to use to launch such an attack, will find him a relatively easy target. Take something from a portion of a book, a clip from one of his sermons. or a poor response from a Larry King Live program. You will find a lot of smoke and you all know the proverb: “Where there’s smoke there will be fire!” But is it wise, and right, to attack Osteen in the public media? I think not. Let me explain.

There is a huge unofficial “heresy police” force roaming around the media of America, online and in print. It brings in huge support. The facts are plain. As much as Osteen makes through his positive messages you can also make a great deal by attacking him. Besides this there is a personality type that feeds on the chub of this kind of heresy ministry. Point out who preaches error and you can thus prove your own orthodoxy. Few ever realize how wrong this approach is, both ethically and theologically. For starters it is not wholistic but modernistic. (By this I mean it lifts bits and pieces and makes them the whole!) Most of us who teach publicly will be labeled heretics by someone else over time. (I heard Harold Camping say last week that everyone in every church who has not heeded his call to leave the church before the Second Coming on May 11 is a heretic and truly damned!) I know this business of broad charges of heresy firsthand since several noted evangelical leaders have used the term for me and my teaching. I have appealed to my open confession of the creeds and confessions of the church that I am ordained by as a minister (Reformed Church in America) but this means nothing to the typical conservative heresy hunter. I suppose this all makes me even more cautious about the attacks on Osteen from these same types of people.

Let me be clear about this. I am not endorsing everything Joel Osteen says or does. I have no horse in this race. I simply question the methods employed in attacking him for denying Christ and the gospel. If I was asked to grade him on solid theological curve I would not give him a high grade in some areas. If I was asked to grade him on whether or not he helps a lot of hungry Christian people then I think the answer would be quite different. I am not sure I completely understand how this works but God seems pleased to use all kinds of people to serve his flock. Joel Osteen is my brother and as such I pray for him and seek to see how the good he does can be acknowledged. If there are errors to expose then I would do that within a relationship, not by attacking him in broad daylight. If he had been disciplined in a proper way then my response would also be different. I just do not believe in the discipline produced by the process of public opinion.

I was in Houston several years ago and met with one of the most theologically astute persons that I know. He had firsthand experience of Osteen, his church people and his staff. He knew people whose lives had been transformed by the power of Christ in this congregation and through this brother’s ministry. This brother, like me, is not a big fan of the teaching of Joel Osteen but like me he sees much more good than bad. He was, in other words, cautious to throw bombs. He allowed love to rule his words and responses while he also retained a deep theological conviction himself.

I suppose that is my big concern here. We need to be much more cautious in throwing these bombs. I am committed to building bridges myself! I believe bomb throwers are people who generally love themselves and their beliefs much more than Christ and real flesh and blood people.

I began to think about Joel Osteen again last week when I saw a video clip on my Facebook page. I then went on to look at several of his YouTube clips and found one that really blew me away. In this sermon Osteen says that you and I live in a “controlled environment.” His ideas are a little over the edge at the corners but in the big picture he paints a glorious and strong view of divine providence. I actually wanted to call this blog: “Joel Osteen the Calvinist” but I chose to not be too sensational. Watch this and see for yourself. Forget the things you’ve heard and just watch.

As I said the ideas here border on a form of hyper-determinism (“God pulls the strings!) but if you see this in context you have to conclude, if you are fair-minded at all, that this man really believes in personal divine providence. Osteen says, “Nothing in life happens by chance, by happenstance.” That’s pretty Christian stuff folks.

After watching this video I went back to my own confessional tradition and read Chapter 13 of The Belgic Confession. I do not know if Joel Osteen has ever read this paragraph but he sure seems to believe it based on this sermon. Here is chapter 13:

Article 13: The Doctrine of God's Providence

• We believe that this good God, after he created all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement.

  Yet God is not the author of, nor can he be charged with, the sin that occurs. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that he arranges and does his work very well and justly even when the devils and wicked men act unjustly.

  We do not wish to inquire with undue curiosity into what he does that surpasses human understanding and is beyond our ability to comprehend. But in all humility and reverence we adore the just judgments of God, which are hidden from us, being content to be Christ's disciples, so as to learn only what he shows us in his Word, without going beyond those limits.

  This doctrine gives us unspeakable comfort since it teaches us that nothing can happen to us by chance but only by the arrangement of our gracious heavenly Father. He watches over us with fatherly care, keeping all creatures under his control, so that not one of the hairs on our heads (for they are all numbered) nor even a little bird can fall to the ground^20 without the will of our Father.

  In this thought we rest, knowing that he holds in check the devils and all our enemies, who cannot hurt us without his permission and will.

  For that reason we reject the damnable error of the Epicureans, who say that God involves himself in nothing and leaves everything to chance.

  ^20 Matt. 10:29-30

Our Perception of Reality

Author James P. Danaher writes, in his excellent book, Eyes That See, Ears That Hear: Perceiving Jesus in a Postmodern Context (Liguori, 2006):

Our perception of reality is changing. We are rapidly moving beyond the modern world to which we had become so accustomed over the last three hundred years. What is the blessing God has for us in these changes? God always has a blessing, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear (see Romans 11:8). So how are we to perceive this changing world order that we do not miss God’s blessing? (xiii).

Many have labeled this changing new reality as postmodernism. The problem with this label is that few bother to explain what they mean when they use it. For some this word is a 2 x 4 with which to club anyone who raises serious questions about how we believe the gospel in the 21st century. I rather think the word is a “scare” word and should be avoided in most contexts.

The facts are clear, however. People today are searching for answers that do not fit with the reigning paradigms of math and science. There is room for a kind of knowing that is objective but not in the sense that philosophers and scientists have argued since the Enlightenment.

Modernity promised a kind of Utopia and the 20th century proved this to be a failure. Science seems unable to save us and truth has never been understood only in mathematical formulas. Truth is found in beauty and story and postmodern young people know this and hunger for more of it.

A personal relationship with God is based on knowing Jesus Christ as risen and ascended. It is not based on the methods of scientific theory but on a knowing that transcends such categories. This does not mean that Christian faith is irrational but that it transcends rationality. The truth the Enlightenment gave us created modern technology but the truth and meaning of the Christian life existed before technology and will never be limited to it. Knowing a living person cannot be reduced to knowing propositions about life.

The gospel involves deep commitment to a truth that cannot be understood apart from seeing and knowing. Soren Kierkegaard understood this before modernity became so totally dominant in the West. Modernity gave us certitude, confidence that we knew precisely what was true. But “the gospel leads us to an understanding founded upon a divine beauty that we behold in humble awe” (Danaher, xv). The truth of the gospel gets hold of us, it changes us and it shapes us into loving and forgiving beings who are empowered to establish and develop relationships with God and one another. This is the greatest evidence we have for the truth of the gospel according to the apostle John (cf. 1 John 2: 3-11; 3:16-24; 4:7-21).

James Danaher, whose book I wrote about some months ago on this site, concludes:

Fortunately, we now know that the scientific reasoning that modernity insisted upon is not the universal form of right reason it had claimed to be but merely represents one form of reason. With that understanding, we are now free to pursue forms of rationality more compatible with a gospel that is personal and mysteriously beautiful rather than objective and mathematically precise (xv).

After I last mentioned this book, Eyes That See, Ears That Hear, I wrote Professor Danaher with the intention of getting to know him personally. We exchanged emails and finally, last week, spent an hour on the telephone. I sent him my book, Your Church Is Too Small, and he read it and liked it too. I fully expected that Dr. Danaher was a young man but he is actually a year older than me. I was pleased to learn this since it reminded me that I am not alone in my generation of evangelicals in wanting to show people with a teachable spirit what is profoundly wrong with modernity as a way of relating to Jesus and the gospel. James Danaher is professor and chair of the department of philosophy at Nyack College in Nyack, New York. His areas of academic expertise include 17th and 18th century British Empiricism. He has also written and taught extensively on postmodern hermeneutics and philosophical theology. 

For those who do not know Nyack is a small Christian Missionary Alliance college in a small town. It is not a place known for liberal thought or for people who engage in conversation about postmodernism as Dr. Danaher does. I wanted to understand why Dr. Danaher wrote this book. In short, the answer he gave me did not surprise me. He said he had so many students who rejected modernism but wanted to continue to believe the gospel and follow Jesus that he felt compelled to provide a way to do this with meaning and purpose. The result is the finest primer on this subject I have ever read, period. If you asked me, “John, what is the one book you would recommend I read to grasp this whole modern/postmodern split and how a Christian should understand it?” I would tell you to read Eyes That See, Ears That Hear.

Danaher concludes his preface by writing (xv):

Contrary to what some have led us to believe, a postmodern world is not one in which all order, meaning, and truth is lost. Rather, all that is lost is the kind of order, meaning, and truth that modernity insisted upon. The good news of the postmodern gospel is that, with the end of modernity, we now have an ever-greater opportunity to order our lives, not based on an understanding of some universal, objective truth, but rather on an intimate understanding of a truth that is personal—indeed, a truth that is a person (John 14:6).

If you have listened to various arguments about postmodernism and faith and are confused then please read Danaher. If you are a student, or a 20 or 30-something who wonders if you can remain a Christian based upon how you were taught to perceive the world, then read Danaher. If you are an older guy like me and just want to get this whole debate about postmodernism and Christianity clear in your mind and heart then read Danaher. Honestly, everyone who ever uses this term postmodernism ought to read this book. You have heard famous preachers tell you how bad postmodernism is for the Christian faith, equating the word with liberalism, denial of Christ and rejection of biblical authority. Question that premise with all your mind and heart and read Danaher to understand what they have not told you and why it matters to faith today. If you simply want to better understand how to present the faith in a world that no longer is impressed with a scientific argument then read this book. I read it twice last year. I will read it again in 2011. It has become one of the most important books in my library. I cannot encourage you too strongly to get this book.

How Can Doctrinal Fidelity and Christian Unity Be Reconciled?

Cardinal Avery Dulles, one of the truly important voices in American Catholicism in the twentieth century, was a very insightful thinker about the nature of the church and ecumenism. Not only was he a first-class scholar he was also a first-class Christian gentleman. He was a man of the mind and the heart. He worked tirelessly for the greater good of all Christ’s people. Though I have many friends who knew Avery Dulles personally I never had the privilege of personally meeting him face-to-face.

In an article he wrote in 1986 he posed a question I am asked on a weekly basis: “If a measure of doctrinal accord is a prerequisite for Christian unity then how can we proceed in the real world?” Dulles’ second principle, under the first of his ten theses about doctrinal agreement, was (he believed) “equally indisputable.”

Complete Agreement on All Matters of Doctrine is Unattainable

Agreement on all matters of doctrine should never be regarded as necessary for unity. Why? “In every church there are certain and disputable questions.” For example, in the Roman Catholic Church, as in most other churches, there are deep and sharply different views about the relationship between divine grace and human freedom (ex. “Calvinism vs. Arminianism”).Different schools of though flourish side by side with the same church. This is why Augustine, agreeing with Cyprian, said on certain questions one may think differently without sacrificing one’s right to communion. Pope John XXIII, in an encyclical of 1959, reiterated the ancient principle: “In necessary (fundamental) truths unity, in other matters (less essential) liberty, in all things charity (love).” This distinction was upheld by ancient Christians, Reformers and even Puritans. Tragically many today refuse to seriously practice it.

Dulles notes that important work was done on this problem by the French Reformed theologian Pierre Jurieu (1637−1713). Jurieu held that the fundamental articles were relatively small, at least in terms of what was necessary for one to be a Christian. Jurieu listed items such as the unity of God, the divine character of the revealed word, the messiahship of Christ and his divine Sonship. Jurieu’s position allowed him to write about cutting across denominational lines, which was contested by both Catholic and Protestant contemporaries. Some things are not new.

But What Are the Essentials?

Spelling out the essentials is notoriously not easy. American fundamentalism began with the “five fundamentals” (the inerrancy of the Bible, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, Christ’s substitutionary atonement, and his physical resurrection and future bodily return). Dulles notes, “The list given illustrates how difficult it is to specify the essentials.” Since fundamentalism was formed in opposition to liberalism it is time-conditioned and representative of a particular kind of response to issues of that time.

Christians of almost any other tradition would draw up very different fundamentals. The majority would have insisted on the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the true humanity of Christ, the primary of grace, the divine origin of the church, the value and importance of sacraments, etc. All of these are missing from the five fundamentals. Lutherans would likely want to stress justification by faith while the Orthodox would insist on tradition and liturgy in a very important way.

In 1928 Pope Pius XI rejected the very idea of distinguishing between fundamental and non-fundamental articles of faith. He said the assent of faith is motivated by God the revealer and thus it must extend without distinction to everything divinely revealed. This is the same stance of many very conservative Protestants as well. The Pope argued, as do many evangelicals and fundamentalists, that unity can never be attained by subscription to a limited number of articles of faith.

Yet this was clearly not the last word from the Catholic Church on the issue. In 1963, at Vatican Council II, Archbishop Andrea Pangrazio of Italy made a speech in which he said: “Even though all revealed truths are to be believed with the same divine faith and all constitutive elements of the church maintained with the same loyalty, nevertheless not all receive and hold the same status.”

Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism

Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism called further attention to the fact that there exists a certain hierarchy of church doctrines “since they vary in their relationship to the foundation of the Christian faith.” The Decree went on to exhort all Christians to profess before the whole world their faith in God, one in three, and in the incarnate Son of God, our Redeemer and Lord. Dulles adds, “The council was clearly suggesting that the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation are central and foundational for Christians. Happily, too, these primary doctrines are widely shared by Christians of many different churches and confessional traditions.”

A Hierarchy of Importance in Christian Doctrines

Dulles concludes, by way of a third principle, that “there is a hierarchy of importance in Christian doctrines, the most central being those Trinitarian and Christological dogmas which are presumably accepted by the vast majority of Christians.”

Dulles concludes, and this is at the core of what I conclude and thus at the basis of my argument for missional-ecumenism, that there are foundational truths which are of greater importance to all Christians and are, generally speaking, much more significant than our disagreements in other areas of doctrine.

An Ecumenism in Core Orthodoxy

I like to call this an ecumenism of core orthodoxy. We share a basic commitment to the same God, to his salvation and grace and the necessity of faith and repentance. We share a common commitment to the Christian community and the Holy Scriptures and to the life to come. We thus do not pursue unity without doctrine but unity in doctrine. This unity then allows us to work from the center, which is in Christ, outward to the areas where we can work on our disagreements in the spirit of Jesus Christ our one Lord.

Cardinal Dulles on Doctrine and Ecumenical Unity

The late Cardinal Avery Dulles (August 24, 1918 – December 12, 2008)who died two years ago this week, was a Jesuit priest, theologian and Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University. He was also an internationally known author and lecturer. My first exposure to Dulles came as a college student in the late 1960s. Several of his early books were influential in my early theological journey to missional-ecumenism. Revelation and the Quest for Unity (1968) and Models of Church, Doubleday (1974) both come to mind in this context. In 1985 he published The Catholicity of the Church (1985), which still impacts my thinking very profoundly.

Dulles had a deep family connection with the government of the United States. He was the son of U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his uncle was the Director of Central Intelligence. Both his great-grandfather, John W. Foster, and his great-uncle, Robert Lansing, served as U.S. Secretary of State.

Dulles was raised a Presbyterian but had become an agnostic by the time he began college at Harvard in 1936. His religious doubts were profoundly altered when on a rainy day he saw a tree beginning to flower along the Charles River. In his own words, after that precise moment, he never "doubted the existence of an all-good and omnipotent God." His theism eventually turned toward Christ and then specifically to Catholicism few year later (1940). A few years ago I also read his rather moving account of conversion, A Testimonial To Grace (1952). He said: "The more I examined, the more I was impressed with the consistency and sublimity of Catholic doctrine."

In 1986 Dulles wrote an article titled: “Paths to Doctrinal Agreement: Ten Theses” that was published in the journal Theological Studies. He began with this sentence: “By all accounts one of the major achievements of Vatican II was that of involving the Catholic Church officially in the ecumenical movement.” He believed that the relations between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians, and the respective churches, were improving but major divisions still continued. He was a Christian realist when it came to his assessment of progress but he believed much progress had been made and more was sure to come. I share this view, as most readers of this post realize.

The first thesis of Dulles’ paths to agreement reads as follows:

The Necessity of Doctrinal Agreement

Dulles referred to the idea that we could pursue unity by bypassing doctrine as a “blind alley.” “I call this solution false because the practice of the churches, as they engage in worship, moral teaching, and social advocacy, is intimately bound up with their doctrinal stands.” The church, argued Dulles, can not be understood as a “coalition for action.” It is a community of faith and witness, and as such needs a “shared vision.” “Members of a single church must be able to recognize one another’s beliefs as being in essential conformity with the teaching of Christ and that of the apostolic community,” he wrote.

A Measure of Doctrinal Accord is a Prerequisite for Unity

This may seem to be an impossible boundary in the face of the obvious disagreements that we share with each other as Christians from very different traditions. Tomorrow I will share the second part of Dulles understanding to explain how doctrine works to unite us in the mission of Christ.

The Danger of Theology

One can find several different dictionary definitions of theology. Perhaps the best comprehensive answer is that theology is “the rational and systematic study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truth.” More particularly, for the Christian, theology is a situated system of teachings; "Roman Catholic theology" or “Protestant Theology,” etc. In an academic context theology is a profession acquired by specialized courses in religion and Christian studies (usually taught at a college or seminary); e.g. "He/she studied theology at Fuller Theological Seminary.”

Now, theology is a needed and useful discipline. I am not only committed to theological study but I believe it is a properly recommended course of study for ministers, priests and many non-clerical leaders (elders, deacons, teachers, etc.) In the most broad sense everyone who thinks about God at all is a theologian, professional or not.

But here’s the problem---theology is often very cold and sterile, especially when it is limited to intellectual forms and human systems of thought. What changes all this is when theology serves as a means to understanding God. In this instance it can result in a healthy understanding that we will never possess a precise sense of God thus we cannot define Him or limit Him by human concepts or systems. Joseph Girzone says about his own theological training as a Catholic priest: “I . . . saw from our extensive study of Scripture that God had a sense of morality that was much more open than the narrow, rigid morality of moral theologians, or even the Church itself” (Never Alone, 1994, 6). Because Girzone read the Scriptures and understood them in this way he writes: “That was to effect radically my understanding of people later on when they came to me with very disturbing moral problems. I could always see abundant goodness alongside the very severe moral weakness in people, and learned to treat them as whole persons and not as sinners, the way Jesus, for example, treated the Samaritan women who was married five times and did not even bother to marry the last person. Jesus still saw goodness in her and chose her to announce the Good News to that Samaritan village. Churches do not treat people that way. Sinners are very carefully avoided in our churches and not allowed to take part in the real life of the church. We do not feel comfortable with sinners and we make them feel uncomfortable by not allowing them to perform services and ministries that are open to others whose lives superficially are more in keeping with Church standards (Never Alone, 6-7).

If that paragraph doesn’t resonate with you I seriously doubt that you’ve been around the church for long. It is so self-evident that a growing number of Christians are actively serving Jesus, and clearly love him deeply, but cannot relate to the church any longer. There is, in other words, growing evidence that the church actually hinders the growth and ministry of many serious Christians.

In contrast to many of us Jesus could actually look at bad people and see their great potential for good. He could see their confusion and respond to them with love. He could embrace them and thus give them hope. He continually reached out to broken people and treated them like bruised and broken sheep who were invited to approach him even though they felt unworthy in his presence. If you do not think this observation to be correct you need to put down your theology book and read the four Gospels anew.

Fr. Girzone concludes that this is the reason why a precise understanding of Jesus is more important than all the theology courses in anyone’s curriculum. “If Christianity is merely a theological system, it will at most produce a highly educated elite devoid of anything resembling the living Christ in their personal lives (Never Alone, 7-8). Ouch, that seems very close to the reality of our own time.

Sadly, much of the theology I’ve seen taught and studied over the course of my lifetime was done to validate certain positions, biblically or socially (usually both), with regard to other Christians and (sometimes) non-Christians. It was not done to foster deep love and spiritual development and formation in souls. Adds Fr. Girzone, “We teach theology, we explain Scriptures, we enact nice liturgies, we debate public issues, we parade the streets in protest marches. . . . [but] we rarely provide people with the tools they need to find their way to God” (Never Alone, 9).

I have been in at least 1,000 different congregations over the course of my lifetime. I have pastored three different congregations. The first was a small Baptist church I served while I was doing graduate work. The second was a church-plant begun in 1972, long before the modern church-planting movement. The last was a sixteen-year ministry in a fairly healthy church that was disrupted in my early years and then put back together over time. Over nearly forty years of public ministry I have preached in congregations and large evangelistic settings in South America, India, Europe and North America. I have preached in all but a few of the 50 states of America and almost every province and area of Canada. I have been in churches of almost every denominational variety, large and small, and spoken to rallies where nearly 20,000 were present. I have also taught in house churches to 5 or 10 and lectured in numerous seminaries and colleges. The problem that Fr. Girzone writes about is so obvious, at least to me, that it is not to be seriously questioned.

Theology that serves people by showing them how to know God in Jesus Christ is good theology. Theology that helps people develop their unique mind and spirit (so that they can stand on their own in the freedom of Christ not simply in a system or a denominational expression) by forming them inside and out by the person and word of Jesus Christ is good theology. Theology that brings people to Jesus, the person revealed to us in the four Gospels, is always central. Ask yourself, if you are a teacher/minister/priest: “Do I truly bring people to the feet of Jesus?” And if you are not charged with teaching and leading a church then ask yourself when you go to church: “Does this bring me to Jesus or to religion and cultural norms?” Very likely this will rattle you and drive you to Jesus if you allow the Spirit to disturb you deeply enough.

Restoring True Unity with Doctrinal Fidelity

The normal way debates about Christian unity proceed is along the lines of fairly traditional binary, left and right, models. One side says we must preserve doctrinal fidelity or we will lose the core teaching of the faith. The other side argues that without unity we stand in opposition to the very truth that the earliest Christians confessed.

My question is simple: Why must we chose one side or the other. Is this an either/or question or rather a both/and one? I think it is the latter. We need a strong, clear doctrinal basis for our conversation and fellowship to remain rooted in the ancient faith that was handed down to Christians through the centuries. The earliest creeds provide this for us. We also need a deep and growing commitment to seek relational unity in every way possible. The two are not opposites but mutually complimentary truths. What we should pursue is “unity within reconciled diversity.” This means we will not be able to join in the same communion, at least not yet in some contexts, but it means we can respect and esteem others in the Christian family who have so much to teach us about how they understand the faith and practice it. For this reason all good theology will become ecumenical theology. By listening to others and learning from them I listen to what the Spirit is saying to the whole catholic church.

 

 

 

The Importance of T. F. Torrance

Thomas Forsyth Torrance (1913 – 2007) was one of the greatest of all 20th century Christian theologians. Torrance’s diverse writing is often dense, not the easiest to grasp by simple reading and yet tremendously important. As I work away on a book on the Trinity I find myself going back to Torrance time and time again.

Tom Torrance, as his friends called him, was born in China to Scottish missionary parents. He studied classics at Edinburgh and Oxford before he studied under the famous Karl Barth at Basel. After a brief stint in New York as a teacher at Auburn Seminary World War II broke out and Torrance became a chaplain. He later served a parish in Scotland for ten more years. His best known work came by lecturing for 27 years as Professor of Christian Dogmatics at New College in the University of Edinburgh. While he wrote many books and articles advancing his own study of theology, he also translated several hundred theological writings into English from other languages. Torrance edited the English translation of the thirteen-volume, six-million-word Church Dogmatics (Germ. Die Kirchliche Dogmatik) of celebrated Swiss theologian Karl Barth. Torrance may have understood Barth as well as any other person in the last fifty years or so. If you have not read Barth and want to get into his thought through a primer to his huge body of work then the book for you is his Dogmatics in Outline.

Torrance's work has been influential in what is called the paleo-orthodox movement, a movement which I freely admit has had a profound impact on my life and thought. He is considered one of the most important Reformed theologians of our era and his work has also influenced many other Christian theologians in a number of vitally important ways. This is especially true with regards to certain aspects of the theology of Alister McGrath, a very influential evangelical Anglican theologian.

There is so much of Torrance’s work online that it would be pointless to list it all. Check out some of the list at the end of the Wikipedia article on his life and then do a general Google search and you will find a lot more. There are audios, articles, studies of his work, etc. For those who are deeply interested you might want to check out the T. F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, of which I am a member. The fellowship maintains an online journal on the work of Torrance called Particpatio. It is free and really an excellent source for serious theological reflection. I spent a good bit of time reading this journal last week and found it immensely helpful.

A Catholic Insight Into the Reformation’s Central Truth

Today, as some of you know, is not only Halloween, and All-Saints Eve, but it is Reformation Day. There was a time when this event was celebrated in many Protestant churches. I miss those celebrations. I do not miss the triumphal attitudes or the pride that often went with the celebration but I miss the powerful reminders that something very important did happen in the 16th century and it really does still matter.

Some argue that nothing that ever comes from Rome, or from a Roman Catholic writer, can ever understand the central point of the Reformation. (It intrigues me that such people are “sure” they do understand the central point but then their lives often deny it!) I strongly differ with this polemical perspective. In fact, I believe the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification has gone a long way to show us all how close the respective communions of Lutheranism and Catholicism have actually come in nearly 500 years. A myriad of conservative naysayers, found on both sides, are skeptical about all this talk about justification, believing we cannot agree no matter what anyone says, but I encourage you to read the document for yourself.

At the same time I am not prepared to say that everything has been resolved or that we are in complete agreement. We are not and saying so is still truthful and important. We do not reach unity by acting as if disagreements do not exist. We reach unity by the way of love and love compels us to be honest but relational.

A Catholic reader of this blog urged me in an email a few days ago to read Peter Kreeft’s wonderful book, The God Who Loves You (Ignatius, 2004). I began reading the book this last week. It is magnificent. I urge everyone to read it. Kreeft’s whole point is that God loved the universe into existence and God so loved the world that he sent his Son to redeem it. This, he argues very cogently, is the central truth about God’s nature that is revealed to us in Scripture, not in nature.

In the opening chapter of Kreeft’s book he writes about the twelve most profound ideas he has ever had. They all came to him as “aha” moments, with the force of what could be called revelatory experience. His shows how every single one of these ideas concerns the love of God. Several of his big ideas he learned while still a Protestant, even as a young child. Others he learned after becoming a Roman Catholic but with appreciation for writers on both sides of our divide. But this is his central point---all of them took him back to the central idea of God’s love.

His seventh big idea brought Dr. Kreeft back to the Protestant Reformation and made him think about its core message. On this day I find his insight powerful and unifying. His seventh “eureka” moment led him to write: “The gift of God’s love is ours for the taking.” He writes:

I am a Roman Catholic. But the most liberating idea I have ever learned I heard first from Martin Luther. Pope John Paul II told the German Lutheran bishops that Luther was profoundly right about this idea. He said that Catholic teaching affirms it just as strongly and that there is no contradiction between Protestant and Catholic theology on this terribly important point, which was the central issue of the Protestant Reformation. I speak, of course, about “justification by faith” and its consequence, which Luther called “Christian liberty” or “the liberty of a Christian” in his little gem of fan essay by that name (The God Who Loves You, 23).

Kreeft goes on to say that the problem with this important point is that we approach it from the wrong direction. “Let’s begin with a solid certainty: God is love. God is a lover, not a manager, businessman, accountant, owner, or puppet-master. What he wants from us first of all is not a technically correct performance but our heart” (The God Who Loves, 23). The very symbol of John Calvin, as Reformed folks know, is human hands offering the heart to a God of love.

Kreeft (photo at left) says he first discovered this truth from C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. The truth liberated him just as it had the Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, almost 5oo years before. Lewis wrote: “We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain sort” (cited by Kreeft, 23). The point, Kreeft reasons, is rather simple: heaven is free because God’s love is free! Salvation is a gift to be taken by faith and not by human performance in any sense.

Kreeft also gets it right when he adds, “The primacy of faith does not discount or denigrate works but liberates them. Our good works can now also be free---free from the worry and slavery and performance anxiety of having to buy Heaven with them. Our good works can now flow from genuine love of neighbor, nor fear of Hell” (Kreeft, 24). He concludes: “The whole point of justification by faith is God’s scandalous, crazy, and wonderful gift of love” (Kreeft, 25). Amen!

Happy Reformation Day. Celebrate the joys of how this truth was recovered, via the insights of St. Augustine and St. Paul, and pray that we will all learn to drop the polemics that have dominated our separation for nearly five centuries. There is room for more love on both sides of our present painful division. There is also much work to be done to help people, on both sides, to understand that the “whole point of justification by faith is God’s scandalous, crazy, and wonderful gift of love.” I treasure that sentence today more than ever!

The Apostles' Creed

The Apostles' Creed is a living link that takes us back over some eighteen centuries to the early church. It has the power to bond and unite believers from diverse cultures and traditions and yet it remains a powerfully concise summary of the core of biblical faith. It was used, for these very reasons, to instruct new Christians prior to their being baptized in the early centuries of the Christian church. It can still be used for the same purpose. And it can be used to ground all believers in the faith, young and old.

A powerful resource to teach the Apostles’ Creed is now available to Christian teachers and pastors who want to introduce the creed for the first time or teach its meaning to those who already know it and recite it in liturgical settings. The Apostles’ Creed: A Look At Its Origin and Its Relevance To Our Lives Today, is a video series which includes over nine hours of instruction from some of the best teachers in the Christian church. I truly believe that it should become the tool many of you use in your own ministry. This video presentation is hosted by my friend Dr. Timothy George, the dean of Beeson Divinity School. It features fourteen teachers on two DVDs: N. T. Wright, Robert Mulholland, Alister McGrath, Derek Tidball, Bishop Kallistos Ware, Martin Marty, Tony Lane, William Johnson, Peter Contrell, Mark Galli, Richard Bewes, Timothy Dudley-Smith and Susan Schreiner.

This series includes a comprehensive study guide that can be downloaded as well as a sermon by Pastor Langdon Palmer. There is also a valuable one-hour bonus program titled: “Hymns of Our Fathers.”

An abridged edition, which is far less expensive but not nearly as useful for teachers and churches, is available on one DVD. Be sure to get the full-length edition if you want to use this material to teach others. The retail price for the full-length edition is $99.99. The retail price for the abridged edition is $29.99. You can order via our ACT 3 Amazon store. You might also want to ship and find a better price if it is available.

The full-length video presentation is a 17-part series that traces the origin of the Apostles’ Creed, placing it in its historical context. It then shows you what the Creed means, phrase-by-phrase, and why it still feeds the faith of all God’s people. Each teacher discusses one portion of the Creed, emphasizing its relevance and application to our lives today. You will see and hear from some of the finest teachers of our time in a neatly designed and well-done package.

I am so excited about this series that I cannot commend it highly enough. I hope every leader who wants to ground the faith of those they serve in a deeper grasp of the Christian faith will utilize this amazing video series. And if you want to pursue the vision of Your Church Is Too Small this is a must-have series to help you.

Random Reflections on Life from Donald G. Bloesch

Yesterday I told you the story of my friendship with the late theologian Donald G. Bloesch and his widow Brenda. Donald is best known for his major works in theology, ethics and spirituality. He was a master at processing a ton of information and putting his conclusions into a context that kept the gospel central to everything.

Recently I went back to Donald Bloesch’s book, Freedom for Obedience (Harper & Row: New York 1987). Bloesch writes: “The Christian ethic is an ethic . . . that cannot be assimilated into the moral consensus of the wider community. . . . The way of the cross cannot be reconciled with the way of the world, just as the gospel cannot be conjoined with the laws that give stability to social order.” How I wish an entire generation of men like Falwell, Robertson and Dobson (to name only a few) would have understood that simple, but profound point. You cannot paste Christian ethics into the culture and expect the wider community to embrace “Christian ethics.” It seems so obvious but an entire generation of conservatives have gone astray at this precise point. This man, who personally knew just how much liberalism had destroyed his beloved mainline church, understood that conservatism was the new threat to the more evangelical churches. Bloesch understood that ideology, left or right, was no substitute for the gospel of Christ. I came to understand this point primarily because of Don Bloesch.

But Don Bloesch was more than a great theologian. He was a great Christian. Perhaps his least known written work contains evidence of this very point. He wrote private spiritual journals over the course of his life and three of these were eventually published as Theological Notebooks. I have each of them signed as gifts from Don. They continually feed my mind and soul. Here are some insights from Theological Notebook, Volume One (1960-1964). Don was a single man, and only in his early thirties, when he wrote these words:

“Discipline in most circles today is conceived of in terms of punishment rather than training.”

“Before we can go further we must go deeper. Church renewal cannot take place apart from theological renewal.”

“To be ‘catholic’ means to be a citizen of the kingdom that extends beyond this world. . . . The catholic identifies with the poor and despised of the world and is motivated not by human sympathy but by self-giving love.”

“The Christian way is not the ‘middle way’ between extremes but the ‘narrow way’ between precipices.”

“The Christian alternative to Pharisaism is not Publicanism but costly discipleship. The laxity of the Publican is just as repugnant to God as the self-righteousness of the Pharisee. In the parable it is not the Publican as such but the repentant Publican who is praised.”

“God does not will everything that happens, but He wills something in everything that happens.”

“Evil is to be located neither in the heart of God nor in the heart of the universe but in the heart of the self.”

“All people are our neighbors, but only Christians are our brothers and sisters.”

“Happiness is dependent neither on external circumstances not on outward appearance, but rather on the interior relationship with God.”

My friend is gone now. But such writing will feed my soul for the rest of my days. I am filled with joy that the man who wrote such things took the time to encourage and guide me to be a more faithful servant of Christ. Don was a wonderful conversationalist and a great theological resource. Glory be to God for the gift of this dear man to the whole church.