Spiritual Vitality and Church Governance

Any one who has read this blog knows of my tremendous admiration for the Puritans. But they could be wrong at times. Their interpretation of Romans 8:26-27, which they consistently read as the Spirit’s inspiration of the believer in groaning prayer, is a case in point. Another would be the presupposition that the New Testament contains an ecclesiology as accurate as an architect’s blueprint. The emergence of Presbyterianism and Congregationalism—both espoused by Puritans who treasured the Word of God—reveals that such a presupposition did not necessarily yield one ecclesial model. And while I have definite predilections in one direction, who am I to say that a Presbyterian like Samuel Annesley, the grandfather of the Wesley brothers, was not used by God?

Also wrong, I believe, is the further presupposition that spiritual vitality is yoked to one ecclesial model. I am a convinced Baptist and Congregationalist, but any fair reading of Church History forces one to realize that God, for instance, has used moderate Episcopalianism as found in the eighteenth-century Church of England or Puritan Congregationalism or the semi-Episcopalianism of the Arminian Methodists of the eighteenth century or the interesting structure of the Moravian Church—that “exotic plant” as one recent history has described the Moravians of England—to extend his kingdom.

In the recent resurgence of the doctrines of grace, it seems to me that some Reformed folk have learned this lesson, hence the appreciation for others of a different ecclesial ilk. Others, though still tie spirituality to ecclesiology with the consequent negative impact on the virtue of humility and usefulness in the Kingdom.

Most recently, this arrogance can be seen in those who would argue that one type of model of church growth is guaranteed to produce the goods. Some urge a model of church growth à la Willow Creek, others cite Emergent as the only way to go. Some embrace a business model with the pastor as the CEO—to be honest this I find the strangest of all recent church growth models—and tout this as the sure fire method of spiritual revitalization. How utterly mistaken!

God is sovereign and ecclesial prosperity his right alone to grant. To be sure, there are paths that must be followed, but they are ways of piety and morality, not this type of structure or that. I have been closely following the path of one denominational grouping here in Canada that have recently endorsed one model of denominational governance with the conviction that this is the pathway to spiritual vitality and renewal and growth. It is a model that outrightly rejects the heritage of this group of churches, for whom I have a deep love, and I fear that they have been sold “swamp land in Florida” and will have a rude awakening! I hope I am wrong, but the weight of church history is against the claims of those who pushed this body of churches down this path.

As D.A. Carson, whose life and writings have been a tremendous inspiration to me personally, has rightly said: “We depend on plans, programs, vision statements—but somewhere along the way we have succumbed to the temptation to displace the foolishness of the cross with the wisdom of strategic planning.”

O Lord, humble your people, make them a people of prayer and just practice, zeal for the gospel and the salvation of sinners, and above all a passion for yourself and your glory—revive them wherever they are. Amen.

The Dancing Puritan: Shattering the Stereotypes Once Again

In the past I have gone on record as saying that I have never read through Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. Some friends have been horrified at this admission. But this does not mean that I do not appreciate aspects of this remarkable work. For instance, there is a tremendous scene in Part II, that second half of the work which many never look at—I have looked at parts even if I have not read the whole! Part II stresses the communal nature of the Christian life, with Christian’s wife, Christiana, and her family taking the pilgrim way along with a company including such characters as Feeble-mind and Ready-to-halt (Oh those names! One reason I have not been able to persevere with the whole).

In one priceless scene, their guide, Mr. Great-heart slays the Giant-Despair and the company of pilgrims destroy the giant’s refuge, Doubting Castle. Two of the giant’s prisoners, Mr. Despondency and his daughter Much-Afraid, are rescued and they join the company of pilgrims, “for they were honest people.”

This liberation of the captives caused the pilgrims to rejoice greatly. Now, Christiana, we learn, “played upon the Vial and her daughter Mercy upon the Lute.” So they began to play, and “Ready-to-halt would dance.” So he took Despondency’s daughter, Much-Afraid, by the hand and “to dancing they went in the Road. True, he could not dance without one crutch in his hand, but I promise you, he footed it well; also the girl was to be commended, for she answered the music handsomely.”

If I didn't already have a name for my blog, I would be half-disposed to call it "The Dancing Puritan"!

An Elder’S Prayer

Baptists have historically not been into written prayers. If you want to know why, read John Bunyan’s I will pray with the Spirit. But it is great to have recorded prayers from godly men of the church like C.H. Spurgeon that help us understand the piety of our Baptist forebears.

Here is a prayer from a man whom it has been my privilege to know and serve with, Dr. Colin Wellum, Sr., with whom I have served as an elder at Trinity Baptist Church, Burlington, Ontario. I have just offered my resignation as elder at this my home church and that because of the duties I now have as a professor at SBTS.

But it has been one of the deepest joys of my life to serve alongside Dr Wellum, and the pastor, Carl Muller, and the other elders. They are a remarkable group of godly men, for whom I give thanks regularly. May the Lord continue to bless this church and own it, as he has done in the past thirty-five years, for his glory.

Here is the prayer, it is on the blog of Colin’s son, Kirk Wellum: To God Be The Glory.

The Faithful Preacher: A Book Note

Thabiti M. Anyabwile, The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2007), 191 pages. Like far too many church historians trained in the West in the past thirty to forty years, this book made me realize that I am woefully ignorant of the spiritual experience of African-American pastors and congregants. Rightly does John Piper state in his foreword to this volume by the senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Grand Cayman Islands, that it “mines the unknown riches of the African-American experience” (p.9). Now, I had heard of one of the figures treated in this book, the Edwardsean Lemuel Haynes (1753-1833), but the other two men—Daniel Payne (1811-1893) and Francis Grimké (1850-1937)—were completely unknown to me. And what I knew about Haynes could have been told in less than a minute!

What makes this volume especially useful is that Anyabwile combines his narrative discussion of the lives of these three pastors with three or four of primary sources from each of their writings. This work is ideal as a source-book to be included in any study of American Christianity. But it is also good for the souls of those called to be pastors and leaders in the Church of the living God.

Here, for instance, is a deeply challenging statement from the Methodist Bishop Payne: “…it is not the omnipotence of God that constitutes His glory—it is His immaculate holiness. And such must be the fact in the moral character of the Christian minister—not his talents…not his learning…but his holiness” (p.95).

John Erskine and a 1784 Letter to John Ryland, Jr.

A question that has long fascinated me is how John Ryland, Jr. (1753-1825) came to be corresponding with Dr John Erskine of Greyfriars, Edinburgh, in the 1780s? Erskine was an Edwards aficionado and sent packets of Edwardsean literature to all with whom he corresponded. So it was that he sent Edwards’ Humble Attempt to Ryland in 1784 and the result was the beginning of a prayer movement among the Northamptonshire Association Baptists, to which Ryland belonged, that led to revival.I initially thought of Ryland’s father, John Collett Ryland, as a link. But just recently I noticed in a letter from John Newton to the younger Ryland—Newton was his mentor—that Newton said that he would forward some letters to Erskine. Could Newton be the link between the young Baptist and the Scottish evangelical?

Eberhard Bethge on Remembering the past

These words of Eberhard Bethge, the biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, are an important reminder of the need to remember the past: “Commemoration renders life human; forgetfulness makes it inhuman. …even when remembrance carries grief and shame, it fills the future with perspectives. And the denial of the past furthers the affairs of death, precisely because it focuses exclusively on the present."[1]

[1] Friendship and Resistance. Essays on Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Geneva: WCC Publications/Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1995), 105.

Missing “Hymn” in New Jars of Clay Compilation

I recently bought Jars of Clay’s compilation The Essential Jars of Clay (2007). Sweet! But was very surprised to find that one of my favourite songs from their Much Afraid CD was absent, namely “Hymn.” “Hymn” is a truly awesome song, both lyrics and music. The chorus is so rich: “Oh gaze of love so melt my pride That I may in Your house but kneel And in my brokenness to cry Spring worship unto Thee.”

Oh, Lord Jesus, it is this very thing I need: an overwhelming sense of your love—not fleeting, but ongoing day by day—that melts my pride and gives me the ability to truly worship. This is what genuine humanity is about!

John Ryland, Jr. On Believer’s Baptism

John Ryland, Jr. (1753-1825), to be distinguished from his father, John Collett Ryland, about whom I blogged a few days ago, detailed his commitment to the Baptist way in a sermon that he preached in June, 1812, to the students and subscribers of Stepney Academy, founded two years prior to train men for ministry among the Calvinistic Baptists. Ryland gives the following solid advice to the students in his audience:[1] “Always show you are more concerned to turn sinners to God, than to make proselytes to a party. While you teach men to observe all things whatsoever our blessed Lord has commanded, whether with reference to moral duty, or positive institutions, let it appear, in the latter case, that you regard the thing signified as far more important than the sign.

“In administering the Ordinances of the New Testament be careful to point out their important signification. Urge them who are buried with Christ by Baptism into death, to remember their obligations to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness; to be separate from the world and devoted to God. What avails observance of a more significant and scriptural mode of administering the ordinance, if its end be not kept constantly in view? It is not the Baptism of adults, but of believers, for which we plead; let them who profess to have believed, be urged so to walk as to prove they abide in him, whose name they bear. Let them live the life of faith, and fight the good fight of faith. “He that believeth and is Baptized shall be saved” [Mk 16:16]. Were the Greek term translated, I am persuaded it should be rendered, He that believeth and is immersed or overwhelmed etc. Overwhelmed with what? with Water? Yes, that is the sign, and thus only we think the ordinance should be administered. But, what is the thing signified? He that is overwhelmed with a sense of Obligation, of Guilt, of Danger, of Gratitude, of Love; he that is immersed in the Holy Spirit, shall be saved. We had rather have the thing signified without the sign, than the sign without the thing signified: though we think both should go together.”

[1] Advice to Young Ministers, respecting their preparatory Studies (Bristol, 1812), 28-29.

Imitating 18th Century Evangelical Catholicity

One of the most prominent features of the Evangelical Revival in the eighteenth century as its genuinely catholic perspective when it came to ecclesiological issues. For instance, it was said of William Grimshaw (1708-1763), the influential evangelical curate of Haworth in Yorkshire, that he embraced Christians of all denominations, saying, ‘I love them and I will love them, and none shall make me do otherwise: and my House shall always be open to them all.”[1]

Good evidence of Grimshaw’s catholicity is to be found in his active support for Baptist causes throughout Yorkshire, despite the fact that a number of them had drawn some of their members from among Grimshaw’s converts. Although such sheep-stealing did not sit well with Grimshaw, he was able to joke about it, saying, “The worst of it is, that so many of my chickens turn ducks!”[2]

It should be noted, though, that not all of the leading figures of the Revival had sympathies as broad as those of Grimshaw. For example, Charles Wesley (1708- 1788), in a journal entry for October 30, 1756, minced no words when he described Baptists as: “A carnal cavilling, contentious sect, always watching to steal away our [i.e. Methodist] children, and make them as dead as themselves.” [3]

On the other hand, there were men like William Carey (1761-1834), of whom Charles Spurgeon once said: “I admire [William] Carey for being a Baptist: he had none of the false charity which might prompt some to conceal their belief for fear of offending others; but at the same time he was a man who loved all who loved the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now that is a model to imitate.

[1] Cited in Frank Baker, William Grimshaw, 1708-1763 (London: The Epworth Press, 1963), p. 245.

[2] Cited in Baker, p. 243.

[3] Cited in John R Tyson, ed., Charles Wesley: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 418.

[4] Howel Harris, 1714-1773: The Last Enthusiast (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1965), p. 29.

Heroes: Baptist & Other

Human heroes. We all have them. All of them are flawed, for they are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Yet, it is not unbiblical to have such (see Hebrews 11).

But which ones to choose from in the wide and broad history of the Church? Well, this question will be answered in part by one’s theological and ecclesiological perspective. Not totally, of course. I have always admired Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for instance, despite my disagreement with some elements of his Lutheranism and his reception of critical theology. But his exposition of Nachfolge in his study of the Sermon on the Mount and above all his study of what Christian community should be in his Life Together, from the very first when I read them, won my heart’s delight and conviction.

But for us who are Baptists who are the best guides? Where do we find those who will most challenge us with their radical Christ-centred Christianity? That question was answered for me in the academic year 1985-1986, when I picked up a copy of Andrew Fuller’s works—the 3-volume 1845 edition that Pastor Lloyd Sprinkle has republished.

I read Fuller’s essay The Promise of the Spirit—in part because of my early interest in the work and person of the Holy Spirit. I was smitten—yes, smitten by the force of his argument and his passion for the extension of the Kingdom of Christ and his biblical defence of the church’s utter need for the Spirit’s empowerment.

From Fuller I was led to his friends—William Carey, John Ryland, John Sutcliff, and above all Samuel Pearce. Then to Christopher Anderson, John Fawcett, Benjamin Beddome, Joseph Kinghorn, Benjamin Francis, Joshua Thomas, William Staughton, Anne Steele, Anne Dutton, the Stennetts and then back into the 17th century to men like William Kiffin, Hanserd Knollys, Hercules Collins, Benjamin Keach—where should I stop? In other words: I found my guides in men and women who were the fathers and mothers of my denominational persuasion, Baptist. Since then I have discovered Canadian Baptists in the 19th century like D.A. McGregor and William Fraser, and Americans like Oliver Hart and four men I am learning to know—J.P. Boyce, John Broadus, Basil Manly, Jr., and William Williams.

The theology of these brothers and sisters have set the ethos and temper, timber and shape of our denominational frame. And though their foundational work was not perfect, I have found it better than any other. Though I do admire many others—especially men like Jonathan Edwards and Basil of Caesarea—in the life and theology of these Particular Baptists I have found riches for the spirit and for the mind and a pattern of the Christian life most in accord—in my opinion—with Scripture.

John Whitgift on the Puritans

Here is a fascinating quote by John Whitgift (1530-1604), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 till his death in 1604, about the Puritans. Though mentored by the Marian martyr John Bradford, he was hostile to the Puritans from 1570 onwards when he debated Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603). The Puritans, according to Whitgift, “think themselves to be mundiores caeteris, more pure than others as the Cathari dyd [sic], and separate themselves from all other Churches and congregations as spotted and defyled [sic].”[1] Many students of the Puritan movement, including this one, would beg to differ.

[1] An Answere to a certen Libel intituled an Admonition to the Parliament (London, 1572), 18.

John Collett Ryland & His Supposed Hyper-Calvinism Revisited

If someone told me of a pastor who went to a church of 30 members and in the course of his ministry at that church over twenty-five years it took in 320 members, and further, if my informant told me that that pastor supported one of the greatest evangelists of the century in his open-air preaching in the town on a number of occasions, how would I describe such a man? The epithet Hyper-Calvinist would not be at all appropriate, would it? Yet, this man—and I am blogging about John Collett Ryland (d.1792)—has been frequently so described because of a withering rebuke he once gave to William Carey (1761-1834) and his idea of cross-cultural missions. I am more and more convinced that Ryland was not a Hyper-Calvinist. He was converted in a revival under the evangelical Calvinistic ministry of Benjamin Beddome (1717-1795) and went to the strongly evangelical Calvinistic school of the Bristol Baptist Academy, where he was taught by Bernard Foskett (1685-1758) and Hugh Evans (1712-1781)—who was a forebear of H.C.G. Moule—neither of whom were Hyper in their Calvinism. And he delighted in the preaching of George Whitefield (1714-1770), who preached in his town of Northampton, England.

What myths have been perpetrated in the teaching of Baptist history!

What then of his rebuke of the young Carey? The heart of that rebuke had to do with eschatological timing: Ryland had adopted the end-times thinking of John Gill (1697-1771), where the gospel could not be taken unhindered to the nations till the two witnesses of Revelation 11 were slain, which would not happen till well into the nineteenth century! Wrong thinking, yes. But not the Hyper-Calvinist bogeyman of far too many treatments of Baptist history.

Oliver Cromwell & Religious Freedom

It is often argued that religious freedom as a concept owes its origins to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and its rejection of the religious dogmatism of the both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. In point of fact, in the English-speaking world, it is the previous century that is critical in the development of the idea of religious toleration. And it is in the matrix of certain circles of seventeenth-century English Puritanism, where, far from being the Taliban-like regime of popular imagination, the idea that religious coercion by the state is fundamentally wrong was birthed. Take, for instance, the Puritan military leader Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), a man whose name is still regarded with great abhorrence in certain parts of the British Isles and who is frequently, though wrongly, considered to have been a tyrant when he ruled England in the 1650s. During the civil wars that engulfed the British archipelago between 1642 and 1651, Cromwell played a key role as a general fighting for the Puritan cause against the royal house of Stuart. As he reflected on the cause of these wars, he came to the conviction that one of the main reasons that he and many others had taken up the sword against their king was to secure genuine religious liberty.[1] Scholars differ as to the exact parameters of Cromwell’s policy of religious toleration and all of the motives that guided him in this regard.[2] Yet, there is no gainsaying the plain fact that Cromwell had a burning desire for an atmosphere of genuine religious toleration that was far in advance of what most in the Europe of his day were willing to sanction. As he told Parliament in 1654:

"Is not Liberty of Conscience in religion a fundamental? So long as there is liberty of conscience for the supreme magistrate to exercise his conscience in erecting what form of church-government he is satisfied he should set up, why should not he give it to others? Liberty of conscience is a natural right… All the money of this nation would not have tempted men to fight upon such an account as they have engaged, if they had not had hopes of liberty, better than they had from Episcopacy, or than would have been afforded them from a Scottish Presbytery, or an English either…"

The one place that Cromwell drew the line with regard to religious liberty was where that liberty threatened the maintenance of public law and order.

Probably the most amazing statement by Cromwell in favour of such toleration is a remark that he made in 1652. He forthrightly declared that “he had rather that Mahometanism were permitted amongst us than that one of God’s children should be persecuted.”[3] Central to this declaration is the conviction that if unity between the various groups of Christians is not immediately possible, then a second best is liberty of conscience.[4] This statement also reveals, as English historian Geoffrey F. Nuttall has noted, a sturdy faith in the might of the Holy Spirit to lead Christian men and women of differing views into unity.[5]

As John Owen (1616-1683), one of Cromwell’s army chaplains, stated shortly after Cromwell’s death—in a statement that well sums up Cromwell’s view of religious liberty: "The Spirit of Christ is in himself too free, great and generous a Spirit, to suffer himself to be used by any human arm, to whip men into belief; he drives not, but gently leads into all truth, and persuades men to dwell in the tents of like precious Faith; which would lose of its preciousness and value, if that sparkle of freeness shone not in it."[6]

[1] Roger Howell, Jr., “Cromwell and English liberty” in R.C. Richardson and G. M. Ridden, eds., Freedom and the English Revolution. Essays in history and literature (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), 28.

[2] See, for instance, Robert S. Paul, The Lord Protector: Religion and Politics in the Life of Oliver Cromwell (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1955), 324-333; H. F. Lovell Cocks, The Religious Life of Oliver Cromwell (London: Independent Press Ltd., 1960), 45-63; George A. Drake, “Oliver Cromwell and the Quest for Religious Toleration” in Jerald C. Brauer, ed., The Impact of the Church Upon Its Culture (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), 267-291; Howell, Jr., “Cromwell and English liberty”, 25-44; Blair Worden, “Toleration and the Cromwellian Protectorate” in W. J. Sheils, ed., Persecution and Toleration (Oxford: Basil Blackwell for the Ecclesiastical History Society, 1984), 199-233; J. C. Davis, “Cromwell’s religion” in John Morrill, Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London/New York: Longman, 1990), 191-199.

[3] Cited Nuttall, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (2nd ed.; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1947), 127. From The Fourth Paper, Presented by Maior Butler, to the Honourable Committe of Parliament, for the Propagating the Gospel of Christ Jesus (London: G. Calvert, 1652).

[4] Davis, “Cromwell’s religion”, 198-199.

[5] Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience, 127.

[6] The Savoy Declaration, Preface [http://www.creeds.net/congregational/savoy/index.htm; accessed September 28, 2007].

John Lukacs on Why We Should Do History

John Lukacs is fast becoming one of my favourite historians. In his recent study of the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany in June of 1941, he notes that one of the most important reasons for remembering the past is the correction of misreadings of the historical record, since, as he says, “the pursuit of truth is often a struggle through a jungle of sentiments and twisted statements of ‘facts’.” As Lukacs puts it: “The most important (and yes, perennial) duty of the historian is to struggle against the prevalence of untruths.”[1]

[1] June 1941: Hitler and Stalin (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2006), 142.

Piety & Elegance Revisited

Since posting on piety and elegance a day or so ago, I have realized from one or two of the comments that I need to clarify what I was saying. Sometimes a pithy blog-post works, sometimes not. This time my pithiness contributed to misunderstanding, I fear. I am not recommending over-the-top spending on clothes or lifestyle. Scripture calls us always to be careful in how we use money. I am recommending dressing nicely and smartly for the public square. Dowdiness is not piety. And nor is “gym-ware.” The latter seems to be the rage in our culture—and Christians have followed suit. Wearing gym clothes is fine when doing athletics—but not for the public square. Clothes do not recommend us to God, to be sure. But they do say something about the heart.