Conscience, Confession and Martyrdom: A New Reality for Christians in the “Land of the Free”

Christianity Squelched

Yesterday, we posted the second part of our history of the German Reformation under Dr. Martin Luther. The third paragraph provided an important, though short, definition of the terms in the title of today’s post: Conscience, Confession and Martydom. With this morning’s nationally celebrated events, it has become clear that orthodox Christianity will once again be entering a period of open persecution, even here in our own Nation. Not merely the ideas and teaching of orthodoxy, but True Believers individually – who dare to open their mouths to reveal what they are convinced as a matter of Christian Conscience is the Truth. But Christianity has endured on the grounds of eternal conviction, and a consequent REFUSAL to recant the immutable teachings of God’s Word, and a REFUSAL to act contrary to them. Though today’s American Christian – a soft-hearted, weak-willed post-Modernist for whom friendship with the World and consilience with its moral and social standards is the highest virtue – is generally unprepared to do so – indeed, even averse to the dreadful thought of it! – it is vitally important, now, to dwell on these terms and their meaning for the Christian.


What is Conscience?
Yesterday, we briefly defined this as follows:

“Conscience” is the seat of an individual’s identity, and is composed of what the individual is convinced is True as inseparable from the reality of his own existence. To deny conscience is to separate oneself from that reality. It is unthinkable for the person with a genuine connection to his own identity; he would rather die than suffer such separation.

On March 27, 2014, in our post The Descent of the Contemporary Church into Cultural Narcissism, however, we discussed the term in greater detail, tying it Dr. Martin Luther’s historic Stand at the Diet of Worms. That post featured a recording entitled, Growing in Grace & Knowledge, a title taken from St. Peter’s admonition to “Grow in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pe. 3:18), admonition which is impossible to heed without deliberately engaging the intellect.

But many Christians, including many Lutherans, have been taught to distrust the intellect – “Reason is the enemy of faith,” after all. Even though Luther meant by this the use of Reason over and against the clear teaching of Scripture, many, in my recent experience, choose to chuck reason entirely out the window rather than give it a foothold, and immediately resort to the accusation “But that’s reason,” when one of their cherished falsehoods is challenged by a thoughtful, Scripturally sound and persuasive argument. They forget that Luther more famously said

“Unless I am convinced by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures or evident reason... I am bound by the Scriptures... my conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God, and I am neither able nor willing to recant, since it is neither safe nor right to act against conscience.”

(Schwiebert, E. (1950). Luther and His Times. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House. pp. 504-505.)

Conscience. We’ve used that term many many times here on Intrepid Lutherans. Indeed, three titles worth reviewing with respect to this term include the following:

– The Theological Disciplines, and the nature of theological discourse...
– Theological Discourse in the post-Modern Era
– “Relevance,” and Mockery of the Holy Martyrs – Conclusion.

In these posts, and others, it is emphasized that Conscience is the seat of human identity and the source of one’s Public Confession. Conscience comprises those Truths from which one cannot be separated without ceasing to be who he is, those Truths which one is compelled to cling to, even in the face of his executioner.

Iranian Christians Continuing to Live by Conscience

Luther emphasizes this fact as well, as he faced the Emperor and certain death, by calling upon human conscience – what he was convinced was True – as the basis for standing in the face of error and refusing to recant that Truth. And Christian conscience is founded on what God has given to mankind: His Word and human faculty, coordinate, the latter in submission to the former.

“What have you to live for?” is supposed to be the question one is encouraged to consider as he counts his blessings and in them finds the motivation to continue onward in life. But it is a question which cannot be sufficiently considered at all apart from the more serious question, “What are you willing to die for?” It is only in this latter question that one is brought into direct contact with his conscience and fully engages his self-identity, as he is forced to grapple with Truth and Falsehood in their grandest conception, in their most objective and meaningful reality. For the true Christian, that identity is defined by his identity in Christ, baptized (Ga. 3:26-29) and redeemed (Ga. 3:11-14), standing, through faith alone, within the shelter of God’s Saving Grace (Ro. 5:1-2).

Grace. Knowledge. Growth. As the Church not only succumbs to post-Modernism, and other forms of Cultural Narcissism, but fully embraces worldly thinking, it is being denied a collective Christian conscience with the courage, confidence and capacity to identify, confront and repudiate the errors hurled at it by the world, and individual Christians are being robbed of the cultivated faculties necessary to adequately consider and react to the withering attacks of the world against Christ, the Church, and against them, individually.

Unless Christians are in touch with their Christian Conscience – unless they know specifically what they believe is immutably True, why they believe it and how it impacts their thinking, speaking and doing – they are unable, ultimately, to issue any sort of meaningful public Confession.


What is Confession?
Yesterday, we briefly defined this essentially as follows:

Confession is issued by a person who, called upon by his persecutors to deny his own Conscience, REFUSES, and who, instead, gives a clear defense for his convictions and submits himself to their persecution.

HERE I STAND! Luther at the Diet of Worms

Confession, in this sense, is NOT something a person does anonymously, or in the privacy of a little box called a “confessional”; rather, Confession is issued IN PUBLIC, and IN THE FACE OF CERTAIN EXECUTION. The person who issues a Confession is referred to as a Confessor – and to such we Lutherans refer, for example, when we speak of those who presented the Augsburg Confession to Emperor Charles V as being Confessors.

On December 8, 2011, in our post “Relevance,” and Mockery of the Holy Martyrs – Conclusion, we discussed the term Confession in greater detail, citing the example of the Holy Martyrs from the First Ten Persecutions of the Church, and demonstrating how individual Christians engaged in a lifestyle of living Confession, multiplied across society, have tremendously positive, civilization-defining impact:

Make no mistake, the World venomously hates Christians, and has waged war against the New Testament Church ever since the time of Christ. It is only the dominant and civilizing influence of Christianity in Western Society that prevents the unregenerate from killing us today. Christians living in societies which have not so benefited from Christianity know this all too well: in many places even today, Christians are being murdered, sometimes in large numbers, in some cases with the same wanton disregard for humanity displayed by the pagan Romans. Groups like Voice of the Martyrs and Open Doors, monitor and report such activity as it occurs throughout the world – from these sources, and others, one can find more information about Christian persecution and martyrdom in our own era.

The example of the Holy Martyrs: Standing firm in the face of enticements and persecution
But how could Christianity have possibly risen to such stature in the the West as to “civilize” it, and make it tolerant of, and even favor, Christianity? Did expert marketing agents of the early Church gather together in conference to cast the Bishop’s vision for the Church into a one-sentence slogan, or develop mission statements simple and memorable enough for lay Christians to recall on command, understand and execute?

Jan Hus at the Council of Constance, 1415 “I call God to witness, that I have never taught nor written those things which on false testimony they impute to me; but my declarations, teachings, writings in fine, all my works, have been intendd and shaped toward the object of rescuing dying men from the tyranny of sin. Wherefore I will this day gladly seal that truth which I have taught, written, and proclaimed – established by divine law, and by holy teachers – by the pledge of my death”

Did the deacons of the congregations, setting out to “grow the church,” do a SWOT analysis, plan, and proceed accordingly? If they did, wouldn’t the most reasonable course of action, in the face of certain extinction, have been to preserve Christian lives wherever possible by making their self-representation more palatable to the pagans, have been to befriend the persecutors of Christianity by placating them with words and behaviour the pagans didn’t misunderstand, weren’t offended by, or which were even calculated to attract them according to their own standards, rather than remain estranged from them through doctrinal rigidity, other-worldly practice, out of touch lifestyles and a message that made no worldly sense? What was the example of St. Timothy, of Saturninus, the pious orthodox Bishop of Toulouse, or of St. Lawrence the Martyr – who was one of the deacons of the Church in Rome? Did they find that keeping their Christian confession a virtual secret, while virtually behaving like the pagans, was a more effective way to “grow the church,” to be a more evangelical course of action? No. Not at all. They stood according the convictions of quickened conscience; by their doctrine they boldly asserted in the face of paganism what they were convinced was False and what was True; they demonstrated their doctrine in their Church practice and daily lives; and they suffered the temporal consequences. This course of action could not have been the design of any rational human. Could it? Death is so impractical, and so permanent – and so unnecessary for the creative thinker. It would have been so easy, and so easily justifiable, to do just the opposite! Yet, despite the irrationality of unswerving devotion to God’s Word and the exercise of “other-worldly” Church practices and unpopular “prudish” lifestyles, we observe after the fact that God used the persecutions to drive heterodoxy out of the Church and to strengthen its unity in doctrine and practice, while the words and living examples of the martyrs – attesting to their immoveable faith in the certainty of God’s promises – served to draw the unregenerate into relationship with Him and into His Church:

“To these protracted and cruel persecutions the church opposed no revolutionary violence, to carnal resistance, but the moral heroism of suffering and dying for the truth. But this very heroism was her fairest ornament and stanchest weapon. In this very heroism she proved herself worthy of her divine founder, who submitted to the death of the cross for the salvation of the world, and even prayed that his murderers might be forgiven.... In those hard times, men had to make earnest of the words of the Lord: Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (Lu. 14:27). ‘He, that loveth father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me’ (Mt. 10:37-38). But then also the promise daily proved itself true: ‘Blessed are they, who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Mt. 5:1). ‘He, that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it’ (Mt. 10:39). And it applied not only to the martyrs themselves, who exchanged the troubled life of earth for the blessedness of heaven, but also to the church as a whole, which came forth purer and stronger from every persecution, and thus attested her indestructible vitality.

“These suffering virtues are among the sweetest and noblest fruits of the Christian religion. It is not so much the amount of suffering which challenges our admiration, although it was terrible enough, as the spirit with which the early Christians bore it. Men and women of all classes, noble senators and learned bishops, illiterate artisans and poor slaves, loving mothers and delicate virgins, hoary-headed pastors and innocent children approached their tortures in no temper of unfeeling indifference and obstinate defiance, but, like their divine Master, with calm self-possession, humble resignation, gentle meekness, cheerful faith, triumphant hope, and forgiving charity. Such spectacles must have often overcome even the inhuman murderer. ‘Go on,’ says Tertullian tauntingly to the heathen governors, ‘rack, torture, grind us to powder: our numbers increase in proportion as ye mow us down. The blood of Christians is their harvest seed. Your very obstinacy is a teacher. For who is not incited by the contemplation of it to inquire what there is in the core of the matter? And who, after having joined us, does not long to suffer?’

“Unquestionably there were also during this period, especially after considerable seasons of quiet, many superficial or hypocritical Christians, who, the moment the storm of persecution broke forth, flew like chaff from the wheat, and either offered incense to the gods (thurificati, sacrificati), or procured false witness of their return to paganism (libellatici, from libellum), or gave up the sacred books (traditores). Tertullian relates with righteous indignation that whole congregations, with the clergy at the head, would at times resort to dishonorable bribes in order to avert the persecution of heathen magistrates. But these were certainly cases of rare exception. Generally speaking the three sorts of apostates (lapsi) were at once excommunicated, and in many churches, through excessive rigor, were even refused restoration.”

Schaff, P. (1996). History of the Christian Church (Vol. 2, Ante-Nicene Christianity). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. (Reprinted from the fifth edition of Volume 2, originally published in 1889). pp. 75-76.

Christian Education and the Christianization of society
But the accumulation of raw numbers, by the Holy Spirit’s work through potent public witness to the Truth of God’s Word and the certainty of His promises, was not the only factor in the Christianization of pagan Rome.

John Wycliff defends his Confession before the Bishop of London, 1377

For new converts must be catechized, and for sufficient catechesis, they must be educated. And this is what the Church did, for old and young, male and female alike:

“[B]y about A.D. 150, Justin Martyr, often called the first great scholar of the Christian Church, established such catechetical schools, one in Ephesus and one in Rome. Soon these schools appeared in other regions. Some became well known... Although the teaching of Christian doctrine was the primary focus of these schools, some, such as the schools in Alexandria, also taught mathematics and medicine; and when Origen (‘the prince of Christian learning’) succeeded Clement at Alexandria, he added grammar classes to the curriculum... Their existence, says William Boyd, had far reaching effects. Through them, ‘Christianity became for the first time a definite factor in the culture of the World. [For example], Christians... appear to have been the first to teach both genders in the same setting... Instructing both men and women, as the early Christians did, was rather revolutionary... [In contrast, Roman] schools, says one educational historian, apparently only taught boys – and then only boys from the privileged class – in their gymnasia, while girls were excluded. In light of this ancient practice, Tatian, once a student in one of Justin Martyr’s catechetical schools, proclaimed that Christians taught everybody, including girls and women. W. M. Ramsay states that Christianity’s aim was ‘universal education, not education confined to the rich, as among the Greeks and Romans... and it [made] no distinction of gender.’’ This practice produced results, for by the early fifth century, St. Augustine said that Christian women were often better informed in divine matters than the pagan male philosophers.”

Schmidt, A. (2004). How Christianity Changed the World. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. pp. 171-172.

This cultural influence, through a system of catechesis and general education which not only enabled the early Christians to read and understand their Greek and Latin Scriptures and to thus stand with all confidence in their teaching, but which also cultivated their intellect and trained them for a productive life in service toward their neighbor, had, by the time of Constantine the Great, yielded a tremendous change in Roman society:

“The Church had extended to all parts of the Empire... [and] had gained a high social position... Christian leaders, especially the teachers and the writers, had culture and education superior to that of the pagans. And the Christian literature of this period presupposed a well-educated Christian public... The Graeco-Roman world was Christianized...”

Qualben, L. (1964). A History of the Christian Church (4^th Ed.). New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons. pg. 114.

This was the apex of religious and cultural change, not to mention economic and political strife, at which Constantine stood in 308 A.D., and from which he oversaw some of the most dramatic changes that the Empire would endure. Requiring a stable, patriotic, productive and cultured citizenry, and himself predisposed toward Christianity, Constantine made the following changes, many of which are considered inviolable in the West even today, all of which are still of great and positive impact:

“Constantine effected one of the greatest transformations in history. Before his death the Roman empire had largely emancipated itself from the old, pagan religions... While Christianity was not formally adopted by Constantine as the religion of the State, he virtually gave it this position. The privileges that had belonged to the religious institutions of old Rome were given to the Church, with several new ones added. He exempted the Christian clergy from military and municipal duties and their property from taxation (313 A.D.). He abolished various customs and ordinances offensive to Christians (315 A.D.). He gave the Catholic but not the heretical churches right to receive legacies (321 A.D.). He enjoined the civil observance of Sunday (321 A.D.). He contributed liberally to the building of churches, to the circulation of the Scriptures, and to the support of the clergy. The Catholic churches were given the privilege of asylum. He preferred Christians to fill the chief offices, surrounded himself with Christian councilors, and gave his sons a Christian education... He tried in every way to strengthen and to unify the Church. In 314 A.D. He called the Council of Arles to settle the Donatist controversy, and in 325 A.D. He called the first General Œcumenical Council of the Church, held at Nicæa in Asia Minor.”

Qualben, L. (1964). A History of the Christian Church (4^th Ed.). New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons. pp. 117-118.

And in summary, through the persecutions suffered by Christians that resulted from continuing to make a living Confession of their Christian Conscience, the following was accomplished by God in Society, and remains at the foundation of Western Civilization:

“Under the inspiring influence of the spotless purity of Christ’s teaching and example... the Christian Church from the beginning asserted the individual rights of man, recognized the divine image in every rational being, taught the common creation and common redemption, the destination of all for immortality and glory, raised the humble and the lowly, comforted the prisoner and captive, the stranger and the exile, proclaimed chastity as a fundamental virtue, elevated woman to dignity and equality with man, upheld the sanctity and inviolability of the marriage tie, laid the foundation of a Christian family and happy home, moderated the evils and undermined the foundations of slavery, opposed polygamy and concubinage, emancipated the children from the tyrannical control of parents, denounced the exposure of children as murder, made relentless war upon the bloody games of the arena and the circus, and the shocking indecencies of the theater, upon cruelty and oppression and every vice, infused into a heartless and loveless world the spirit of love and brotherhood, transformed sinners into saints, frail women into heroines, and lit up the darkness of the tomb by the bright ray of unending bliss in heaven.

“Christianity reformed society from the bottom, and built upwards until it reached the middle and higher classes, and at last the emperor himself. Then, soon after the conversion of Constantine it began to influence legislation, abolished cruel institutions, and enacted laws which breathe the spirit of justice and humanity. We may deplore the evils which followed in the train of the union of church and state, but we must not over look its many wholesome effects upon the Justinian code which gave Christian ideas an institutional form and educational power for whole generations to this day. From that time on also began the series of charitable institutions for widows and orphans, for the poor and the sick, the blind and the deaf, the intemperate and criminal, and for the care of all unfortunate – institutions which we search for in vain in any other but Christian countries.”

Schaff, P. (1996). History of the Christian Church (Vol. 2, Ante-Nicene Christianity). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. (Reprinted from the fifth edition of Volume 2, originally published in 1889). pp. 385-386.

Modern Day Martyrdom Coming to America, as the Enemies of Christ continue to be Empowered

What is Martyrdom?
Yesterday, we briefly defined this essentially as follows:

Martyrdom is the fate suffered by the Confessor at the hands of his persecutors.

Many American Christians believe the illusion that no one in the World suffers for their Christian faith. This is not true. Throughout the world there are those who are not only free, but encouraged to act on their hatred of Christ and His followers. Such hatred is growing in America, as well; and it is encouraged by the most powerful institutions of our Nation: the media, academia and the State.

Many others believe the lie that their public confession ought to have no impact on the society in which they live, have no voice in public affairs, have no consideration whatsoever in the legal and political structures of their civilization, and that their voiceless Christian Quietism will afford them the luxury of believing as they please, in peace and quiet, unmolested by a world that would hate them, if they only knew that they existed. It sticks in their craw that the Holy Martyrs dared open their mouths in public, offended their pagan neighbors with their religion, openly disobeyed the governing authorities who ordered them to stop, and worse, that across the growing mass of believers over the first few centuries, a consistent public Confession and a REFUSAL to submit to the will of their unbelieving enemies formed the civilization known as Christendom – which we now today refer to as Western Civilization.

Most, however, are oblivious. Living in a world wrought for them through millenia of Christian persecution, they leach from society the benefits won for them by others, neither thinking of their obligation to struggle on behalf of the generations which will follow, nor willing to do so even if the thought occurred to them.

In the opening post of our series on the Martyrs and the mockery the memory of their sacrifices suffer at the hands of those who prefer the “Relevance” that friendship with the World buys them, “Relevance,” and Mockery of the Holy Martyrs – Introduction, we introduced the topic of Martyrdom and the source of the Christian’s willingness to suffer persecution, torture and death: the precious Word of Truth, the Message of the Gospel to a Fallen and destitute race.

How easy it would have been for the Blessed Martyrs of the early Church to acquiesce to the World's overtures of friendship, which often meant the difference between life and tortuous death. Yet all the while, theirs was truly a Crisis of the Word, of God's Word, the Bible, which was still in the process of being canonized.

Genocide of Armenian Christians, 1915

Irenæus, Polycarp, Justin and others valiantly fought against the teachers of Gnosticism and the authors of apocryphal and pseudepigraphal Gospels and Epistles, and they along with many others were Martyred in the process. But this was the key to maintaining orthodoxy in the face of false teachers, their fraudulent scriptures and their resulting heresies: validating (a) one’s Scripture sources as having come directly from the apostles, and (b) one’s teaching as having descended only from those very Scripture sources.

They could have made friends with the world, if they weren't so dogmatic. They could have made friends with the world, if only they were willing to overlook some corruption in their Bibles. But they resisted this temptation. They were followers of Christ, hanging on to the very words which proceeded from the mouth of God. And they were hated for it, with a venomous hatred. The Ten Persecutions of the Early Church demonstrate this most ably. And make no mistake, the World has essentially held its venom in store for almost one-and-a-half millenia since – at least in the West – reminding us only every now and then that it still hates us...

“[T]he martyrdom of the first three centuries... remains one of the grandest phenomena of history, and an evidence of the indestructible, divine nature of Christianity.

“No other religion could have stood for so long a period the combined opposition of Jewish bigotry, Greek philosophy, and Roman policy and power; no other could have triumphed at last over so many foes by purely moral and spiritual force, without calling any carnal weapons to its aid. This comprehensive and long-continued martyrdom is the peculiar crown and glory of the early church; it pervaded its entire literature and gave it a predominantly apologetic character; it entered deeply into its organization and discipline and the development of Christian doctrine; it affected the public worship and private devotions; it produced a legendary poetry... The sufferings, moreover, of the church during this period are of course not to be measured merely by the number of actual executions, but by the far more numerous insults, slanders, vexations, and tortures, which the cruelty of heartless heathens and barbarians could devise, or any sort of instrument could inflict on the human body, and which were in a thousand cases worse than death.

“Finally, while the Christian religion, has at all times suffered more or less persecution, bloody or unbloody, from the ungodly world, and always has its witnesses ready for any sacrifice; yet at no period since the first three centuries was the whole church denied the right of a peaceful legal existence, and the profession of Christianity itself universally declared and punished as a political crime. Before Constantine the Christians were a helpless and proscribed minority in an essentially heathen world, and under a heathen government. Then they died not simply for particular doctrines, but for the facts of Christianity. Then it was a conflict, not for a denomination or sect, but for Christianity itself. The importance of ancient martyrdom does not rest so much on the number of victims and the cruelty of their sufferings as on the great antithesis and the ultimate result in saving the Christian religion for all time to come. Hence, the first three centuries are the classical period of heathen persecution and of Christian martyrdom. The martyrs and confessors of the ante-Nicene age suffered for the common cause of all Christian denominations and sects, and hence are justly held in reverence and gratitude by all.”

Schaff, P. (1996). History of the Christian Church (Vol. 2, Ante-Nicene Christianity). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. (Reprinted from the fifth edition of Volume 2, originally published in 1889). pp. 77-80.

And, in the final post of that series, “Relevance,” and Mockery of the Holy Martyrs – Conclusion, we concluded with the following words:

Confessors become Martyrs
The more the Church inches toward the World in her doctrine and practice, and in ideologies which impact them, the more we abdicate our distinctiveness, consign ourselves (at first) to Worldly thinking and practice for the sake of self-preservation (which swiftly turns to the desire of Worldliness), the closer we come to giving the World dominion over the Church, and inviting, once again, its violent persecution against us. But shouldn’t the Church’s teaching, like the Christian’s faith, be immoveable? Why should it “inch toward” anything at all?

We Christians are Confessors, and as such stand facing the World in a state of Confession. If this confession is to be regarded as meaningful in any respect, it is required that we maintain our distinctiveness in teaching and practice. And make no mistake, as Confessors we are always one step away from Martyrdom, for the two words are closely related. Dr. Philip Schaff explains:

“Those who cheerfully confessed Christ before the heathen magistrate at peril of life, but were not executed, were honored as confessors. Those who suffered abuse of all kinds, and death itself, for their faith, were called martyrs or blood-witnesses.”

Schaff, P. (1996). History of the Christian Church (Vol. 2, Ante-Nicene Christianity). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. (Reprinted from the fifth edition of Volume 2, originally published in 1889). pg. 76.

The Martyrdom of Dr. Robert Barnes, 1540

The Confessor is the one who stands in the face of death, publicly holding to his faith in Christ. The Martyr is the one who meets the death he is threatened with. For the Confessor who goes on living, his life, in word and deed, immovably remains a living example of the confession he clinged to, even on threat of death, avoiding any speech or behaviour which would cause him to be seen as viewing his own life so cheaply as to give a false confession and be regarded a liar and hypocrite.

And this Christian State of Confession with respect to the World, and with respect to false teachers and religious sects, along with its close connection to potential martyrdom, is recognized by confessional Lutheranism as well. Each one of our confirmands takes the following oath:

“Do you, as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, intend to continue steadfast in the confession of this Church, and suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?“

The Lutheran Agenda. (1946). St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House. pg. 24

The World is still the Christian’s Great Enemy
The World is still our enemy. The World still hates the followers of Christ. It always has. And it has always schemed and struggled to eradicate the World of Christianity. It attacks our Bible. It attacks the facts and teaching it contains. It mocks Christ. It mocks those who imitate Him. It erects barriers against Christians – in the realm of politics, business, and even social life. It destroys our education, vaunting the evolving priorities of society over the unchanging needs of Christianity – to read and understand the unalloyed words of God in order that one may confidently stand on them, and to serve one’s neighbor through Vocation for the sake of Christ. The World entices the Church, as a Syren in the shallows, that we may wreck our ship of faith on the shoals. In these ways, and in many others, the World seeks to rid itself of Christ’s influence. What shall be the response of a true Confessor? Our response ought to follow the example of the early Christian Martyrs. First, simply stand on the “odd,” “irrelevant,” and mightily hated Word of God, in all of its Truth and purity, regardless of what the World thinks of us or threatens to do to us on account of it. Second, retain our distinctive practices and lifestyles, and commitment to true and valid Christian Education, always standing ready to give a defense for the faith that is in us while working diligently in our Vocations in the interest of our neighbor, for the sake of Christ. Third, rid ourselves of those who would compromise God’s Word or its teaching, no matter how subtly, who would have us conduct ourselves in a more Worldly and “relevant” fashion, and who would have God’s faithful follow them. Fourth, gracefully accept the consequences, even if it appears to mean the extinction of the Church itself. God, not us, rules His Church, and He providentially governs Creation for the benefit of the Church, His Bride. We need not worry over its demise.

Gnostic America: A Reading of Comtemporary American Culture & Religion according to Christianity's Oldest Heresy – by Rev. Peter M. Burfeind (LCMS)

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From the paper,
Why is this Happening to Us? How the culture wars become religious wars among us
delivered at the
2012 Conference of Intrepid Lutherans
“As is continuously the case even in our own age, already before the first generation of post-Apostolic Christianity had come to an end, heterodox interpretations of New Testament teaching were being disseminated by false teachers, along with fraudulent writings purported to be those of the Apostles. Therefore, in addition to preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ, the task soon fell upon those descending from direct contact with the Apostles to defend orthodox teaching and differentiate between genuine and false Scriptures. An early example of one such false teacher is Valentinus (d. A.D. 160) – the most influential Gnostic teacher in history, who received his training in Alexandria before coming to Rome. Another early Gnostic teacher, based in Rome, was Cerdon – he was a disciple of Simon Magus (mentioned in Acts 8:9-24).

When gnosticism came in touch with Christianity, it rapidly adopted the outward garb of the latter (1) by using the Christian forms of thought, (2) by borrowing its nomenclature, (3) by acknowledging Christ dualistically as the Saviour of the world, (4) by simulating the Christian sacraments, (5) by pretending to be an esoteric revelation of Christ and his apostles, (6) by producing a great number of apocryphal Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Revelations (apocalypses). Although gnosticism was utterly the opposite of Christianity, it was so well camouflaged by this borrowed garb that it appeared to the unwary as a modification or refinement of Christianity. In fact it soon claimed to be the only true form of Christianity, set apart for the elect, unfit for the vulgar crowd. Gnosticism, highly aggressive, became so widely diffused throughout the Christian churches that for several centuries, especially from the second to the fourth, it threatened to stifle Christianity altogether. Many of the early Church Fathers, especially Irenæus, made great effort to suppress and uproot it. The gnostic leaders were excluded from membership in churches, while gnosticism was denounced as heresy by the Church as a whole.

“However, it was the teaching of Cerdon’s student, Marcion of Pontus (d. A.D. 160), being closely related to that of Gnosticism, which was regarded as enormously and immediately dangerous to Christianity. According to the 4^th Century church historian, Eusebius of Cæsarea (d. A.D. 339), Justin Martyr defended against the heresies of Marcion in writing, from which Irenæus (d. A.D. 202), a disciple of Polycarp, quotes in one of his own works, as well. And Polycarp himself was active against the Gnostic heretics. Irenæus recounted the mission of Polycarp to Rome in order to defend orthodoxy in the face of Valentinus and Marcion, as follows:

But Polycarp also was not only instructed by the apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth... a man who was of much greater weight, and a more steadfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles – that, namely, which he also handed down to the Church.

“And this was the key to maintaining orthodoxy in the face of false teachers, their fraudulent scriptures and their resulting heresy:

1. validating one’s Scripture sources as having come directly from the apostles, and
2. validating one’s teaching as descending only from those Scriptures.

“...These works of polemic – defenses of orthodoxy and documentation of the Scripture’s sources – were required of Irenæus, Polycarp and others, as a result of pressure from the world and from worldly heterodox teachers.

Amid the general confusion ushered in by the gnostics, the Church was obliged to set up certain standards to be acknowledged by anyone who claimed to be Christian. These standards included the Apostles’ Creed, the formation of the New Testament Canon, and the Apostolic Office, or the historic Episcopate... [while] the defense of the Christian faith lead to the formation of Christian dogma...

“So, very early in the life of the New Testament church, in order to protect the Scriptures and the Christian message from corruption, the genuine apostolic writings had to be identified and defended as genuine.”

---

As readers of Intrepid Lutherans may be aware, the philosophy of post-Modernism is a relatively frequent topic on these pages. A related, and perhaps more important topic, is the re-emergence of a religious movement which seems to share in some sort of symbiosis with post-Modernism: the rise of Gnosticism in the West. In the words quoted above (and as they were expanded in the footnotes of that paper), the false religion of Gnosticism received brief treatment, and later in that paper, under headings such as “Gnosticism and Pagan Teaching, Monasticism and Aristocratic Merit before God” and “Gnostic Challenges, Pragmatic Issues of Governance, and the Romanization of the Church,” was identified as a primary cause of lasting corruption in the Church. To my knowledge, this is the extent of attention Gnosticism has received from Intrepid Lutherans. But it hasn’t been otherwise unknown to us.

More than once in the recent past has the fact been impressed upon me that the ideal of a secular society – often argued by Christian quietists who’d prefer that Christians squelch their religious convictions and disregard their Christian identity in the public square – is pure myth, long disproven by demographics studies since the early 1980’s, not much more than one decade after Western (and Lutheran) social scientists issued its initial hypothesis. This fact veritably forces one to admit that, like it or not, religious conviction and practice is fundamental to the establishment of any social order, and thus also forces one question: what affirmative and ascendant religious motivation stands behind the radical social changes we witness today, and behind the popular, near-militant anti-Christian sentiment we now experience in Western society? That is, since religion WILL function as a primary ordering force in society, which religion does it look likely to be, going forward? In answer to this, more than once have I heard Lutherans and other Christians forcefully warn of the re-emergence of Gnosticism.


Gnostic America
A Reading of Contemporary American Culture & Religion
according to Christianity’s Oldest Heresy

by Rev. Peter M. Burfeind
Rev. Peter M. Burfeind (LCMS) is one of those Lutherans who has personally warned me of this re-emergence. And now he is warning more broadly in his new book, Gnostic America: A Reading of Contemporary American Culture & Religion according to Christianity’s Oldest Heresy. An operator of Pax Domini Press, many of our readers may be familiar with his involvement with Sunday School curricula like A.D. The Acceptable Year of the Lord (a curriculum for ages 4-12 on the Gospel texts from the Historic Lectionary) or A New Song unto the Lord (a curriculum on the Biblical texts supporting the liturgy), and several Vacation Bible School programs. Pax Domini Press is one of those publishers that has been on our list of publishers since we first put that list in the column on the right. Having met him personally on a number of occasions, I recall the conversation we had the last time we had met. It was a broad conversation on the topic of gnostic manifestations in the church and in society today, which lasted into the early morning hours. It was during this conversation that he not only made apparent to me his concern, but revealed to me his ongoing research on the topic, mentioning that he had composed some material that he had shown to another pastor, who then encouraged him to continue developing his work into a book. Since then, I’ve thought of our conversation that evening, and as recently as this Summer, wondered if he had continued working or even completed his work. I received an email in late August announcing that his book, Gnostic America, is finally complete. I purchased a copy as soon as it was available on Amazon, and am currently about one-third of the way through it. At 362 pages, 16 chapters and 915 endnotes, one may expect that this book is rendered in painfully academic prose. Quite the opposite, however, being written by a parish pastor with a living concern for the laity (rather than a professional theologian, who daily functions outside of that environment), it is very accessibly written, without also being so “accessible” as to be insulting or condescending to literate adults – Rev. Burfeind is having a very serious conversation with his readers. I can say, even at only one-third through the book, that Gnostic America is a book which every Christian layman in America must read, especially if he wants a fuller understanding of currents in American and Western culture in terms of religious influence. With the influence of Christianity at a sharply contracting ebb, the influence of Gnosticism, which has always been a strong undercurrent, has risen to the surface again, and seems to now be directing the course of society. To give readers of Intrepid Lutherans a brief view into the subtle yet pernicious and pervasive influence that Gnosticism now has in Western Society (and with written permission from Rev. Burfeind), I quote extensively from the Introduction of Gnostic America:

Spiritual Artifacts of our Times“Easter, 2012. The audience gazed on in eager expectation, sitting in the stadium seating at the newest campus of the local mega-church. A giant screen towered over them. It revealed the countdown: four minutes forty-three seconds til the service... People filed in, they moved hastily to their seats ushered by well-trained worship attendants. The feeling was electric... Three...two...one.... The show began. The praise band stormed on the stage and churned the audience into a clapping, swaying, hand-waving throng... Then came the climax of the service. At the point where Christians have reverently received the Eucharist for two millenia, a song by Contemporary artist Chris Tomlin filled the building... As the singer, an attractive young female, segued into the final phrase of the song, she gave out a long impassioned moan, typical of the pop-vibrato style: ooooo ahhhhhh oooo ooooo ooooo. On cue the audience broke out into clapping and dance. The service ended.

“Harold Bloom went so far as to call the scene Orphic, referring to the ancient mystery cult where flutists worked initiates into an emotional froth, and then priests leveraged the emotion toward the desired goal, the vision of the mystery... In the history of the church, there is no precedent for this sort of emotion-laden, sacrament-less, erotically-charged religiosity. There is, however, a precedent outside the walls of the Church.

“That tradition is the Gnostic one.

“...[Drawing from philosophizing comments of a blogger, following the death of J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye] Everyone is fake...the world is a product of the meaning I impose on it...sleep and dreaming is where the real stuff is at...death is release... The blogger asks: Is there anyone who is truly authentic?

“Authentic. The word is everywhere. It’s the new pious , which traditionally was the proper state of mind one should have toward his deity. When God is distinct from me, my state of mind toward this other Being is that of piety. But what happens when my Self is God? Then the goal is authenticity. Being ‘true to my Self’ replaces ‘deny yourself’... Authenticity, or creating one’s Self, is the chief piety [of Existentialism, ‘the atheist's religion’]. Choice is [this religion’s] sacrament. It’s how creation of Self happens. In fact, there is a whole lexicon of words we use – authenticity, choice, freedom, Self, culture, values – whose meanings are shaped by this atheistic philosophy. But we have forgotten the philosophical contexts in which these terms arose, so we don’t question their premises. Why don’t we question their premises? Because that’s how faith works. It’s premises just are.

“Faith is far from on the decline in America. It’s held more fervently than ever, and its premises are more blindly adhered to and more absolutely grounded on thin air than Christianity ever was.

“A Neo-evangelical praise service, the anticipation of a progressive Utopian Age, the musings of an existentialist/New Age blogger, a young person’s discomfort with his/her gender, these are spiritual artifacts of our times, detritus from the spiritual path our culture is carving out of our age. They don’t stand out because no one notices the smell of the house they live in. They point to a dominant religious footprint so large no one notices it. The argument of this book is that the traits of ancient Gnosticism best explain this religious orientation.”

Gnosticism 101“What is Gnosticism? The Gnosticism 101 answer is, it was an ancient movement centered on esoteric knowledge. It held to a dualistic understanding of the cosmos, in which an evil, lesser god created all things material, and only those who had attained gnosis (knowledge) about their true Source (the higher deity) understood the bodiless Self-ness of their existence. Its salvation program of one of escape, escape of Self from materiality and this oppressive world order.

“Gnosticism’s major offense to traditional Christianity... is its rejection of nature, nature’s laws, and natures God. The gnostic is ever in rebellion against nature and... natural forms. Such naturally-arising concepts as gender, national boundaries, the cold hard realities of economics, cultural institutions like family and church (especially its rituals), marriage, even language, are deceptive impositions, says that Gnostic, of a foreign God upon which should be the authentic Self liberated from all impositions of form, freed to transcend them altogether.

“The Judeo-Christian orientation [however] centers on created forms. God’s first action was to separate the ‘formless and void’ of creation and bring about the various species ‘each according to its kind.’ After separating the elements he named them, which is to say: language arose out of the creation of forms... Gnostics reject this entire premise. The God who established forms ‘each according to its kind’ they consider an evil usurping god, a false tyrant deceptively thought to be the one true God, the God of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The true God, says the Gnostic, transcends all form, all that can be thought, all being, everything. Celebrating formless spirituality, Gnosticism rejects those formal things, peoples, and institutions marking traditional Christianity: the Church, its sacramental life, and its ministry. It despises the Jewish God and its regard for language and grammar, anything mooring spirituality to something so profane as a text.

“Thus the Gnosticism 101 summary, but where things get interesting (and pernicious) is where the Gnostic movement works its program through culture, politics and religion. Precisely because Gnosticism doesn’t have marked doctrines or creedal statements, being more a ‘spiritual orientation,’ it can easily be co-opted in non-religious arenas – in politics, marketing and media – without fear of being accused of religious imposition, when in fact this is exactly what it is.”

Irony & Nihilism
De-constructing Western mores & institutions; Re-constructing with the religion of Gnosticism“Gnosticism naturally rises out of nihilism, and ours is a nihilistic age. Nihilism is the view that nothing matters... [it] is the wrecking ball of society, an iconoclastic force tearing down traditional institutions, traditional moralities, traditional rituals, traditional habits, traditional customs, traditional grammar, traditional language and traditional reasoning. Nihilism begins in despair and cynicism, despair because these traditions seemed to fail human aspiration, cynicism that they could have ever satisfied it in the first place. To the nihilist, every institution is run by the ‘powers that be,’ or the ‘rulers of the universe,’ by people who only concern is control: power for its own sake.

“Nihilism often masquerades as a bitter sense of irony. Irony fits nihilism because it discharges any challenge to nihilism. Irony can cut anything good and beautiful down to size. It also raises the bad and ugly just enough to prove the high and great weren’t that high or great in the first place. Irony levels everything so that nothing has meaning.

“...Why is this sort of irony necessary? Because nihilism has taken root in the American mind. The moment any traditional institution or form or convention or custom – the nation, marriage, the Church, gender roles, freedom, the free market – is seen to have some worth or beauty or goodness (to say nothing of basic truth) attached to it, the demon of nihilism has a ready quip to deflate its pretenses. Hence the modern iconoclasm toward these institutions, their sentenced de-construction.

“But the human soul cannot tolerate such emptiness, the vacuum created by nihilism. Something must fill the vacated domain. Something must be re-constructed. Hollywood understands this. At the same time they manufacture irony toward traditional notions, they craft new fantastical realities... [But] irony, though fun and funny, is ultimately jejune and doesn’t satisfy. Hollywood cannot end with irony; it must offer new, transcendent realities... [which suggest that one has] tapped into something more real than life. The soul enters into the dark tunnel of nihilism, but finds a light at the end of the tunnel, on ...projection screens, ...television commercials, ...the internet, and in the other accepted conduits of reconstructed truth.

“The path from nihilism to meaning has a parallel in the history of philosophy. The most virulent, anti-Christian, atheist philosophers almost always ended up with some sort of spirituality. They must make some appeal to the transcendent, else they’d have no reason to lay down their philosophies in the first place. What is the transcendent, after all, but whatever I believe it true for more than just myself? That transcendency, then, soon takes on the characteristics of spirituality.

“Some simply end at irony, like philosopher Richard Rorty. But even Nietzsche, as ‘he assails the reason he will be enlisting,’ at the same time ‘ironizes a discourse that at the same time struggles beyond irony’... The quest for truth cannot end at irony; there must be something beyond.

“Heidegger displays the same tension between nihilism and transcendence. He too, like Nietzsche, saw the West coming to a nihilistic end because being, as understood in the Western philosophical heritage, disintegrated when the Christian and classical traditions propelling that heritage ran out of steam. Heidegger also didn’t leave it at that, at nihilism. In the words of political philosopher Michael Gillespie, ‘he believes he discerns in its depths the dawning light of a new revelation of Being.’ Nihilism, rather, is the ‘dawning recognition of Being.’ We must go through nihilism before getting to the new understanding of Being. At the same time, we face both ‘utter degradation and the possibility of salvation in a new revelation of Being.’ In other words, it’s as we’ve been contemplating: the point of nihilistic breakdown is also the point of new possibilities.”

The Structure of this Book
“This book is divided into four parts... The first part [being four chapters] introduces the basics of Gnosticism, with a brief outline of its mythologies, teachings and practices. These might be interesting on an academic level, to some, but far more interesting and important is how Gnosticism works through modern spirituality, how the Gnostic traits in its ancient version echo yet today. Considerable space, then, is devoted to the Gnostic traits. Finally, a history of Gnostic movements is given, taking us from the ancient world to today... The second part [being three chapters] explores Gnosticism in culture. It begins with the Existentialist understanding of the Self and goes on to the role media and music play in the development of Self... The third part [also being three chapters] tackles Gnostic politic, finding common themes in the totalitarian movements of the modern era. The central thesis driving this part is that a specific theological outlook of the Middle Ages – millenarian, Anabaptist, Pietist and Puritan – has laid the foundation for modern progressive politics... [and] the fourth part [being six chapters] deals with Gnosticism in religion, discussing how the Neo-evangelical movement has essential become the New Age wing of the Christian church.”

An important work on a subject little understood in our era, and almost never mentioned, I encourage our readers to purchase and read it.

DEEDS or CREEDS?

DEEDS or CREEDS?
by Mr. Vernon Kneprath

‘Deeds or Creeds’ is the title of one application for the Sunday School lesson about Rahab in material published by the WELS publisher, Northwestern Publishing House.¹ The application is a lesson in itself; one that is applicable to all who are confronted with the question regarding what should or must be included in worship services.

A question is posed in the lesson…

“Which do you think is more important, deeds or creeds?” Or, in other words, what is more important? Is it the things you say you believe, with words, or is it the things you do, based on your beliefs?

The lesson goes on to teach (paraphrased)…

We may think that deeds are more important because they show what we believe. But our deeds cannot bring anyone to faith.  Only the Gospel can. That’s why our creed – a confession of what we believe – is important to share with others.  We confess our faith in church as we say the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed and when we sing the liturgy and hymns. We confess our faith at home, work, and school when we talk about God and what he has done for us.

Our deeds (good works) do not help to save in any way. They are simply our thankful response to what God has done for us through His Son, Jesus. The Holy Spirit uses our creed (confessions of faith in God’s Word) to lead unbelievers to faith and to strengthen and encourage fellow believers.

This Biblical teaching is from WELS material published 15 years ago. Some might argue it is outdated. Some might argue that the culture has changed so much that the lesson should be changed to reflect something more real, more relevant. As some WELS congregations turn toward contemporary worship services they are commonly changing or even removing the Creeds from worship in an effort to become more “user-friendly.”

When teachers who teach this lesson (and students who learn it) notice that the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds are omitted from worship, they are confronted with the inconsistency of teaching and practice. A church which fails to practice what is taught to the youth soon loses all credibility. The likely conclusion is that neither the words (creeds) nor the practices (deeds) matter.

The Gospel message in the Creeds is the means by which God creates and strengthens faith. That message is timeless and indifferent to culture. That’s why the Creeds have been a part of our worship service for centuries. Remove the Creeds from worship service? Outdated? Irrelevant? The Gospel of the Creeds is what all people need to hear.

------------
Endnotes:

1. Week 8, Lesson B, Page 114. Grades 5-6 Old Testament, Christlight. Northwestern Publishing House. 1999

The Descent of the Contemporary Church into Cultural Narcissism – a dialogue joined by Reformed and Lutheran Christians

In April of 2011, I had written a rather lengthy post, entitled, Money, Ministry, God, and Mammon: How “love” binds them all together – a Case in Point ...or... The “love bug” bites Answers in Genesis... on the arse.. It was written following the scandal of Ken Ham’s permanent dismissal from speaking engagements with Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc.. Apparently, he was “being unloving” toward Christians who accepted the theories of Biological and Cosmic Evolution as compatible with orthodox Christian teaching, by publicly warning of their errors. Even though Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc., was informed by Answers in Genesis that Ken Ham would identify another speaker on their docket (specifically, Dr. Enns of the Biologos Foundation) and would warn those attending his own lecture that this person taught contrary to the Scriptures, even though Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc., affirmed Ken Ham’s intent to warn of these errors as their expectation, and in a way that nevertheless welcomed and encouraged him as a speaker, he was, nevertheless, “permanently fired” quite suddenly following the first convention that year: “Ken Ham was not removed for his message,” they put in writing afterwards, “Ken Ham was removed for his spirit” – whatever that means. Not buying weak explanations of this sort, many in the homeschool community smelled a rat – a political rat – and remain suspicious of, and disenfranchised from, Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc.

That post attracted quite a bit of attention at the time, from outside Lutheranism, especially. As a result, one commenter was prompted to ask concerning the differences between Lutheranism and her own Presbyterian church. So I wrote a followup article, entitled, Differences between Reformed and Lutheran Doctrines – a post that has remained popular since that time. I concluded it with the following sentence: Finally, if you’re interested in what confessional Reformed and Lutheran dialogue sounds like, a good radio program to listen to is The White Horse Inn Classic, a program in the weekly line-up of Pirate Christian Radio.

Today’s post features a recording of The White Horse Inn from May of 2012, entitled, Growing in Grace & Knowledge. The title of the broadcast was taken from St. Peter’s admonition to “Grow in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pe. 3:18), admonition which is impossible to heed without deliberately engaging the intellect. But many Christians, including many Lutherans, have been taught to distrust the intellect – “Reason is the enemy of faith,” after all. Even though Luther meant by this the use of Reason over and against the clear teaching of Scripture, many, in my recent experience, choose to chuck reason entirely out the window rather than give it a foothold, and immediately resort to the accusation “But that’s reason,” when one of their cherished falsehoods is challenged by a thoughtful, Scripturally sound and persuasive argument. They forget that Luther more famously said

Unless I am convinced by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures or evident reason... I am bound by the Scriptures... my conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God, and I am neither able nor willing to recant, since it is neither safe nor right to act against conscience.”

(Schwiebert, E. (1950). Luther and His Times. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House. pp. 504-505.)

Conscience. We’ve used that term many many times here on Intrepid Lutherans. Indeed, three titles worth reviewing with respect to this term include the following: The Theological Disciplines, and the nature of theological discourse..., Theological Discourse in the post-Modern Era, and “Relevance,” and Mockery of the Holy Martyrs – Conclusion. In these posts, and others, it is emphasized that Conscience is the seat of human identity and the source of one’s Public Confession. Conscience comprises those Truths from which one cannot be separated without ceasing to be who he is, those Truths which one is compelled to cling to, even in the face of his executioner. Luther emphasizes this fact as well, as he faced the Emperor and certain death, by calling upon human conscience – what he was convinced was True – as the basis for standing in the face of error and refusing to recant that Truth. And Christian conscience is founded on what God has given to mankind: His Word and human faculty, coordinate, the latter in submission to the former.

“What have you to live for?” is supposed to be the question one is encouraged to consider, as he counts his blessings and in them finds the motivation to continue onward in life. But it is a question which cannot be sufficiently considered at all, apart from the more serious question, “What are you willing to die for?” It is only in this latter question that one is brought into direct contact with his conscience and fully engages his self-identity, as he is forced to grapple with Truth and Falsehood in their grandest conception, in their most objective and meaningful reality. For the true Christian, that identity is defined by his identity in Christ, baptized (Ga. 3:26-29) and redeemed (Ga. 3:11-14), standing, through faith alone, within the shelter of God’s Saving Grace (Ro. 5:1-2).

Grace. Knowledge. Growth. As the Church not only succumbs to post-Modernism, and other forms of Cultural Narcissism, but fully embraces worldly thinking, it is being denied a collective Christian conscience with the courage, confidence and capacity to identify, confront and repudiate the errors hurled at it by the world, and individual Christians are being robbed of the cultivated faculties necessary to adequately consider and react to the withering attacks of the world against Christ, the Church, and against them, individually. The following dialogue is filled, from start to finish, with keen insight into the state of the Western world today – not of the sort that is usually shoveled under the noses of Christians, and even confessional Lutherans; not of the sort encouraging Christians and their congregations to embrace worldly methods and perspectives “for the survival of the church”; but of a less common, disappearing sort, the sort of insight with the courage, confidence and capacity to identify, confront, and repudiate worldly seductions and faith-killing perspectives. Over the past generation or two, as confessional Lutherans have wantonly retreated from cultural significance, the conservative voices among the Reformed have consistently been a couple decades ahead of us, in their understanding of the state of the World today and in sounding the warnings. They identified post-Modernism as the danger it is, soon after it broke onto the scene, and have been sounding the sirens ever since. Some confessional Lutherans are only now beginning to awake to the danger. They rediscovered the Great Tradition of Classical Education – a Lutheran birthright, no less! – and have actively promoted it as a Christian antidote to the proliferation of what is more and more being revealed as not just irreligious but militantly anti-Christian pedagogy. Some confessional Lutherans, are only now realizing that their entire school systems may be invested in ideologies that militate against basic ideas necessary to holding and retaining Christian teaching with any fidelity – ideas like objective truth and ownership of knowledge – and instead promote an experiential collectivist ideology of knowledge that inculcates no personal responsibility for knowing anything in particular. I have found that conservative voices among the Reformed have consistently been far more helpful in identifying worldly threats to Christianity, and the following dialogue is no exception.

White Horse Inn dialogue “Growing in Grace & Knowledge”

 

Quotes from the White Horse Inn dialogue “Growing in Grace & Knowledge” Dialogue participants: Dr. R.C. Sproul (PCA), Dr. Rod Rosenblatt (LCMS), Dr. Michael Horton (URNCA), Rev. Ken Jones (Glendale Missionary Baptist Church) and Dr. Kim Riddlebarger (URCNA) Knowledge and Truth have fallen on hard times in contemporary American culture. We’re distracted in many ways from thinking deeply about anything because we’re too busy focusing on ourselves, our gadgets, our schedules and our entertainment. But sadly this problem isn’t merely “out there” in the world. Overnight, many churches have become entertainment centers, and purveyors of a kind of narcissistic spirituality. We desperately need to follow the advice of the Apostle Peter who encouraged believers to “Grow in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pe. 3:18). And that’s what we are focusing on in this edition of the White Horse Inn... When people think of sanctification, and the Christian life, sometimes not only “thinking” is put on the back burner, but sometimes it is even seen as inimical to the life of faith... [as if when] “thinking goes up, piety goes down.” We had the distinction between “head knowledge” and “heart knowledge” – the people who read books had “head knowledge” and the people who loved Jesus had “heart knowledge.” Alot of the problems, I think, have been caused by us... in our past, and it’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but there was a strong anti-intellectual strain in American Fundamentalism, but we just have to cop to it. The people who were many times most against the intellect were seen as the most spiritual. And it’s coming back to get us. Back in the middle of the 20th Century, a prominent Anglican apologist by the name of Casserly, had a chapter in one of his books called the “Treason of the Intellectual,” in which he documented how the Church had been betrayed, chiefly through the influence of 19th Century Liberalism, which was carried by the intellectual community. And as a result, he said, the people, have come to the place where, first of all, they don’t trust the intellectuals, because they’re the one’s who betrayed them. They’ve taken their Lord away and they don’t know where they can find Him. This is why he called it the “Treason of the Intellectual.” And so once they became distrustful of the intellectuals, the next step was to obviously distrust the intellect altogether. So we’ve had this weird antithesis between mind and heart... that is totally contrary to Scripture. There has been an anthropological crisis, I think, in our day, where with the advent of television and the way the media has shaped the culture... that people seem to think that if we’re going to have meaningful worship, meaningful church services, we have to understand that human nature itself has changed in the last fifty hears. Now you don’t get to the heart through the mind, now you go straight to the heart – which is mind less. This is fatal to the Christian faith. And it’s killing the Church everyday. [In addition to the history of ideas and how it shows the ways in which the Church has succumbed to secularism], there is also the kind of world we swim in, in technology for example – the fact that you can’t go to a restaurant without a TV being on, you can’t go to a public event without cellphones going off. Nicolas Carr, this is from The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brain, he says “We are too busy being dazzled or disturbed by the programming to notice what’s going on inside our heads.” And the point he’s making is that it’s not just the content, or missing the point, it’s what the medium itself is doing to us as human beings. He says, “Now, I spent my life reading and writing, but these days my concentration starts to drift after a page or two. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words, now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” And here are a couple examples. He says, “A University of Michigan professor says, ‘I can’t read War and Peace anymore. I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.’” Another person, “‘I don’t read books,’ says Joe O’Shay, a former president of the student body at Florida State University, and a 2008 recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, ‘I go to Google and I can absorb all that information quickly.’ O’Shay, a philosophy major, doesn’t see any reason to plough through chapters of text when it takes but a minute or two to cherry pick the pertinent passages using Google. ‘Sitting down and going through a book, cover to cover, doesn’t make much sense to me,’ he says, ‘It’s just not a good use of my time. And I can get all the information I need faster through the web.’.” Think of all the knowledge we have lost in information, and all the wisdom we have lost in knowledge. Christian publishing, for example, is a barren wasteland... You go to the Christian bookseller conventions, and you see the stuff that is peddled, and you wonder how anybody ever was able to secure a literary contract for this stuff, which is so poorly done, and yet, publishers are looking for new material all the time and so they publish this stuff that is so dumbed-down – and we wring our hands about that. But NOW, stuff that couldn’t even get published in that arena is on Facebook every day! Everybody is an author, everybody is a theologian... There is a kind of dumbing-down occurring where, children, for example, were once expected to learn the Westminster Catechism, or the Heidelberg Catechism, or Luther’s Small Catechism, as part of their education at home – it was just taken for granted. And NOW, some pastors look at that and say “This is too hard for ME to teach ADULTS!” I think, as you talk about technology and the spread of pseudo-communication, and pseudo-information, because that’s what it is – every opinion that a person has isn’t worth saying out loud. But since people are actually saying it out loud, what that does is trivialize genuine information. So that that which is actually significant becomes trivial! – And it also means that the old books lying there on the shelf, which are still there and are still published and are still on shelves because they actually have survived the ephemeral and the trivial, are not going to be part of the shared wisdom of our culture anymore. Hearers of the Word, we’re prejudiced already in favor of the Word, and of hearing and of reading. Mind renewal doesn’t happen simply by having a succession of experiences. We have experiences of something other than our own experience. So what happens to growth in Grace and Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ if there is no time for studied, contemplative, meditative thought? ...You can’t Google that. And how can you know the mind of Christ, unless Christ has been portrayed and presented to you in public worship? And if worship is about you and what you have to say about God, rather than about God and what He says about Himself, His Salvation and you, then there is not going to be much room for developing this mind of Christ. Our cultural context for thinking about God... Pragmatism. The narrowing of the sense that knowledge is valuable to only that which is calculable – you can weigh it, measure it, you can calculate how much it can improve your life, as William James the philosopher said, “The test of a truth claim is its cash value in experiential terms” (typical American way of putting it) – and this seems to be for a lot of people what they are demanding in terms of what [a church] is feeding them. “It’s all a matter of relativity”... This is NUTS. People are relativists only when it suits them to be relativists. AND WE SHOULDN’T SURRENDER TO THAT! People will say that “You don’t have to be rational anymore”. You speak irrationality to people, and that may entertain them for a few moments, but you will get a lot further if you try to give a sound cogent reasoned presentation – people still are put together the same way God put them together in the original Creation. So we should have confidence that... WE know that they are – on the basis of Scripture – what God says they are, and that we should appeal to them as rational beings... And that’s why I say it is such a mistake to change the character of worship to accommodate that kind of cultural sensation as if, they’re telling us, that the classic presentation of the Word of God, [with its] content... and the sacraments, and the normal things that have gone on for 2000 years, where God invested the power of the Holy Spirit in the proclamation of the Gospel. THERE IS NO REASON TO ADJUST THAT! That’s why Martin Luther said, “The worst, most impoverished student in the universe is God, because everyone thinks they can do it better...” Everybody wants to change the Gospel, make it more palatable, make it more relevant – THERE IS NOTHING MORE RELEVENT TO THAT DYING MAN’S LIFE THAN THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. WHAT CAN I DO TO IMPROVE IT?! The tragedy is not that we see this lack of commitment to knowledge and truth in the culture. We expect that. But the Church is supposed to be a “heavenly outpost.” That’s where you are supposed to hear something different. And when the Church accommodates the methods as well as the mindset and perspectives of the World and continues this mindless drivel, then we are doing the people of God a great disservice. THIS IS WHERE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO HEAR WHAT THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HEAR ANYWHERE ELSE... We have to have confidence, as preachers and as the Church, that God is creating the appetite. We can give them the Word of God, but we can’t give them an appetite for it. So once they have been detoxed from the culture, and also from bad church, we have to assume that underneath all of that... there is a genuine appetite for the Word of God, because wherever there is genuine saving faith, there is genuine love of the Saviour and a desire to know Him. Paul also says (warning Timothy), “In the last days people will be lovers of themselves, boastful, proud, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God...” – which pretty much describes our culture, but we can deliver it more quickly today, and give people the impression that their felt needs are their real needs. How much of “cultural narcissism” determines in churches what we are allowed to say, and how relevant we need to make the Truth, as if it weren’t relevant itself? For example, I am thinking of Bible studies, where people say “This what this means to me,” and immediately you have to go to... “What is the cash value?” in experiential terms, “How can I use this?,” not “What is God saying?” To the narcissism... having lost the idea of what the purpose, that the communication, that what takes place in the Church is different from what’s going on in the culture, we approach the Biblical text in the same way we approach self-help books, and not understanding that this is a different text! ...Having gotten away from the idea that the Church is speaking a different language and is using communication toward a different end, people come with worldly expectations... which is [where the] narcissism comes in, because everyone else in the world is telling you that you are the most important person, so why wouldn’t you think that it is all about you? When people say that “You are only about the intellectual stuff,” that is really just slanderous. God gives me a mind, and holds me accountable for a mature understanding of His Holy Word. He didn’t give us Billboard, or a Jingle, or a Bumper Sticker. [He gave us the Bible.] Look at the size of that book! ...I am ashamed of how much I have not mastered. I’m going to say something outrageous... The tendency is this: The larger the church, the less likely it is to be sound. And there is a reason for that. We’ve seen the serious problem of Christian television. Christian television is so expensive to underwrite, that the only way you’re able to do it is if you have an extremely broad base, and the only way you can have an extremely broad base is to simplify simplify simplify, and move away from the serious content of the Gospel, and, to use the language, to dumb it down. And that happens not just on TV, but it happens in our churches, as well. Beware of the man that everyone speaks well of... [Of course,] we want churches to grow like the Lord added thousands to the Church in the 1st Century, but to sustain that, they were sustained by the Word.