Posted on 07/15/2008 1:20:46 AM PDT by Gamecock
Hello and welcome to another edition of the White Horse Inn, we are continuing our series "Christless Christianity." As we look around today we listen to a lot of sermons in mainline churches, in conservative Evangelical churches, in Reformed churches, in Lutheran Churches, in Baptist churches, really across the board regardless of what people believe on paper, this message of self-help--which really is Pelagianism at its heart-is what we find really quite pervasive and it has its roots in our own desire to be self-saviors. It is the natural heresy of the human heart. Whenever we are sort of lax in explicitly teaching the Gospel and the doctrines of the faith we will always go back to our default setting which is Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism.
We did that in American religious history as well and in a lot of ways today's Protestantism, whether it is Liberal or Fundamentalist, came from the legacy of Charles Granderson Finney. Of course he wasn't the only one, but he was a very important figure in the history of American Evangelicalism; ever since the Second Great Awakening, especially evident in the message and methods of evangelist Charles Finney, American Protestantism has been more Pelagian than Arminian, in fact Arminian theologian Roger Olson made just that point in one of his books and on this program. Denying original sin, Finney asserted that we are only guilty and corrupt when we choose to sin, Christ's work on the cross couldn't have paid our debt but could only serve as a moral example and influence to persuade us to repent and be obedient. "If he had obeyed the Law as our substitute then why should our own return to personal obedience be insisted upon as a sine qua non of our salvation?" So Finney goes on to write, "the atonement is simply an incentive to virtue," rejecting the view that "the atonement is a literal payment of a debt" Finney can only concede it is "true that the atonement of itself does not secure the salvation of anyone." Justification by the imputation of Christ's righteousness Finney says, "is not only absurd, but undermines all motivation for personal holiness. The new birth is not a divine gift, but the result of a rational choice to turn from sin to obedience." In fact, his most famous sermon was "Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts." Christians can perfectly obey God in this life if they choose and only in this way are they justified. In fact, he adds, "Full present obedience is a condition of justification. No one can be justified while sin, any degree of sin, remains in him."
Finney declared concerning the Reformation formula "simultaneously justified and sinful," "this error has slain more souls I fear than all the Universalism that ever cursed the world. For whenever a Christian sins he comes under condemnation and must repent and do his first works or be lost. As I have already said," he writes "there can be no justification in a legal or forensic sense but upon the ground of universal, perfect, and uninterrupted obedience to Law. The doctrine of an imputed righteousness or that Christ's obedience to the Law was credited as our obedience is founded on a most false and nonsensical assumption. For Christ's righteousness could do more than justify himself, it could never be imputed to us. It was naturally impossible, then, for him then to obey in our behalf. Representing the atonement as the ground of the sinner's justification has been a sad occasion of stumbling for many." Referring to the framers of the Westminster Confession of Faith and their view of an imputed righteousness Finney writes, "If this is not antinomianism then I don't know what is."
Folks, this is exactly the heresy that we have identified from the church councils of the fifth and sixth centuries. It is remarkable that the catholic church in fifth and sixth centuries recognized these very positions as outside the bounds of the Christian faith, while Billy Graham can say of Charles Finney that he was the greatest evangelist since the Apostle Paul. And this is a concern that is hardly limited to a few grumpy Calvinists and Lutherans. "Self salvation is the goal of much of our preaching," complains United Methodist Bishop William Willimon and he says in this respect, "we are heirs of Charles G. Finney who thought that conversion was not a miracle, but a purely philosophical result of the right use of constituted means. We have forgotten," says Willimon, "that there was once a time when evangelists were forced to defend their new measures for revivals; that there was once a time when preachers had to defend their preoccupation with the listener response to their Calvinist detractors who thought the Gospel was more important to listeners. I am here arguing that revivals are miraculous, that the Gospel is so odd, so against the grain of our natural inclinations, and the infatuations of our culture that nothing less than a miracle is required in order for there to be a true hearing. My position is therefore, closer to that of Calvinist Jonathan Edwards than to the position of Charles Finney. Nevertheless," Willimon continues, "the homiletical future, alas, lay with Finney rather than Edwards. Leading to the Evangelical Church marketing guru George Barna who writes, 'Jesus was a communication specialist. He communicated his message in diverse ways and with results that would be a credit to modern advertising and marketing agencies. He promoted his product in the most efficient way possible by communicating with the hot prospects. He understood his product thoroughly, developed an unparalleled distribution system, advanced a method of promotion that has penetrated every continent and offered his product at a price that is within the grasp of every consumer.' Alas," adds Willimon, "most evangelistic preaching I know about is an effort to drag people even deeper into their subjectivity rather than an attempt to rescue them from it. Our real need whether we feel it or not," he says, "is that we systematically distort and ignore the truth. That's why we need an external word. So in a sense we don't discover the Gospel, it discovers us. You did not choose me, but I chose you." Willimon concludes, "the story is euangelion 'good news' because it is not about me it's about grace. Yet it's also 'news' because it is not common knowledge, not what nine out of ten average Americans already know. Gospel doesn't come naturally, it comes as Jesus."
What we see in churches today is no different than the sterotypical fire and brimstone church.
Clean up your life is what both teach. The only difference is one makes you squirm, while the modern church makes you feel good about your sin. A preacher with good hair and perfect teeth smiles while giving you the watered down law, but no Gospel.
Ping to the above for the Methodist’s quote....
Bishop Willimon was our conference speaker this past June. He is a very good public speaker/preacher and had one sermon that stuck in my mind...about not getting too comfortable when Jesus "loves" on you. (His reference was the man he loved who he told to "go sell all that you have.)
Nonetheless, Bishop Willimon is at best a moderate theologically. He's the recent Chaplain of Duke University where he made a name for himself preaching and writing for the egghead elite. You might pick some of his stuff up. I've no doubt that Willimon is no calvinist.
That said, he is right here. Anyone who's preached any amount of time at all knows that it isn't eloquence that leads to true conversion. It's a work of God's Holy Spirit.
God does "use" the words of a preacher: "How can they hear without a preacher." But, a personality cult is not what God had in mind. He was thinking of anyone who was being "a sower (who) went forth to sow."
“is not only absurd, but undermines all motivation for personal holiness. The new birth is not a divine gift, but the result of a rational choice to turn from sin to obedience.”
Wow
Thanks for this thread - and the “Obligatory Finney Image”; that cracks me up!
God save the church from George Barna!
I’m just waiting for fire to come out of those eyes!
Don’t ya think that’s happenin’ already????????????
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