A son of the South (I am a fils of les gens de couleurs libres, who fought first for the independence of Louisiana and then for the abolition of slavery), I naturally experience some emotional ambiguity concerning General Sherman’s “March to the Sea.” Nevertheless, in light of Kristor’s “Jubilee” theory of polity, I recommend New-Yorker Henry Clay Work’s “hit song” of 1864, “Marching through Georgia.” Here are the lyrics. —
It’s called “Confessional Protestantism.” It’s small, and mostly unknown, but it’s solid.
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The problem with contemporary Christianity is its liberalism. Trying to be popular with the masses, the church generally accepts the thinking of the contemporary world, feminism included. Being Christian, it adds to this mix a belief in Jesus Christ. But when the teachings of Christ conflict with liberalism, today’s church generally sides with the world, even if it tries to dress up worldly thinking in Christian clothing.
Today, many conservative Christians are theologically Christian but philosophically liberal. They believe in the Holy Trinity, and also in multiculturalism. They affirm that Jesus is the only way to salvation, and that we must stop making homosexuals feel excluded. They receive holy communion, and they protest for more rights for immigrants.
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The way to stop this nonsense is first to identify that your highest authority is the written word of God, the Bible. Other authorities can be corrupted, but the Word of God is a matter of public record. Continue reading
The liberal revolution has smashed tradition and authority. Throughout our nation the children are running amok. We need the fathers to step in and reestablish order.
The church is polluted by heresy like never before. Never before have heresies been so varied, so popular, and so powerful. These are not the “classical” heresies such as Arianism or Pelagianism, although these beliefs still have influence. Today’s popular heresies were created no more than a hundred years ago and they have no official heretical status. It’s time officially to stigmatize them as the dangerous heresies that they are.
We’ll define some of these heresies later but observe first that heretics such as Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland and Rob Bell are—from a worldly viewpoint—highly successful and influential. The smog they generate is polluting not only the church, but the cultures of entire nations. Although these heresies all originated in the United States, and within Protestantism, America’s powerful worldwide influence has spread them to all corners of the globe.
Therefore Catholics and the Orthodox should take note: the cultural smog emitted by the contemporary heretics affects you too. Heresy is an ecumenical menace.
And non-Christians should also take note. The contemporary heresies promise this-worldly peace and prosperity and Christians under their influence will not oppose the liberal jihad ravaging Western Civilization. They may even join it, seeking peace with the world so they can enjoy their lives. Heretical pseudo-Christianity is part of the problem, not the solution. By opposing these heresies we don’t just build up Christendom. We also oppose liberalism and help work toward a sane, traditionalist society.
These heresies originated within Protestantism and although it currently has no authorities that seem capable of enforcing a proper order (and this is apparently also true of Catholicism), Protestantism generally recognizes the authority of the Bible. There are pastors and teachers who would command widespread respect were they to issue an unambiguous statement, based on the authority of the Bible, opposing contemporary heresies.
We therefore put forward the idea of an ecumenical council of leaders of biblically-faithful Protestant congregations, denominations, and seminaries which would craft an official response to contemporary heresy. Such a council would have no power actually to defrock heretical pastors, but its unofficial influence could potentially be great. Heretics would be taken aback, and Bible-believing Christians would have an official response from the fathers of Protestantism giving them comfort and support in their battles with heresy. Continue reading
I’ve been trying to explain the reasonableness of the biblical doctrine of predestination (more accurately, divine election), the biblical teaching that God chose us before the creation of the world to come to Christ in faith. [Cf. Ephesians chapter 1.] I’m not satisfied with my previous presentations, so here goes again:
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Picture someone who hates Christ. The head of ISIS, for example. Or the village atheist who trolls Christian websites. Anybody who hates Christianity.
Such people sometimes change their minds and come to faith in Christ. At one time they hated Christ, but later they changed their minds.
Question: What caused this change?
The answer that most quickly comes to mind is the following: The former Christ-hater gradually began to notice that Christianity is good and makes sense. He began to sense his own sin and his inability to atone for his sins by good deeds. He began to see that Christ, as reported in the New Testament, is an intelligent, compassionate and powerful figure. He began to understand that the eyewitnesses could not have been fabricating their account of the life of Christ. And so on. He gradually began to be attracted to Christ.
But this answer is obviously false. People who hate Christianity don’t begin to notice that it’s good. The moment someone begins to notice that Christianity is good, his mind has already changed. So the above is no explanation of the cause of the change. Continue reading
[Some time ago, I asked readers for recommended reading on their branches of Christianity. Below is my understanding of the Calvinist system, as gathered from R. C. Sproul’s “What is Reformed Theology?”, one of the books recommended to me. Hopefully, this will be the first in a series as I work my way down my reading list. Protestant commenters should be considered to have more authority than me on this topic, and I will gratefully take their correction. The goal of this post, and I hope of the subsequent discussion, will be to accurately describe the Reformed faith, rather than to criticize or defend it (except against definite misunderstandings, of which there are unfortunately many).]
Sproul’s book attempts to explain the distinctive tenets of Reformed theology. It highlights differences with other Christians while avoiding a polemical tone. (Sproul tries hard to be fair to Catholicism. More often, he contrasts his classical Protestant positions with those of the Arminians; only they could say how fairly he characterizes them.) This is just right for our purposes.
In the discussion after a recent post here, commenter Vishmehr24 said [I’ve made minor corrections of spelling and form]:
Alan Roebuck,
Are Jehovah’s Witnesses Protestant?
How is Protestantism defined ?
You write
“confessional Protestantism (that is, the Protestantism that honors the Word of God by explicitly identifying what it teaches and then codifying these teachings in the various protestant confessions) is the best system.”
You write from theologian’s perspective, perhaps that is looking for best systems. But a believer or a seeker is looking for the best church. Your answer “confessional Protestantism” is too loose, too flabby. It seems like to mean -anything except the Catholic church or the Orthodoxy.
Here’s my response:
OK Vishmehr24, good questions. You sound skeptical, but I hope you’ll allow me to set the record straight.
The key issues underlying your questions would be these: First, Who, or what, has the authority to define Christianity? Second, What difference does it make if one adheres to an invalid (or not-fully-valid) version of Christianity?
The answer to the first question has to be Jesus Christ and the Apostles he trained. And since they are no longer available for direct consultation, we must look to the written record of God’s words, the Bible. This is the correct way to know what Christianity is.
Here’s another of my essays (slightly edited) originally published at Intellectual Conservative but now missing due to hackers. In it, I give a brief survey of how most of Protestantism has strayed from the faith established by Christ and the Apostles and reaffirmed by the Reformers, and prescribe a cure of confessionalism: Churches pledging allegiance to a specific and detailed articulation of Protestant Christianity as contained in the historic Protestant creeds such as the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Augsburg confession. In a postscript, I observe that the problem with Protestantism is not uniquely Protestant; it is part of the contemporary malaise of the West.
Fixing Protestantism
The Protestant world is divided broadly into three groups: Liberal, Evangelical and Fundamentalist. But there is a fourth group, rarely identified, which holds the key to understanding the mess Protestantism has made and how it could regain its integrity. Let’s begin by defining these groups. Continue reading
