CHRISTIANS UNITED for REFORMATIONS

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Editor-inthief Michael8orton Managillg Editor Sara McReynolds Copy Editor Melanie McLeod layoutDesign Shane Rosenthal

Contribding Scholars Dr John Arcmstrong Dr SteveN Baugh Dr James Soice Dr D A Carson The Rev Knox ChambUfi Dr 8ryan Chapell

Dr Daniel Doriani The ~Rev J Ligon Duncan Dr Timothy George Dr W Robert Godfrey Dr John Hannah Dr Darryl C Hart Dr Carl F t~L blenry The Rev Michael Horton Dr RobertKolb Dr Allen Mawhinney Dr Joel Nederhood Dr Roger Nicole The Rev Kim Riddlebarger Dr Rod Rosenbladt Dr Robert Preus Dr R C Sproul

Dr Robert Strimple Dr Willem A VanGemeren Dr Gene E Veith Dr David Wells

CURE Board of Directors Douglas Abendroth Michael E Aldrich John G Beauman Cheryl Biehl The Rev Earl Blackburn Dr W Robert Godfrey

Richard He~m~s The Rev Mj(~hael Horton Dr Robert Preus

CHRISTIANS U NITED for R EFORMATION

copy 1995 All rights reserved

CURE is a non-profit ed ucational foundation committed to communicating the insights of the 16th century Reformation to the 20th century church For more information call or write LIS at

CHRISTIANS U NITED for REFQ~~ATIQN 2221 East Winston Road Suite K

Ari~heim CA 92806

714-956-CU RE

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modernREFORMATION

11 year $22 1 12 years $40 1

4 THE NEW GNOSTICISM Michael Horton

13 GNOSTIC WORSHIP Michael Horton

22 TRICHOTOMY A BEACHHEAD for GNOSTIC INFLUENCES Kim Riddlebarger

27 ARE YOUR HYMNS TOO SPIRITUAL Michael Horton

30 THE PRIDE OF SIMPLICITY Leonard Payton

In this Issue Page 2

Letters To The Editor Page 2 Gnostic Tendencies Page 3

For Further Reading Page 32

Tape Excerpt Pat Robertson Page 32

ABOUT THE COVER G ianlorenzo Berninis depiction of The Ecstasy of SL Theresa a sa int of the Counter Reformation who had described how an ange l pierced her heart with a flaming golden arrow The pain was so grea t that I screamed aloud but at the same time I felt such infinite sweerness that [ wished the pain to last forever It was not physical but psychic pain although it affected the body as well to some degree It was the sweetest caress ing of the soul by GoeL

13 224

JUL YAUGUST 1995

Editor-inthief Michael8orton Managillg Editor Sara McReynolds Copy Editor Melanie McLeod layoutDesign Shane Rosenthal

Contribding Scholars Dr John Arcmstrong Dr SteveN Baugh Dr James Soice Dr D A Carson The Rev Knox ChambUfi Dr 8ryan Chapell

Dr Daniel Doriani The ~Rev J Ligon Duncan Dr Timothy George Dr W Robert Godfrey Dr John Hannah Dr Darryl C Hart Dr Carl F t~L blenry The Rev Michael Horton Dr RobertKolb Dr Allen Mawhinney Dr Joel Nederhood Dr Roger Nicole The Rev Kim Riddlebarger Dr Rod Rosenbladt Dr Robert Preus Dr R C Sproul

Dr Robert Strimple Dr Willem A VanGemeren Dr Gene E Veith Dr David Wells

CURE Board of Directors Douglas Abendroth Michael E Aldrich John G Beauman Cheryl Biehl The Rev Earl Blackburn Dr W Robert Godfrey

Richard He~m~s The Rev Mj(~hael Horton Dr Robert Preus

CHRISTIANS U NITED for R EFORMATION

copy 1995 All rights reserved

CURE is a non-profit ed ucational foundation committed to communicating the insights of the 16th century Reformation to the 20th century church For more information call or write LIS at

CHRISTIANS U NITED for REFQ~~ATIQN 2221 East Winston Road Suite K

Ari~heim CA 92806

714-956-CU RE

SUBSCRIBE TO

modernREFORMATION

11 year $22 1 12 years $40 1

4 THE NEW GNOSTICISM Michael Horton

13 GNOSTIC WORSHIP Michael Horton

22 TRICHOTOMY A BEACHHEAD for GNOSTIC INFLUENCES Kim Riddlebarger

27 ARE YOUR HYMNS TOO SPIRITUAL Michael Horton

30 THE PRIDE OF SIMPLICITY Leonard Payton

In this Issue Page 2

Letters To The Editor Page 2 Gnostic Tendencies Page 3

For Further Reading Page 32

Tape Excerpt Pat Robertson Page 32

ABOUT THE COVER G ianlorenzo Berninis depiction of The Ecstasy of SL Theresa a sa int of the Counter Reformation who had described how an ange l pierced her heart with a flaming golden arrow The pain was so grea t that I screamed aloud but at the same time I felt such infinite sweerness that [ wished the pain to last forever It was not physical but psychic pain although it affected the body as well to some degree It was the sweetest caress ing of the soul by GoeL

13 224

JUL YAUGUST 1995

In This Issue by Michael Horton

MORE OFTEN THAN NOT the greatest threats to ChristIanshyif9 have come not from external en~mies but from internal chalshyl~nges to r~shape the message to suit the suf rounding culture No

greater exailple of this can be foundt~~n in the

an61ent hefe~y ~f GnQ~ticism i

Ih this iSSlr~yve will ddfin~this movement of super middot spiritu~l mystici~in in an effdrtto understand why so many ~cholars Christian andn6nmiddotChristian seem to think that we are now in the mi491~ 6fa sweeping Gnostic revival Yales Harold BloomJorinstance himself a Jew~

ish Gnostic argues tha(pearly every religious group in AmErica how~ver diverse from its competitors)js a ~cdeshynominationvithin what he callstheAmerican Religion Gnosticism In fact he writes We think we are a Chris- tian n~tion butwe are not We areAmericanized Gnostics believers in a preChristian tradition of individual divinshyity Americans believe that Godknows and loves them in a personal way and that something inside them deeper even

thatf a soul isalready in cQntact with God 0

This is not simply a church history study Gnostishycism is a prevailinginfluence in our ltulture from the

NewAge movement to the less obvious fonnsqfspiritushyalitythat shape evangelicaland liberal theologYworspip and experience Jesus is 11ot so much a person as art

expS1rience apd this has had profound effects on ev~ry-

thGig from preaching and evangelism to wOhships~yles and our outlook on the world We hope that you will

henefit from this issue on a timely andimportant topic ~ that concerns us all

I just read the article in the MayJune issue of modernREFORMATION When the Method Obscures the Message This was an excellent and helpful article The work of CURE has been tremendously encouraging to us Thanks again for your work in Christ D S Via Compuserve

I recently received a free copy of the MarchApril modernREFORMATION and enjoyed reading it Your interview with Tim LaHaye was tasteful and quite revealing After being out of the evangelical mainshystream for sometime now it was quite shocking for me to read his answers

I recommend regular tasteful interviews with the big wigs who move public opinion in the evangelical church No need to call them on the carpet or get into heated debates Justask basic questions and let us find out who they are and what are their real concerns DC Via America On-Line

I have received the last two issues of your magashyzine and have one word to say-keep up the excellent work Your articles have opened my eyes in several important areas and have considerably helped my walk with God Thank you for your service MI Pekin IL

I can honestly say that your ministry has been immensely helpful in moving me from a non-differenshytiated type of Christianity to one which is vital I now know what I believe and how it differs from many variations within the conservative Christian subculshyture I dont want to miss another issue of your magazine modernREFORMATION

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modern R EFORMATION

GNOSTIC TENDENCIES Answering the question What do Madonna Pat Robertson Lewis Sperry Chafer Mary Baker Eddy 6- The Beatles have in common

Learn to despise this world of ouhvard things and devote yourself to what lies within Christ is ready to come to you with what kindess in his glance But you must make room deep in your heart to entertain him as he deserves it is for the inward eye all the splendour and beauty of him deep in your heart is where he likes to be Up with you then faithful soul get your heart ready for the coming of this true Lover or he will never consent to come and make his dwelling in you If you love Jesus if you love the truth if you really direct your gaze inwards and rid yourself ofuncontrolled affections then you can turn to God at will lifted out of yourself by an impulse of the spirit and rest in him contentedly Thomas a Kempis The Imitation ofChrist 1429

A Christian is a Christian because he is rightly related to Christ but he that is spiritual is spiritual because he inightly related to the Spirit The human at best could be no more than the channel or instrument for the divine outflow It is one of the supreme glories of this age that the child ofGod and citizen of heaven may live a superhuman life in harmony with his heavenly calling by an unbroken walk in the Spirit The leading of the Spirit is not experienced by all in whom the Spirit dwells A Spirit-filled Christian [is distinguished] by actualizing into celestial heart-ecstasy that which has been taken by faith concerning the positions and possessions in Christ It follows therefore that true leading in this dispenshysation will be more by an inner consciousness than by outward signs Lewis Sperry Chafer (Founder of Dallas Seminary) He That Is Spiritual 1918

God is foolishly in love with us it seems that He has forgotten heaven and earth and happiness and deity His entire business seems to be with me alone to give me everything to comfort me

Know then that God is bound to act to pour Himself out [into thee ] as soon as ever He shall find thee ready It is one flash the being ready and the pouring in the instant spirit is ready God enters without hesitation or delay Thou needest not seek Him here or there He is no further off than the door of thy heart there He stands lingering awaiting whoever is ready to open and let him in Meister Eckhart Sermons 1311

We should strive to reach the Horeb height where God is revealed and the cornershystone of all spiritual building is purity The baptism of Spirit washing the body of all the impurities of flesh signifies that the pure in heart see God and are approaching Spiritual Life and its demonstration Mary Baker Eddy (Founder of Christian Science) Science 6 Health 1915

Listen to Jesus words Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God (Mt 58) Check this closely because too many read this text to mean Everybody whos perfect will arrive in heaven someday But Jesus wasnttalking about purity in ritual terms He was talking about the fundamental definition Purity is that which is undiluted by other substances Now join that to the place Jesus pointed at to the heart of a man-thats where God seeks undiluted commitment

So what does it all mean The answer is in what Jesus did and didn t say He didnt say Blessed are the pure in mouth hands mind feet No Christ calls you and me to come candidly and with a heart fully opened in worship into the privacy of His presence Then something will happen If we bring our whole heart without restriction or reservation we will see God

That my brother doesnt mean you or I will have a phantasmic vision ofheaven or see fleecy clouds with angels flying It means we will become candidates for seeing Gods nature take over our lives Wewill see God Its the priviledge ofthe purified not earned by accomplished hoiness but realized through the total devotion of a mans heart at worship Jack Hayford Seven Promises OfA Promise Keeper 1994

Those who fast with pure motives will be drawn closer to the great heart of God and experience a quality of life in the Spirit that is not possible apart from fasting Bill Bright The Coming Revival 1995

Faith is deep in your spirit But its got to come up out of your being and go to God in order for it to work for you Oral Robers Attack Your Lack 1985

Without going out of my door I can know all things on Earth Without looking out of my window I can know the ways of Heaven The further one travels the less one knows the less one really knows The Beatles The Inner Light 1968

God knows all things There are wonderful times when He shares a bit of His knowledge-a word of knowledge as the Apostle Paul called it-with His people This is intelligence that comes from God without reliance on sight sound taste touch or smell Pat Robertson Beyond Reason 1985

Today is th e last day that I am using words Theyve gone out lost their meaning dont function anymore Traveling leaving logic and reason Traveling to the arms of unconsciousness Lets get unconscious honey lets get unconscious Words are useless especially sentences They don t stand for anything How could they explain how I feel Madonna Bedtime Stories 1994

The issue God cares about is the direction of the heart not the content of theology Christians in the West need to become less materialistic and more spiritually Buddha-like Clark Pinnock A Wideness In Gods Mercy 1992

Many people find it difficult to believe in Christianity They picture Christianity as a creed concerning which they have to decide whether or not it is credibleLet us put the case bluntly Christianity is primarily something to be done It is not first of all a finished set of propositions and doctrines to be accepted it is first of all an unfinished task to be completed Every element in Jesus teaching is livable It can be tried out in life and it works in practice Inner fellowship with God in the shrine of the spirit and faith in the victory of righteousness-that is livable Then let us not over-excite ourselves over controversial doctrinal points Instead of asking Is it credible let us ask Can we ever in this world make Christianity come true Harry Emerson Fosdick The Secret ofVictorious Living 1934

Because spirituality is generated from within the individual inner motivation is crucial We believe that mere ouhvard form does not constitute spirituality

In recent years we have begun to shift the focus of our attention away from doctrine with its focus on propositional truth in favor ofa renewed interest in what constitutes the uniquely evangelical vision of spirituality Corresponding to this trend is a growing attempt to reformulate our evangelical self-consciousness away from the creed-based conceptions of the recent past toward an understanding based on the piety that lies deep in the broader evangelical heritage Stanley J Grenz Revisioning Evangelical Theology 1993

Christianity is not founded on dogmas True Christianity is based on only two instructions Love God with all your heart soul and intelligence and love every other being as your own self Spyros Sathi (New Age Thinker) Common Boundary JulyAugust 1995

The Gospel is no theoretical system of doctrine or philosophy of the universe Rather by treating of life eternal it teaches us how to lead our lives arightJesus never spoke ofany other kind ofcreed for he meant for us to confess our faith not in doctrines but by feeling and action How great a departure from what Jesus thought is involved in putting a creed in the forefront ofthe Gospel and in teaching that before a man can approach it he must learn to think rightly about Christ Adolf von Harnack (Pioneer of German Liberalism) What Is Christianity 1900

Christianity is not a system of human philosophy nor a religious ritual nor a code of moral ethics-it is the impartation of divine life through Christ Chuck Swindoll Growing Strong In The Seasons OfLife 1983

You need to realize that you are not a spiritual schizophrenic - half-God and half-Satan-you are all-God The problem area is not in your spirit it lies in your mind and body Kenneth Copeland Believers Voice of Victory 1982

JULY IAUGUST 1995 3

BY MICHAEL HORTON

Is It The Age OfThe Spirit Or The Spirit Of The Age

ntrtainment Weekly is not exactly an evangelical house-I orga~ and yet like many secular periodicals these days

it seems to observe more truth than a number of evanshygelical magazines and journals In its October 7 1994 issue Jeff Gordinier wrote

In a year when TV airwaves are aflutter with winged spirits the bestseller lists are clogged with divine manushyscripts and visions of the afterlife and gangsta-rappers are elbowed aside on the pop charts for the hushed prayers of Benedictine monks you dont have to look hard to find that pop culture is going gaga for spiritualshyity [However] seekers ofthe dayareaptto peel away the tough theological stuff and pluck out the most dulcet elements offaith coming up with a soothing sampler of Judeo-Christian imagery Eastern meditation self-help lingo a vaguely conservative craving for virtue and a loopy New Age pursuit of peace This happy free-forshyal appealing to Baptists and stargazers alike comes off more like Forrest Gumps ubiquitous boxa chocolates than like any real system ofbelief You never know what youre going to get

There could hardly have been a better description of the dilemma in which the ancient church found itself from the time of the apostles until the third century It is a heresy that is constantly threatening the orthodoxy of the church and it is as old as Satans lie You shall be as gods It is called Gnosticism St Paul called the Gnosshytic prophets super-apostles who apparently knew more than God They see into the heavenly secrets and offer techniques for escaping earthly existence Timothy the Apostle warned guard what has been entrusted to you Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is

falsely called knowledge by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith (2 Tm 620) We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God (2 Cor 105) The super-apostles had preached he says a different gospel and a different spirit For such men are false apostles deceitful workmen masquerading as apostles of Christ And no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel oflight (2 Cor 11 13) The reference here is to the Gnostic emphasis on the Angel of Light versus the Angel of Darkness

Not far beneath the surface of much of the New Testament especially the Gospel ofJohn and the Epistles is a running polemic against the most dangerous heresy in church history According to one of its early opposhynents St Clement of Alexandria Gnosticism (from the Greek word gnosis meaning knowledge) consisted of the knowledge of who we were or where we were placed whither we hasten from what we are redeemed what birth is and what rebirth (Excerpta ex Theodoto 782) Knowledge of these secrets was considered redemptive The purpose of this article will be to explain the origins and identity of Gnosticism in an effort to establish the point that contemporaryAmerican religion whether libshyeral or conservative evangelical or New Age Mormon or Pentecostal represents a revival of this ancient heresy

The Old Gnosticism From a number of secondary sources we are able to gain a portrait which allows us to see the main features

1 Eclectic and polymorphic A cut-and-paste spirishytuality emerges from the Gnostic writings As Philip Lee observes Gnostic syncretism believes everything in

4 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

general for the purpose ofavoiding a belief in something in particular In the case ofChristian gnosticism what is being avoided is the particularity of the Gospel that which is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Genshytiles 1 It is generally agreed that Gnosticism emerged as a form of mystical Christian spirituality blended toshygether with Greek paganism We recall Paul in Athens in the Areopagus where people did nothing but discuss the latest ideas (Acts 1721) telling the Greeks that they were very religious Gnosticism was an attempt to inshycorporate the seeker spirituality of the Greeks into Christianity

In its very nature itwas diverse and capable ofamalshygamation and assimilation of various religious systems Biblical religion by contrast insisted upon the uniqueshyness of divine self-disclosure in Scripture and in Gods redemptive acts There is one God (Yahweh) who is known in the written and Living Word Many of the church fathers were simply exasperated by trying to figshyure out what the Gnostic texts actually meant whereas Christianity held distinct easily understood and wellshydefined doctrinal convictions

2 Individualistic and subjective While the writings are extremely esoteric and mystical there is an obvious thread of individualism and an inward focus charactershyistic of mysticism As in Greek Platonism the subject (the knower) has priority over the object (the known) and the path to spiritualityis through inwardnessmedishytation and self-realization

3 Immanence over transcendence In terms of the individuals relation to God the Gnostic stresses Gods nearness over his distant holiness and sovereignty In fact the individual self is a spark of the One (God) As one scholar puts it The self is the indwelling of God2 There is a direct intimacy between the divine and the self that requires no mediation In Gnostic literature the relationship between God and the self is often deshyscribed in romantic and even erotic language

4 Spirit over matter Sometimes called in our day mind over matter the Greek and Gnostic worldview is dualistic That is it divides the world into matter (evil) and spirit (good) Evil suffering illness and death are all attributed to the existence of matter and the Fall was not from innocence to rebellion (as in the biblical acshycount) but from pure spirit to physical bodies Imprisoned in a material world the self is alienated from its true home This theme of a war between Light and Darkness Spirit and Matter the Divine Within and the World Outside and the sense of alienation despair loneliness and abandonment in the physical world is the recurring key to understanding Gnosticism 3 In our day Matthew Fox repeating the warning of self-described Gnostic psychologist C J Jung expresses this sentiment well One way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside

you (Roof p 75) 5 Anti-institutional orientation Associated with

matter and the physical imprisonment of the self instishytutions are viewed as spiritual enemies The Outside God and the Outside Church are enemies of the soul directing the self away from ones own inner experience to others and to formal structures of authority creeds doctrines rituals and sacraments St Ignatius ofAntioch (d 110 AD) charged They have no concern for love none for the widow the orphan the afflicted the prisshyoner the hungry the thirsty They stay away from the Eucharist and prayer4 This did not mean however that they did not form communities but these were ascetic sects that served to nurture individual rather than comshymunal concerns and experiential rather than liturgical and doctrinal forms of public worship

6 Anti-sacramental Closely related to its suspicion of the church as an institution was Gnosticisms disre-

J U LYA UG U ST 19 9 5 5

gard for sacraments If the self enjoyed a direct and imshymediate relationship with Gods Spirit and knowledge came through a secret revelation of a mystical nature surely the introduction of material means ofgrace-the printed word (accessible to everyone) water (in Bapshytism) and bread and wine (the Eucharist)-actually become impediments to real fellowship with God They are insufficiently spiritual for Gnostic piety as rebirth (a prominent Gnostic theme) is by the Spirit in opposishytion to matter Furthermore the Gnosis (Revelation Knowledge) was based on the idea that only a few really knew the secrets while Christianitys emphasis on Word

world nature and history through spirishyChtistianitys cardinal belief in salvation by God tual ascent

be(~oming fleshand by his fleshly resurrection 9 Feminist Ancient Gnosticism as we have seen divided the world into spirit andpromising resurrection of our bodies was anathema matter as columns of good and bad They defined characteristics of femininityto Gnosti(~ism as it was foolishness to Gteeks who as love freedom affirmation and nurture and these were in thegood column whilegenerally sav spirit as good and matteras evil

and sacrament available to anyone who could read or eat challenged this private spiritual elitism

7 Anti-historical Lee notes Gnostic ltknowledge is unrelated in any vital sense either to nature or to history (p 102) As spirit is opposed to matter and individual inwardness is opposed to an institutional church etershynity is opposed to time Salvation for the Gnostic is redemption from the body institutions and the grindshying process of history into which the pure self is mercilessly thrown

In biblical religion God not only created the world (material as well as spiritual) and pronounced itgood but also created matter and history in which to unfold his salvation In fact Christianitys cardinal belief in salvashytion by God becoming flesh and by his fleshly resurrection promising resurrection of our bodies was anathema to Gnosticism as it was foolishness to Greeks who generally saw spirit as good and matter as evil In Christianity redemption does not take place in a supershyspiritual sphere above real human history but within it Gnosticism however emphasizes instead the selfs pershysonal direct encounter with God here and now and has little or no place for the historical events of Gods saving activity

8 Anti-Jewish While biblical religion focused on Gods personal involvement with the world in creation and redemption through the bloody sacrifices that anshyticipated the Messiah Gnosticism harbored a deep distrust of the Old Testament God In fact two Gnostic sects appear in this connection Marcion (d 160 AD) rejected the Old Testament entirely on the basis that it represented a wrathful Judge who created matter and

imprisoned souls in history while the New Testament God (Jesus) was the God ofLove The Creator-God (Old Testament) and the Redeemer-God (New Testament) were viewed as opposites in Marcionism In addition to the Old Testament Lukes Gospel and Pauls epistles un- -=

derwent radical revisions In the following century Mani a Persian evangelist

whose ideas spread quickly to the West and were emshybraced by St Augustine before his conversion founded a powerful sect ofManichaeism Once again it was deeply dualistic (spirit vs matter Light vs Darkness etc) and championed salvation chiefly in terms of secret knowlshy

edge of the principles for overcoming the

those of masculinity were defined as jusshytice law wrath and strength and put in the bad column This is in sharp contrast to the Christian God who in both Testaments is a good gracious loving and savingaswellas just holy and sovereign FatherSophia the Greek word for wisdom after the goddess of wisshydom became the God of many Gnostics The 13th-century mystic Meister Eckhart wrote What does God do all day long God gives birth From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed giving birth and this image is replete in the mystical literature lt~ncient gnosticism Lee writes loathed the patriarchal and aushythoritarian qualities of official Christianity From the gnostic point of view the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) The antipathy toward nature was reflected in the Gnostic celebration of the androgynous [ie sexless] selfWhile the body may be either male or female the spirit is free

One must beware of concluding that the knowlshyedge championed by the Gnostics was the same thing that we mean normally by the term Lee observes

The difference between orthodox knowledge and gnostic knowledge has been described as the difference between open revelation and secret revelation Although it is true for both faiths that the Holy Spirit is at work to open the eyes ofthe believer that he may know the truth within orthodox thought the Holy Spirits work takes place in the presence of and in terms of given historical data and within the context ofthe Holy Catholic Church Thus in the Apostles Creed the article affirming belief in the Holy Spirit is securely nestled between beliefin the person and work of Jesus Christ and a willingness to learn from the Holy Catholic Church (p 101)

6 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modern REFORMATION

Gnostic knowledge is not only anti -historical and subjective it is anti-intellectual and immediate This is why St Irenaeus called it pseudo-knowledge and Paul told Timothy it was knowledge falsely called (1 Tm 620) It preferred what we often call heart knowledge to head knowledge although Christianity knew no such dichotomy

Especially popular in Alexandria Gnosticism threatened Christianitys very existence not as an extershynal threat but as an int~rnal rival In other words it attempted to reinterpret biblical religion and reshape it into something other than that which was announced by the prophets fulfilled in Christ and proclaimed by the apostles Even as Christianity officially condemned the heresy and the ancient fathers wrote voluminously on the subject the philosophical influence of Greek Platonism continued to shape the medieval church Nevshyertheless whenever the unadulterated Gnostic tenets would reappear as in such medieval sects as the Albigensians the Cathari (Pure Ones) and Bogemils the church reasserted its apostolic and catholic condemshynations At the time of the Reformation the Anabaptists revived Gnosticism and a number of Renaissance hushymanists including Petrarch had also embraced this revival

A number of scholars both Roman Catholic and Protestant have argued that the Reformation represhysented not only a reaction against Pelagianism (the ancient heresy ofworks- righteousness) but also against Gnosticism By charging that the church had allowed Greek philosophy priority in interpreting Scripture the Reformers recovered the Bibles clear declarations on creation redemption worship the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit the doctrine of the church Word and sacrament and a host of related teachings

The New Gnosticism Without offering a chronicle on Gnosticism throughout church history our purpose here is simply to refer to that portion ofhistory that most directly bears on the current revival

A trip to the local bookstore confirms that there is a revival of explicit Gnostic spirituality in American culshyture with the New Age movement claiming direct descent 5 Often passing for psychology philosophy and religion Gnosticism is now back with a vengeance and forms the broad parameters (if there are any) for the smorgasbord of American spirituality After two world wars Westerners have become disillusioned with the grand scheme of turning this world into Paradise Reshystored Albert Camus Jean-Paul Sartre and Andre Malraux poured their energies into lamenting the sense of despair and alienation and the theme of humanity being thrown into the world imprisoned in evil mateshy

rial structures is prominent in their work The popularshyity of existentialism blended with an older Transcendentalism that was always seething just beneath the surface of the American consciousness to produce a post-war generation ofseekerswho were ripe for Gnosshytic spirituality It is that older Transcendentalism that must be explained before we can understand the ways in which modern evangelicalism and liberalism represent sister denominations in what Harold Bloom calls The American Religion Gnosticism

Mysticism has a long tradition within Christianity and although it developed out ofthe same influences and centers as Gnosticism itself it was deemed acceptable even by some who had opposed the heresy The ladder of spiritual ascent and the dualism between spirit and matter the inwardness and related themes remind us that the difference is a matter ofdegree In a sympathetic treatment titled Mysticism in the Wesleyan Tradition (Zondervan 1989) United Methodist theologian Robshyert G Tuttle Jr traces the influences ofGreek and Roman Catholic mysticism on John Wesley Through the varishyous Holiness groups in America evangelicalism was heavily influenced by a form ofspirituality that was conshysidered by many especially at Princeton Seminary to be a rival to the historic Christianity recovered in the Reforshymation But there were other influences in the culture that contributed to the Gnostic awakening in America Just as the medieval church was unwittingly shaped by Greek Platonic influences modern American Chrisshytianity both liberal and evangelical is shaped by Romanticism-itself a revival of Greek and Gnostic influences

The Romantics include such worthies as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) who resigned his Boston

COMPA R E amp CO N TR AS T We cannot communicate with God mentally for Heis a Spirit But we canreach Him with our Spirit andit islhrough our Spirit that we come to know God This is ohereason God put teachers (those who are really called to teach) in the churchshyto renew our minds Many times those who teach do so with only a naipral knowledge that they have gainedfrom the Bible and other sources Kenneth Hagin Man on Three Dimensions 1985

It is an illusory belief of the Enthusiasts that those who keep reading Scripture or hearing the Word are chilgren as if no one were spiritual unless he scorned doctrine In their pride therefore they despise the ministry of men and even Scripture itself in order to attain the Spirit They then proudly try to peddle all the delusions that Satan suggests to them as secret revelations of the Spirit John Calvin Commentary on 1 Thes 520 1525

JUL Y IAUGU ST 1995 7

Unitarian pastorate in 1832 because he could no longer accept institutional religion and refused to serve Comshymunion (Since Unitarians do not have a genuine Communion it is difficult to regard this as a major deshyparture) After all Emerson said he was himself a spark of God and enjoyed direct access without an incarnate Mediator and the impediments of physical sacraments At Harvard Emerson declared that orthodox Christianshyity was dead and the only way forward was to recover the spiritual dimension of religion The jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes was a great fan of Emersons Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was closely associated with Emerson and other Transcendentalists as many of the American Romantics were now being called The Westminster Dictionary of Church History defines Transhyscendentalism as an optimistic mystic and naturalistic state ofmind rather than a system of thought which had a wide influence on American literature philosophy and religion Based on English romanticism (Coleridge Wordsworth Carlyle) and German philosophical idealshyism it found Calvinistic orthodoxy too harsh and Unitarian liberalism too arid It emphasized individual experience as sacred unique and authoritative

The sense of alienation is apparent in Nathaniel Hawthorne Taking no root I soon weary of any soil in which I may be temporarily deposited The same impashytience I may feel or conceive of as regards this earthly life6 If this feeling was true in the early 19th century it is

- certainly exacerbated by the influences ofmodernity the rootlessness precipitated by rapid travel mobility disshyplacement of families and technological advances that tend to dehumanize existence As for the Gnostic preocshycupation with spirit and the eternal over matter and time Emerson declared I am to invite men drenched in

How Do New Agers Trace TheirRoots

At first the traditions were transmitted ihtimately by alchemists Gnostics cabalists and hermetics ltAmong the middot bold and isolated voiCes were MeistecEckhart Giovanni Pico 4ella Mirandola andEmamiel Swederiborg We are spiritually tree they said the stewards of our OWn evolution Humankind has a choice We can 3wakerito our true nature Drawing fully ftbm our inner-resources we can achieve a new dhpension of mind we can see mOl~e ~

t The Transcendentalists supposed[y threatened the old order with their~new ideas but the ide~s were not newThey s()ught understanding from liPany sources experIence intu middot ition the Quaker idea of the Inner Light the Bh(lgavad Gitq the German Romantic Philosophers middotand the English mefashyphysical writers of the seventeenthcentury Llthough they were charged with havingfontempt for history they replied tnat humankin4 coutd be lihrated from history MarilynFerguson The Aquarian Con~piracy 1980

Time to recover themselves and come out of time and taste their native immortal air7 Like the ancient Gnostics who according to St Ignatius did not bother themselves with the physical needs of this world Emersons spiritual arrogance knew no bounds I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes to wit imprisoned spirits They have no other watchman or lover or defender but 18

The recurring note in Romanticism and especially in its American Transcendental variety is personal expeshyrience the selfs transcendence of community flesh history creed doctrine church Word and sacraments to ascend to the lofty heights ofdeity Each individual self is God and requires no mediation for access to the divine

We do not have to look very far to see the influence of this movement on 19th-century Protestantism The reshyvivalistic evangelicals wanted to escape from this world by a personal experience of being born again and sucshycessive experiences A second blessing or a rededication would revive the soul in its flight toward Deity and full surrender Doctrine was considered an encumbrance as were creeds liturgies and sacraments and the anti-intelshylectual strain of Gnosticism reared its ugly head In orthodox Christianity grace redeems this world in Gnosticism it redeems the self from nature Grace did not save nature but provided a way ofescapeAt the same time the liberals according to Philip Lee made ample room for nature on their stage by moving grace into the wings There remained in both camps a gnostic separashytion ot Creation from Redemption (p 93)

At this point psychology was born and took root quickly in America more than anywhere else It offered an alternative to theology as the study ofthe self and selfshyconsciousness replaced the study of God and his redemptive acts George Ripley declared during this peshyriod The time has come when a revision of theology is demanded Let the study oftheology commence with the study of human consciousness9 But this psychological orientation not only demanded the first word it ended up swallowing everything within reach and the stage was set for the therapeutic revolution of the 20th century with peace ofmind and eventually self-esteem becoming more important than sin and grace Narcissism (selfshyworship) became legitimate and in fact the only religious duty Although C J Jung a father of modern psychology was openly and self-described as a Gnostic his mysticism is easily absorbed into the greater Gnostic ooze of contemporary pop-psychology and recovery movements

The preaching also turned from the objective emshyphasis on Gods saving work in Christ to techniques for self- improvement psychologically and morally conshyceived Considered too offensive for the immortal and innocent self the Law was not suitable for preaching

8 JUL Y I AUG US T 19 9 5 modern R EFORMATION

unless it could be shown that it was somehow beneficial for personal transformation Divine commands had to be seen as attainable and reasonable principles for selfshyenhancement and universal love Damnation was entirely out of place as a purpose for the Law or for any sociable discourse Similarly the Gospel hardly distinshyguishable now from the Gnostic law became a secret formula (gnosis) for rebirth self-realization and the personal unmediated experience with the Divine This was true equally for liberals and evangelicals Unitarians and revivalists as well as for the many Gnostic

redeem but merely reveals according to Lee (p 107) All of these writers point to the breakdown in the Reformations orthodox stance in both conservative and liberal camps as opening the door to Transcendentalism and finally to the current orientation Beyond the libshyeral-evangelical split Wade Clark Roof now says we cannot discern any real differences between New Age and evangelical spirituality on a number of counts This new Gnosticism laquocelebrates experience rather than docshytrine the personal rather than the institutional the

cults that were born in this environment Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine (Christian Science Unity Adventism etc) however differently each may have stated it for personal experience and objective toth for

Horace Bushnell marks the departure from an evangelical Calvinism to an evangelical Roshy pesonal transformationand in this sense each manticism My heart wants the Father my heart wants the Son my heart wants the Holy is in its own yay Gnostic Ghost My heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me and I mean to hold by my heart I am glad a man can do it when there is no other mooringlo The Morshymon laquotestimony is quite similar when its truth-claims are founded upon a burning in the bosom Similarly when evangelicals sing Romantic hymns such as He Lives with the line laquoYou ask me how I know he lives He lives within my heart they have little trouble accommoshydating to the Romanticism of Schleiermacher father of modern liberalism when he said that the essence of Christianity islaquothe feeling ofabsolute dependence And when evangelicals eschew creeds doctrines liturgies and sacraments over personal experience how can they quibble with the liberal Adolf von Harnack who beshylieved that the authentically spiritual is composed of those things that are inward spontaneous and ethical as opposed to the outward organized ceremonial and dogmaticll Gnosticism becomes the tie that binds

At last we come to our own century A number of books have been published in recent years pointing up the laquoGnosticization of American religion including Philip Lees Against The Protestant Gnostics (Oxford 1987) and Harold Blooms The American Religion (Simon and Schuster 1992) Although Bloom a distinshyguished Yale professor and the nations leading literary critic identifies himself as a Jewish Gnostic he provides a provocative insight into the popularization of Gnostishycism Other studies have pointed tangentially to this same condition such as those of professors James D Hunter (University ofVirginia ) Wade Clark Roof (Unishyversity of California) and Robert Wuthnow (Princeton University) Christopher Laschs The Culture ofNarcisshysism and Robert Bellahs Habits ofthe Heart also point in the same direction

In spite of their rivalry fundamentalism and libershyalism both essentially proclaim a Christ who does not

mythic and dreamlike over the cognitive peoples relishygion over official religion soft caring images of deity over hard impersonal images the feminine and the anshydrogynous over the masculine (Roof p 132) Although Roofdoes not make the point these are clearly the tenets of ancient Gnosticism

Note Lees point on Christ as Revealer [Gnosis] over Christ as Redeemer

Another way to shed light on the American tendency to regard Christ as revealer only is to observe the Amerishycan fascination with technique For the evangelicals conversion is a technique a necessary one for salvation The history of Israel and the life of Jesus which indeed were often spiritualized beyond recognition were imshyportant only insofar as they could be employed to bring sinners to repentance (p 109)

Lee says that the liberal approach to the Scriptures following its Transcendental heritage was to see them as laquotechniques for living the Christian life and the Bible became laquoa rich source of those truths that we in our hearts already know (p Ill) But this is now precisely the same attitude often taken by evangelicals to the Scripshytures Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine for personal experience and objective truth for personal transformation and in this sense each is in its own way Gnostic The anti-intellectualism is understandable acshycording to Lee laquoIf God is immanent present within our psyche if we already have the truth within then why go through all the hassle of studying theology (p Ill) Isnt this precisely the point of the division many of us grew up with between head knowledge and heart knowlshyedge The former is intellectual the latter spiritual-that is gnosis James D Hunter observes laquoThe spiritual asshypects of Evangelical life are increasingly approached by

JULYAUGUST 1995 9

means of an interpreted in terms of principles rules steps laws codes guidelines and the like 12 Wade Clark Roof adds Salvation as a theological doctrine becomes reduced to simple steps easy proceshydures and formulas for psychological rewards The approach to religious truth changes-awayfrom anyobshyjective grounds on which it must be judged to a more subjective more instrumental understanding of what it does for the believer and how it can do what it does most efficiently (p 195)

Pentecostalism represents an even greater depenshydence on Gnostic tendencies Lee writes Just as faith healing held an important place among the medieval gnostics ofsouthern France it has also been a significant element in the more extreme sects ofProtestantism The Savior God is pitted against the natural God and before millions of television viewers the Savior God prevails (p 119) Roman Catholic scholar Ronald Knoxs work Enthusiasm (Oxford 1950) remains a classic study ofthis subject Even the desire to speak in tongues as if the biblical idea of tongues was a super-natural language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natural human language in a direct spiritual encounter of immediate ecstasy Although the biblical writers were well aware of this practice ofecstatic utterances in pashygan religion they did not use the Greek word for this practice but instead chose glossai (lit languages) leading us to conclude that tongues refers in the New Testament to known earthly speech

The outer edges ofPentecostalism are especially blashytant in Gnostic emphases as a number of works have shown including The Agony of Deceit 13 Salvation is knowledge-Revelation Knowledge (Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Hagin Paul Crouch and other faith

the author himself applauds the Gnostic tendency Bloom concludes of this group To know also that one is completely free-the Emersonian Wildness-because ones solitude is shared with the Holy Spirit carries the rapture to a Sublime elevation And though Assemblies of God theology is officially trinitarian in praxis the Pentecostal knows only Oneness and calls the Holy Spirit by the name ofJesus not the Jesus ofthe Gospels or even the Christ of Paul but the American Jesus a Penteshycostal like oneself 14 (It is worth noting that the Assemblies of God were involved in a rift within Pentecostalism over this very point siding with the orshythodox doctrine of the Trinity over Oneness Pentecostals)

For those of us who were raised in fundamentalist evangelical or pentecostal sects the experience of reshybirth comes neither through the Word ofthe Gospel nor through the water of Baptism but through a Spirit Bapshytism that is direct and immediate The Word is primarily seen as an instrument for coaxing the individual into accepting the new birth The new birth especially if one judges by the testimonies ofconverts is not so much the result of hearing with human ears in human words a declaration of things that happened in human history In short it is not so much the preaching ofthe Cross but the preaching of my personal relationship with Jesus the day when Jesus came into my heart that is central Lee again Whereas classical Calvinism had held that the Christians assurance of salvation was guaranteed only through Christ and his Church with his means ofgrace now assurance could be found only in the personal expeshyrience ofhaving been born again This was a radical shift for Calvin had considered any attempt to put conversion in the power of man himself to be gross popery In fact

Rebirth in God is the exact opposite ofrebirth into a new and more acceptable self as the selfshyEven the desire to speak in tongues as if the acclaimed born again Christians would see the event (pp 144255) biblical idea of tongues was asuper-natural

Norman Vincent Peale exploited the peace of mind craze earlier this century a movement that borrowed its capital from Transhy

language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natutal human language in adirectj scendentalism directly Nevertheless the

liberal Peale was hailed as a great evangelist by spiritu81 encounte of immediate ecstasy evangelical Billy Graham and was asked to parshy

teachers use the upper case to distinguish this from mere written revelation) The Word that truly saves is not the written text of Scripture proclaiming Christ the Reshydeemer but is rather the Rhema Word that is spoken directly to the spirit by Gods Spirit Bloom writes Paul was arguing against Corinthian Enthusiasts or Gnostics and yet I wonder why his strictures have not discouraged American Pentecostals more than they seem to have donePentecostalism is American shamanism although

ticipate in the crusades Lee once again notes the tie that binds For both of them Christianity is understood from a gnostic point ofview The real world with which religion has to do is the world within (p 199) This is not to suggest that Billy Graham is a liberal Rather it is to argue that in our day Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

Also in terms of their views of Christ liberals and evangelicals reveal a common Gnostic tendency While the liberals divided the Jesus of History (a normal Jew

10 JULYAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

who lived in first -century Palestine) from the Christ of Faith (resurrected God-Man) proclaiming that the Spirit of Christ lives and calls us into vital communion even though his body is not raised evangelicals often seem to worship the spirit of Jesus apart from his hushymanity Jesus in my heart at the end of the day is more important for personal Christian experience piety and worship than Jesus in history Although evangelicals inshysist on a historical resurrection as a matter of official creed in actual practice one wonders why it is imporshytant if the spirit ofJesus is in ones heart After all no one believes that Jesus takes up physical residence in ones heart so what can we mean by asking Jesus into our heart other than inviting his spirit Little is said of the biblical notion that it is~the Holy Spirit who unites us not to the spirit ofJesus in our hearts but to the God-Man in heaven according to both his divine and human natures

In Gnosticism not only the object of faith (Christ) but the act of faith becomes radically revised In Chrisshytianity faith is trust in Gods specific promise ofsalvation through Christ In Gnosticism faith is magic It is a technique for getting what we want by believing in it strongly enough As C Peter Wagner an advocate of the Vineyard movement puts it Empirical evidence also validates the absolute necessity of faith or whatever else you want to call it-possibility thinking or goal setshyting-as a prerequisite for church growth15 Is faith really a synonym for possibility thinking and goal setshyting Then would not everyone possess faith Or is faith a unique gift from God to trust in Christ as in biblical teaching The Second Helvetic Confession (a 16th censhytury Reformed statement) declares Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles Creed and thus also of God himself the greatest good and especially of Gods promise and of Christ who is the fulfillment of all promises

But Wagners worldview is also dominated by the Gnostic fascination with dualism between Light and Darkness as spiritual warfare takes on an increasingly super-spiritual preoccupation Like Frank Perettis novshyels this popular view of spiritual warfare in which individual believers decide the outcome of battles beshytween good angels and bad angels is too close to Manichaean Gnosticism for comfort

The Gnostic revolution has been demonstrating its elasticity in recent years in the spirituality of the baby boomers whose interest in the sacred has been celshyebrated in national periodicals the study of which has become something of a cottage industry Wade Clark Roof sampled a wide variety of seekers For instance Sonny DAntonio raised Roman Catholic considers

himself a believer but not a belonger The material parts of the church turned me off he says (p 18) Mollie Stone raised a Pentecostal tried Native American spirishytuality then Quakerism for its inner peace and is turned on to Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovshyery groups although she is not herself an alcoholic or related to one As for churches Creeds and doctrines divide people she says (p 23) Roof observes The distinction between spirit and institution is of major

COMPARE amp CONTltRAST Who can say [ have keptmy heart pure [ amciean a11d without sin Prov 209

[At a Campus Crusade staff retreat] middot hundreds came forward to kneel and pray Their lovk for Christ had prompted tl1em to join the staff in the first plate Now they were demonstrating their desire to continue in their ministry with pure hearts free ofsin filled with th~ Holy Spirit The response was unanimous Bill Bright The Coming Rtpivai

Our own ag~ has certain Ana6~piists whofeign thatJnBaptism Gods people are reborn into a pure and angelic life unsullied by any carnal filth But ifafter baptismanyone falls away they leave him nothing but Gods inexQrablejudgment In short to the sinner who has lapsed after receiving grace they hold out no hope of pardon For they recognize no other forgiveness of sins than that by which they were first reborn John Calvin The Institutes ofthe Christian Religion

importance Although Roof does not point to Gnostishycism his studies mark undeniable parallels Spirit is the inner experiential aspect of religion institution is the outer established form of religion This distinction is increasingly pertinent because ofthe strong emphasis on self in contemporary culture and the related shift from objective to subjective ways of ordering experience (p 30) Religion is too restricting but spirituality offers a way ofplugging into the divine with the correct spiritual technology Roof explains As a computer programmer who happens to be an evangelical put it without any prompting on our part We all access God differently (p 258)

The whole point ofChristianity however is that one cannot access God at all He must come to us through a personal Word (God in flesh) and a written Word (Scripture) and when we do come to him it must be through Christ and we come to Christ through the orshydained means It might offend the Gnostic and narcissistic individualism of our age but we do not all access God differentli

Roof refers to the Outer and Inner Worlds the former suspect while the latter is always respected Dishyrect experience is always more trustworthy iffor no other reason than because of its inwardness and withinshyness-two qualities that have come to be much

JULYAUGUST 1995 11

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

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still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

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I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

Is It The Age OfThe Spirit Or The Spirit Of The Age

ntrtainment Weekly is not exactly an evangelical house-I orga~ and yet like many secular periodicals these days

it seems to observe more truth than a number of evanshygelical magazines and journals In its October 7 1994 issue Jeff Gordinier wrote

In a year when TV airwaves are aflutter with winged spirits the bestseller lists are clogged with divine manushyscripts and visions of the afterlife and gangsta-rappers are elbowed aside on the pop charts for the hushed prayers of Benedictine monks you dont have to look hard to find that pop culture is going gaga for spiritualshyity [However] seekers ofthe dayareaptto peel away the tough theological stuff and pluck out the most dulcet elements offaith coming up with a soothing sampler of Judeo-Christian imagery Eastern meditation self-help lingo a vaguely conservative craving for virtue and a loopy New Age pursuit of peace This happy free-forshyal appealing to Baptists and stargazers alike comes off more like Forrest Gumps ubiquitous boxa chocolates than like any real system ofbelief You never know what youre going to get

There could hardly have been a better description of the dilemma in which the ancient church found itself from the time of the apostles until the third century It is a heresy that is constantly threatening the orthodoxy of the church and it is as old as Satans lie You shall be as gods It is called Gnosticism St Paul called the Gnosshytic prophets super-apostles who apparently knew more than God They see into the heavenly secrets and offer techniques for escaping earthly existence Timothy the Apostle warned guard what has been entrusted to you Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is

falsely called knowledge by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith (2 Tm 620) We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God (2 Cor 105) The super-apostles had preached he says a different gospel and a different spirit For such men are false apostles deceitful workmen masquerading as apostles of Christ And no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel oflight (2 Cor 11 13) The reference here is to the Gnostic emphasis on the Angel of Light versus the Angel of Darkness

Not far beneath the surface of much of the New Testament especially the Gospel ofJohn and the Epistles is a running polemic against the most dangerous heresy in church history According to one of its early opposhynents St Clement of Alexandria Gnosticism (from the Greek word gnosis meaning knowledge) consisted of the knowledge of who we were or where we were placed whither we hasten from what we are redeemed what birth is and what rebirth (Excerpta ex Theodoto 782) Knowledge of these secrets was considered redemptive The purpose of this article will be to explain the origins and identity of Gnosticism in an effort to establish the point that contemporaryAmerican religion whether libshyeral or conservative evangelical or New Age Mormon or Pentecostal represents a revival of this ancient heresy

The Old Gnosticism From a number of secondary sources we are able to gain a portrait which allows us to see the main features

1 Eclectic and polymorphic A cut-and-paste spirishytuality emerges from the Gnostic writings As Philip Lee observes Gnostic syncretism believes everything in

4 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

general for the purpose ofavoiding a belief in something in particular In the case ofChristian gnosticism what is being avoided is the particularity of the Gospel that which is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Genshytiles 1 It is generally agreed that Gnosticism emerged as a form of mystical Christian spirituality blended toshygether with Greek paganism We recall Paul in Athens in the Areopagus where people did nothing but discuss the latest ideas (Acts 1721) telling the Greeks that they were very religious Gnosticism was an attempt to inshycorporate the seeker spirituality of the Greeks into Christianity

In its very nature itwas diverse and capable ofamalshygamation and assimilation of various religious systems Biblical religion by contrast insisted upon the uniqueshyness of divine self-disclosure in Scripture and in Gods redemptive acts There is one God (Yahweh) who is known in the written and Living Word Many of the church fathers were simply exasperated by trying to figshyure out what the Gnostic texts actually meant whereas Christianity held distinct easily understood and wellshydefined doctrinal convictions

2 Individualistic and subjective While the writings are extremely esoteric and mystical there is an obvious thread of individualism and an inward focus charactershyistic of mysticism As in Greek Platonism the subject (the knower) has priority over the object (the known) and the path to spiritualityis through inwardnessmedishytation and self-realization

3 Immanence over transcendence In terms of the individuals relation to God the Gnostic stresses Gods nearness over his distant holiness and sovereignty In fact the individual self is a spark of the One (God) As one scholar puts it The self is the indwelling of God2 There is a direct intimacy between the divine and the self that requires no mediation In Gnostic literature the relationship between God and the self is often deshyscribed in romantic and even erotic language

4 Spirit over matter Sometimes called in our day mind over matter the Greek and Gnostic worldview is dualistic That is it divides the world into matter (evil) and spirit (good) Evil suffering illness and death are all attributed to the existence of matter and the Fall was not from innocence to rebellion (as in the biblical acshycount) but from pure spirit to physical bodies Imprisoned in a material world the self is alienated from its true home This theme of a war between Light and Darkness Spirit and Matter the Divine Within and the World Outside and the sense of alienation despair loneliness and abandonment in the physical world is the recurring key to understanding Gnosticism 3 In our day Matthew Fox repeating the warning of self-described Gnostic psychologist C J Jung expresses this sentiment well One way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside

you (Roof p 75) 5 Anti-institutional orientation Associated with

matter and the physical imprisonment of the self instishytutions are viewed as spiritual enemies The Outside God and the Outside Church are enemies of the soul directing the self away from ones own inner experience to others and to formal structures of authority creeds doctrines rituals and sacraments St Ignatius ofAntioch (d 110 AD) charged They have no concern for love none for the widow the orphan the afflicted the prisshyoner the hungry the thirsty They stay away from the Eucharist and prayer4 This did not mean however that they did not form communities but these were ascetic sects that served to nurture individual rather than comshymunal concerns and experiential rather than liturgical and doctrinal forms of public worship

6 Anti-sacramental Closely related to its suspicion of the church as an institution was Gnosticisms disre-

J U LYA UG U ST 19 9 5 5

gard for sacraments If the self enjoyed a direct and imshymediate relationship with Gods Spirit and knowledge came through a secret revelation of a mystical nature surely the introduction of material means ofgrace-the printed word (accessible to everyone) water (in Bapshytism) and bread and wine (the Eucharist)-actually become impediments to real fellowship with God They are insufficiently spiritual for Gnostic piety as rebirth (a prominent Gnostic theme) is by the Spirit in opposishytion to matter Furthermore the Gnosis (Revelation Knowledge) was based on the idea that only a few really knew the secrets while Christianitys emphasis on Word

world nature and history through spirishyChtistianitys cardinal belief in salvation by God tual ascent

be(~oming fleshand by his fleshly resurrection 9 Feminist Ancient Gnosticism as we have seen divided the world into spirit andpromising resurrection of our bodies was anathema matter as columns of good and bad They defined characteristics of femininityto Gnosti(~ism as it was foolishness to Gteeks who as love freedom affirmation and nurture and these were in thegood column whilegenerally sav spirit as good and matteras evil

and sacrament available to anyone who could read or eat challenged this private spiritual elitism

7 Anti-historical Lee notes Gnostic ltknowledge is unrelated in any vital sense either to nature or to history (p 102) As spirit is opposed to matter and individual inwardness is opposed to an institutional church etershynity is opposed to time Salvation for the Gnostic is redemption from the body institutions and the grindshying process of history into which the pure self is mercilessly thrown

In biblical religion God not only created the world (material as well as spiritual) and pronounced itgood but also created matter and history in which to unfold his salvation In fact Christianitys cardinal belief in salvashytion by God becoming flesh and by his fleshly resurrection promising resurrection of our bodies was anathema to Gnosticism as it was foolishness to Greeks who generally saw spirit as good and matter as evil In Christianity redemption does not take place in a supershyspiritual sphere above real human history but within it Gnosticism however emphasizes instead the selfs pershysonal direct encounter with God here and now and has little or no place for the historical events of Gods saving activity

8 Anti-Jewish While biblical religion focused on Gods personal involvement with the world in creation and redemption through the bloody sacrifices that anshyticipated the Messiah Gnosticism harbored a deep distrust of the Old Testament God In fact two Gnostic sects appear in this connection Marcion (d 160 AD) rejected the Old Testament entirely on the basis that it represented a wrathful Judge who created matter and

imprisoned souls in history while the New Testament God (Jesus) was the God ofLove The Creator-God (Old Testament) and the Redeemer-God (New Testament) were viewed as opposites in Marcionism In addition to the Old Testament Lukes Gospel and Pauls epistles un- -=

derwent radical revisions In the following century Mani a Persian evangelist

whose ideas spread quickly to the West and were emshybraced by St Augustine before his conversion founded a powerful sect ofManichaeism Once again it was deeply dualistic (spirit vs matter Light vs Darkness etc) and championed salvation chiefly in terms of secret knowlshy

edge of the principles for overcoming the

those of masculinity were defined as jusshytice law wrath and strength and put in the bad column This is in sharp contrast to the Christian God who in both Testaments is a good gracious loving and savingaswellas just holy and sovereign FatherSophia the Greek word for wisdom after the goddess of wisshydom became the God of many Gnostics The 13th-century mystic Meister Eckhart wrote What does God do all day long God gives birth From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed giving birth and this image is replete in the mystical literature lt~ncient gnosticism Lee writes loathed the patriarchal and aushythoritarian qualities of official Christianity From the gnostic point of view the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) The antipathy toward nature was reflected in the Gnostic celebration of the androgynous [ie sexless] selfWhile the body may be either male or female the spirit is free

One must beware of concluding that the knowlshyedge championed by the Gnostics was the same thing that we mean normally by the term Lee observes

The difference between orthodox knowledge and gnostic knowledge has been described as the difference between open revelation and secret revelation Although it is true for both faiths that the Holy Spirit is at work to open the eyes ofthe believer that he may know the truth within orthodox thought the Holy Spirits work takes place in the presence of and in terms of given historical data and within the context ofthe Holy Catholic Church Thus in the Apostles Creed the article affirming belief in the Holy Spirit is securely nestled between beliefin the person and work of Jesus Christ and a willingness to learn from the Holy Catholic Church (p 101)

6 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modern REFORMATION

Gnostic knowledge is not only anti -historical and subjective it is anti-intellectual and immediate This is why St Irenaeus called it pseudo-knowledge and Paul told Timothy it was knowledge falsely called (1 Tm 620) It preferred what we often call heart knowledge to head knowledge although Christianity knew no such dichotomy

Especially popular in Alexandria Gnosticism threatened Christianitys very existence not as an extershynal threat but as an int~rnal rival In other words it attempted to reinterpret biblical religion and reshape it into something other than that which was announced by the prophets fulfilled in Christ and proclaimed by the apostles Even as Christianity officially condemned the heresy and the ancient fathers wrote voluminously on the subject the philosophical influence of Greek Platonism continued to shape the medieval church Nevshyertheless whenever the unadulterated Gnostic tenets would reappear as in such medieval sects as the Albigensians the Cathari (Pure Ones) and Bogemils the church reasserted its apostolic and catholic condemshynations At the time of the Reformation the Anabaptists revived Gnosticism and a number of Renaissance hushymanists including Petrarch had also embraced this revival

A number of scholars both Roman Catholic and Protestant have argued that the Reformation represhysented not only a reaction against Pelagianism (the ancient heresy ofworks- righteousness) but also against Gnosticism By charging that the church had allowed Greek philosophy priority in interpreting Scripture the Reformers recovered the Bibles clear declarations on creation redemption worship the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit the doctrine of the church Word and sacrament and a host of related teachings

The New Gnosticism Without offering a chronicle on Gnosticism throughout church history our purpose here is simply to refer to that portion ofhistory that most directly bears on the current revival

A trip to the local bookstore confirms that there is a revival of explicit Gnostic spirituality in American culshyture with the New Age movement claiming direct descent 5 Often passing for psychology philosophy and religion Gnosticism is now back with a vengeance and forms the broad parameters (if there are any) for the smorgasbord of American spirituality After two world wars Westerners have become disillusioned with the grand scheme of turning this world into Paradise Reshystored Albert Camus Jean-Paul Sartre and Andre Malraux poured their energies into lamenting the sense of despair and alienation and the theme of humanity being thrown into the world imprisoned in evil mateshy

rial structures is prominent in their work The popularshyity of existentialism blended with an older Transcendentalism that was always seething just beneath the surface of the American consciousness to produce a post-war generation ofseekerswho were ripe for Gnosshytic spirituality It is that older Transcendentalism that must be explained before we can understand the ways in which modern evangelicalism and liberalism represent sister denominations in what Harold Bloom calls The American Religion Gnosticism

Mysticism has a long tradition within Christianity and although it developed out ofthe same influences and centers as Gnosticism itself it was deemed acceptable even by some who had opposed the heresy The ladder of spiritual ascent and the dualism between spirit and matter the inwardness and related themes remind us that the difference is a matter ofdegree In a sympathetic treatment titled Mysticism in the Wesleyan Tradition (Zondervan 1989) United Methodist theologian Robshyert G Tuttle Jr traces the influences ofGreek and Roman Catholic mysticism on John Wesley Through the varishyous Holiness groups in America evangelicalism was heavily influenced by a form ofspirituality that was conshysidered by many especially at Princeton Seminary to be a rival to the historic Christianity recovered in the Reforshymation But there were other influences in the culture that contributed to the Gnostic awakening in America Just as the medieval church was unwittingly shaped by Greek Platonic influences modern American Chrisshytianity both liberal and evangelical is shaped by Romanticism-itself a revival of Greek and Gnostic influences

The Romantics include such worthies as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) who resigned his Boston

COMPA R E amp CO N TR AS T We cannot communicate with God mentally for Heis a Spirit But we canreach Him with our Spirit andit islhrough our Spirit that we come to know God This is ohereason God put teachers (those who are really called to teach) in the churchshyto renew our minds Many times those who teach do so with only a naipral knowledge that they have gainedfrom the Bible and other sources Kenneth Hagin Man on Three Dimensions 1985

It is an illusory belief of the Enthusiasts that those who keep reading Scripture or hearing the Word are chilgren as if no one were spiritual unless he scorned doctrine In their pride therefore they despise the ministry of men and even Scripture itself in order to attain the Spirit They then proudly try to peddle all the delusions that Satan suggests to them as secret revelations of the Spirit John Calvin Commentary on 1 Thes 520 1525

JUL Y IAUGU ST 1995 7

Unitarian pastorate in 1832 because he could no longer accept institutional religion and refused to serve Comshymunion (Since Unitarians do not have a genuine Communion it is difficult to regard this as a major deshyparture) After all Emerson said he was himself a spark of God and enjoyed direct access without an incarnate Mediator and the impediments of physical sacraments At Harvard Emerson declared that orthodox Christianshyity was dead and the only way forward was to recover the spiritual dimension of religion The jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes was a great fan of Emersons Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was closely associated with Emerson and other Transcendentalists as many of the American Romantics were now being called The Westminster Dictionary of Church History defines Transhyscendentalism as an optimistic mystic and naturalistic state ofmind rather than a system of thought which had a wide influence on American literature philosophy and religion Based on English romanticism (Coleridge Wordsworth Carlyle) and German philosophical idealshyism it found Calvinistic orthodoxy too harsh and Unitarian liberalism too arid It emphasized individual experience as sacred unique and authoritative

The sense of alienation is apparent in Nathaniel Hawthorne Taking no root I soon weary of any soil in which I may be temporarily deposited The same impashytience I may feel or conceive of as regards this earthly life6 If this feeling was true in the early 19th century it is

- certainly exacerbated by the influences ofmodernity the rootlessness precipitated by rapid travel mobility disshyplacement of families and technological advances that tend to dehumanize existence As for the Gnostic preocshycupation with spirit and the eternal over matter and time Emerson declared I am to invite men drenched in

How Do New Agers Trace TheirRoots

At first the traditions were transmitted ihtimately by alchemists Gnostics cabalists and hermetics ltAmong the middot bold and isolated voiCes were MeistecEckhart Giovanni Pico 4ella Mirandola andEmamiel Swederiborg We are spiritually tree they said the stewards of our OWn evolution Humankind has a choice We can 3wakerito our true nature Drawing fully ftbm our inner-resources we can achieve a new dhpension of mind we can see mOl~e ~

t The Transcendentalists supposed[y threatened the old order with their~new ideas but the ide~s were not newThey s()ught understanding from liPany sources experIence intu middot ition the Quaker idea of the Inner Light the Bh(lgavad Gitq the German Romantic Philosophers middotand the English mefashyphysical writers of the seventeenthcentury Llthough they were charged with havingfontempt for history they replied tnat humankin4 coutd be lihrated from history MarilynFerguson The Aquarian Con~piracy 1980

Time to recover themselves and come out of time and taste their native immortal air7 Like the ancient Gnostics who according to St Ignatius did not bother themselves with the physical needs of this world Emersons spiritual arrogance knew no bounds I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes to wit imprisoned spirits They have no other watchman or lover or defender but 18

The recurring note in Romanticism and especially in its American Transcendental variety is personal expeshyrience the selfs transcendence of community flesh history creed doctrine church Word and sacraments to ascend to the lofty heights ofdeity Each individual self is God and requires no mediation for access to the divine

We do not have to look very far to see the influence of this movement on 19th-century Protestantism The reshyvivalistic evangelicals wanted to escape from this world by a personal experience of being born again and sucshycessive experiences A second blessing or a rededication would revive the soul in its flight toward Deity and full surrender Doctrine was considered an encumbrance as were creeds liturgies and sacraments and the anti-intelshylectual strain of Gnosticism reared its ugly head In orthodox Christianity grace redeems this world in Gnosticism it redeems the self from nature Grace did not save nature but provided a way ofescapeAt the same time the liberals according to Philip Lee made ample room for nature on their stage by moving grace into the wings There remained in both camps a gnostic separashytion ot Creation from Redemption (p 93)

At this point psychology was born and took root quickly in America more than anywhere else It offered an alternative to theology as the study ofthe self and selfshyconsciousness replaced the study of God and his redemptive acts George Ripley declared during this peshyriod The time has come when a revision of theology is demanded Let the study oftheology commence with the study of human consciousness9 But this psychological orientation not only demanded the first word it ended up swallowing everything within reach and the stage was set for the therapeutic revolution of the 20th century with peace ofmind and eventually self-esteem becoming more important than sin and grace Narcissism (selfshyworship) became legitimate and in fact the only religious duty Although C J Jung a father of modern psychology was openly and self-described as a Gnostic his mysticism is easily absorbed into the greater Gnostic ooze of contemporary pop-psychology and recovery movements

The preaching also turned from the objective emshyphasis on Gods saving work in Christ to techniques for self- improvement psychologically and morally conshyceived Considered too offensive for the immortal and innocent self the Law was not suitable for preaching

8 JUL Y I AUG US T 19 9 5 modern R EFORMATION

unless it could be shown that it was somehow beneficial for personal transformation Divine commands had to be seen as attainable and reasonable principles for selfshyenhancement and universal love Damnation was entirely out of place as a purpose for the Law or for any sociable discourse Similarly the Gospel hardly distinshyguishable now from the Gnostic law became a secret formula (gnosis) for rebirth self-realization and the personal unmediated experience with the Divine This was true equally for liberals and evangelicals Unitarians and revivalists as well as for the many Gnostic

redeem but merely reveals according to Lee (p 107) All of these writers point to the breakdown in the Reformations orthodox stance in both conservative and liberal camps as opening the door to Transcendentalism and finally to the current orientation Beyond the libshyeral-evangelical split Wade Clark Roof now says we cannot discern any real differences between New Age and evangelical spirituality on a number of counts This new Gnosticism laquocelebrates experience rather than docshytrine the personal rather than the institutional the

cults that were born in this environment Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine (Christian Science Unity Adventism etc) however differently each may have stated it for personal experience and objective toth for

Horace Bushnell marks the departure from an evangelical Calvinism to an evangelical Roshy pesonal transformationand in this sense each manticism My heart wants the Father my heart wants the Son my heart wants the Holy is in its own yay Gnostic Ghost My heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me and I mean to hold by my heart I am glad a man can do it when there is no other mooringlo The Morshymon laquotestimony is quite similar when its truth-claims are founded upon a burning in the bosom Similarly when evangelicals sing Romantic hymns such as He Lives with the line laquoYou ask me how I know he lives He lives within my heart they have little trouble accommoshydating to the Romanticism of Schleiermacher father of modern liberalism when he said that the essence of Christianity islaquothe feeling ofabsolute dependence And when evangelicals eschew creeds doctrines liturgies and sacraments over personal experience how can they quibble with the liberal Adolf von Harnack who beshylieved that the authentically spiritual is composed of those things that are inward spontaneous and ethical as opposed to the outward organized ceremonial and dogmaticll Gnosticism becomes the tie that binds

At last we come to our own century A number of books have been published in recent years pointing up the laquoGnosticization of American religion including Philip Lees Against The Protestant Gnostics (Oxford 1987) and Harold Blooms The American Religion (Simon and Schuster 1992) Although Bloom a distinshyguished Yale professor and the nations leading literary critic identifies himself as a Jewish Gnostic he provides a provocative insight into the popularization of Gnostishycism Other studies have pointed tangentially to this same condition such as those of professors James D Hunter (University ofVirginia ) Wade Clark Roof (Unishyversity of California) and Robert Wuthnow (Princeton University) Christopher Laschs The Culture ofNarcisshysism and Robert Bellahs Habits ofthe Heart also point in the same direction

In spite of their rivalry fundamentalism and libershyalism both essentially proclaim a Christ who does not

mythic and dreamlike over the cognitive peoples relishygion over official religion soft caring images of deity over hard impersonal images the feminine and the anshydrogynous over the masculine (Roof p 132) Although Roofdoes not make the point these are clearly the tenets of ancient Gnosticism

Note Lees point on Christ as Revealer [Gnosis] over Christ as Redeemer

Another way to shed light on the American tendency to regard Christ as revealer only is to observe the Amerishycan fascination with technique For the evangelicals conversion is a technique a necessary one for salvation The history of Israel and the life of Jesus which indeed were often spiritualized beyond recognition were imshyportant only insofar as they could be employed to bring sinners to repentance (p 109)

Lee says that the liberal approach to the Scriptures following its Transcendental heritage was to see them as laquotechniques for living the Christian life and the Bible became laquoa rich source of those truths that we in our hearts already know (p Ill) But this is now precisely the same attitude often taken by evangelicals to the Scripshytures Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine for personal experience and objective truth for personal transformation and in this sense each is in its own way Gnostic The anti-intellectualism is understandable acshycording to Lee laquoIf God is immanent present within our psyche if we already have the truth within then why go through all the hassle of studying theology (p Ill) Isnt this precisely the point of the division many of us grew up with between head knowledge and heart knowlshyedge The former is intellectual the latter spiritual-that is gnosis James D Hunter observes laquoThe spiritual asshypects of Evangelical life are increasingly approached by

JULYAUGUST 1995 9

means of an interpreted in terms of principles rules steps laws codes guidelines and the like 12 Wade Clark Roof adds Salvation as a theological doctrine becomes reduced to simple steps easy proceshydures and formulas for psychological rewards The approach to religious truth changes-awayfrom anyobshyjective grounds on which it must be judged to a more subjective more instrumental understanding of what it does for the believer and how it can do what it does most efficiently (p 195)

Pentecostalism represents an even greater depenshydence on Gnostic tendencies Lee writes Just as faith healing held an important place among the medieval gnostics ofsouthern France it has also been a significant element in the more extreme sects ofProtestantism The Savior God is pitted against the natural God and before millions of television viewers the Savior God prevails (p 119) Roman Catholic scholar Ronald Knoxs work Enthusiasm (Oxford 1950) remains a classic study ofthis subject Even the desire to speak in tongues as if the biblical idea of tongues was a super-natural language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natural human language in a direct spiritual encounter of immediate ecstasy Although the biblical writers were well aware of this practice ofecstatic utterances in pashygan religion they did not use the Greek word for this practice but instead chose glossai (lit languages) leading us to conclude that tongues refers in the New Testament to known earthly speech

The outer edges ofPentecostalism are especially blashytant in Gnostic emphases as a number of works have shown including The Agony of Deceit 13 Salvation is knowledge-Revelation Knowledge (Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Hagin Paul Crouch and other faith

the author himself applauds the Gnostic tendency Bloom concludes of this group To know also that one is completely free-the Emersonian Wildness-because ones solitude is shared with the Holy Spirit carries the rapture to a Sublime elevation And though Assemblies of God theology is officially trinitarian in praxis the Pentecostal knows only Oneness and calls the Holy Spirit by the name ofJesus not the Jesus ofthe Gospels or even the Christ of Paul but the American Jesus a Penteshycostal like oneself 14 (It is worth noting that the Assemblies of God were involved in a rift within Pentecostalism over this very point siding with the orshythodox doctrine of the Trinity over Oneness Pentecostals)

For those of us who were raised in fundamentalist evangelical or pentecostal sects the experience of reshybirth comes neither through the Word ofthe Gospel nor through the water of Baptism but through a Spirit Bapshytism that is direct and immediate The Word is primarily seen as an instrument for coaxing the individual into accepting the new birth The new birth especially if one judges by the testimonies ofconverts is not so much the result of hearing with human ears in human words a declaration of things that happened in human history In short it is not so much the preaching ofthe Cross but the preaching of my personal relationship with Jesus the day when Jesus came into my heart that is central Lee again Whereas classical Calvinism had held that the Christians assurance of salvation was guaranteed only through Christ and his Church with his means ofgrace now assurance could be found only in the personal expeshyrience ofhaving been born again This was a radical shift for Calvin had considered any attempt to put conversion in the power of man himself to be gross popery In fact

Rebirth in God is the exact opposite ofrebirth into a new and more acceptable self as the selfshyEven the desire to speak in tongues as if the acclaimed born again Christians would see the event (pp 144255) biblical idea of tongues was asuper-natural

Norman Vincent Peale exploited the peace of mind craze earlier this century a movement that borrowed its capital from Transhy

language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natutal human language in adirectj scendentalism directly Nevertheless the

liberal Peale was hailed as a great evangelist by spiritu81 encounte of immediate ecstasy evangelical Billy Graham and was asked to parshy

teachers use the upper case to distinguish this from mere written revelation) The Word that truly saves is not the written text of Scripture proclaiming Christ the Reshydeemer but is rather the Rhema Word that is spoken directly to the spirit by Gods Spirit Bloom writes Paul was arguing against Corinthian Enthusiasts or Gnostics and yet I wonder why his strictures have not discouraged American Pentecostals more than they seem to have donePentecostalism is American shamanism although

ticipate in the crusades Lee once again notes the tie that binds For both of them Christianity is understood from a gnostic point ofview The real world with which religion has to do is the world within (p 199) This is not to suggest that Billy Graham is a liberal Rather it is to argue that in our day Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

Also in terms of their views of Christ liberals and evangelicals reveal a common Gnostic tendency While the liberals divided the Jesus of History (a normal Jew

10 JULYAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

who lived in first -century Palestine) from the Christ of Faith (resurrected God-Man) proclaiming that the Spirit of Christ lives and calls us into vital communion even though his body is not raised evangelicals often seem to worship the spirit of Jesus apart from his hushymanity Jesus in my heart at the end of the day is more important for personal Christian experience piety and worship than Jesus in history Although evangelicals inshysist on a historical resurrection as a matter of official creed in actual practice one wonders why it is imporshytant if the spirit ofJesus is in ones heart After all no one believes that Jesus takes up physical residence in ones heart so what can we mean by asking Jesus into our heart other than inviting his spirit Little is said of the biblical notion that it is~the Holy Spirit who unites us not to the spirit ofJesus in our hearts but to the God-Man in heaven according to both his divine and human natures

In Gnosticism not only the object of faith (Christ) but the act of faith becomes radically revised In Chrisshytianity faith is trust in Gods specific promise ofsalvation through Christ In Gnosticism faith is magic It is a technique for getting what we want by believing in it strongly enough As C Peter Wagner an advocate of the Vineyard movement puts it Empirical evidence also validates the absolute necessity of faith or whatever else you want to call it-possibility thinking or goal setshyting-as a prerequisite for church growth15 Is faith really a synonym for possibility thinking and goal setshyting Then would not everyone possess faith Or is faith a unique gift from God to trust in Christ as in biblical teaching The Second Helvetic Confession (a 16th censhytury Reformed statement) declares Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles Creed and thus also of God himself the greatest good and especially of Gods promise and of Christ who is the fulfillment of all promises

But Wagners worldview is also dominated by the Gnostic fascination with dualism between Light and Darkness as spiritual warfare takes on an increasingly super-spiritual preoccupation Like Frank Perettis novshyels this popular view of spiritual warfare in which individual believers decide the outcome of battles beshytween good angels and bad angels is too close to Manichaean Gnosticism for comfort

The Gnostic revolution has been demonstrating its elasticity in recent years in the spirituality of the baby boomers whose interest in the sacred has been celshyebrated in national periodicals the study of which has become something of a cottage industry Wade Clark Roof sampled a wide variety of seekers For instance Sonny DAntonio raised Roman Catholic considers

himself a believer but not a belonger The material parts of the church turned me off he says (p 18) Mollie Stone raised a Pentecostal tried Native American spirishytuality then Quakerism for its inner peace and is turned on to Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovshyery groups although she is not herself an alcoholic or related to one As for churches Creeds and doctrines divide people she says (p 23) Roof observes The distinction between spirit and institution is of major

COMPARE amp CONTltRAST Who can say [ have keptmy heart pure [ amciean a11d without sin Prov 209

[At a Campus Crusade staff retreat] middot hundreds came forward to kneel and pray Their lovk for Christ had prompted tl1em to join the staff in the first plate Now they were demonstrating their desire to continue in their ministry with pure hearts free ofsin filled with th~ Holy Spirit The response was unanimous Bill Bright The Coming Rtpivai

Our own ag~ has certain Ana6~piists whofeign thatJnBaptism Gods people are reborn into a pure and angelic life unsullied by any carnal filth But ifafter baptismanyone falls away they leave him nothing but Gods inexQrablejudgment In short to the sinner who has lapsed after receiving grace they hold out no hope of pardon For they recognize no other forgiveness of sins than that by which they were first reborn John Calvin The Institutes ofthe Christian Religion

importance Although Roof does not point to Gnostishycism his studies mark undeniable parallels Spirit is the inner experiential aspect of religion institution is the outer established form of religion This distinction is increasingly pertinent because ofthe strong emphasis on self in contemporary culture and the related shift from objective to subjective ways of ordering experience (p 30) Religion is too restricting but spirituality offers a way ofplugging into the divine with the correct spiritual technology Roof explains As a computer programmer who happens to be an evangelical put it without any prompting on our part We all access God differently (p 258)

The whole point ofChristianity however is that one cannot access God at all He must come to us through a personal Word (God in flesh) and a written Word (Scripture) and when we do come to him it must be through Christ and we come to Christ through the orshydained means It might offend the Gnostic and narcissistic individualism of our age but we do not all access God differentli

Roof refers to the Outer and Inner Worlds the former suspect while the latter is always respected Dishyrect experience is always more trustworthy iffor no other reason than because of its inwardness and withinshyness-two qualities that have come to be much

JULYAUGUST 1995 11

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

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I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

general for the purpose ofavoiding a belief in something in particular In the case ofChristian gnosticism what is being avoided is the particularity of the Gospel that which is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Genshytiles 1 It is generally agreed that Gnosticism emerged as a form of mystical Christian spirituality blended toshygether with Greek paganism We recall Paul in Athens in the Areopagus where people did nothing but discuss the latest ideas (Acts 1721) telling the Greeks that they were very religious Gnosticism was an attempt to inshycorporate the seeker spirituality of the Greeks into Christianity

In its very nature itwas diverse and capable ofamalshygamation and assimilation of various religious systems Biblical religion by contrast insisted upon the uniqueshyness of divine self-disclosure in Scripture and in Gods redemptive acts There is one God (Yahweh) who is known in the written and Living Word Many of the church fathers were simply exasperated by trying to figshyure out what the Gnostic texts actually meant whereas Christianity held distinct easily understood and wellshydefined doctrinal convictions

2 Individualistic and subjective While the writings are extremely esoteric and mystical there is an obvious thread of individualism and an inward focus charactershyistic of mysticism As in Greek Platonism the subject (the knower) has priority over the object (the known) and the path to spiritualityis through inwardnessmedishytation and self-realization

3 Immanence over transcendence In terms of the individuals relation to God the Gnostic stresses Gods nearness over his distant holiness and sovereignty In fact the individual self is a spark of the One (God) As one scholar puts it The self is the indwelling of God2 There is a direct intimacy between the divine and the self that requires no mediation In Gnostic literature the relationship between God and the self is often deshyscribed in romantic and even erotic language

4 Spirit over matter Sometimes called in our day mind over matter the Greek and Gnostic worldview is dualistic That is it divides the world into matter (evil) and spirit (good) Evil suffering illness and death are all attributed to the existence of matter and the Fall was not from innocence to rebellion (as in the biblical acshycount) but from pure spirit to physical bodies Imprisoned in a material world the self is alienated from its true home This theme of a war between Light and Darkness Spirit and Matter the Divine Within and the World Outside and the sense of alienation despair loneliness and abandonment in the physical world is the recurring key to understanding Gnosticism 3 In our day Matthew Fox repeating the warning of self-described Gnostic psychologist C J Jung expresses this sentiment well One way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside

you (Roof p 75) 5 Anti-institutional orientation Associated with

matter and the physical imprisonment of the self instishytutions are viewed as spiritual enemies The Outside God and the Outside Church are enemies of the soul directing the self away from ones own inner experience to others and to formal structures of authority creeds doctrines rituals and sacraments St Ignatius ofAntioch (d 110 AD) charged They have no concern for love none for the widow the orphan the afflicted the prisshyoner the hungry the thirsty They stay away from the Eucharist and prayer4 This did not mean however that they did not form communities but these were ascetic sects that served to nurture individual rather than comshymunal concerns and experiential rather than liturgical and doctrinal forms of public worship

6 Anti-sacramental Closely related to its suspicion of the church as an institution was Gnosticisms disre-

J U LYA UG U ST 19 9 5 5

gard for sacraments If the self enjoyed a direct and imshymediate relationship with Gods Spirit and knowledge came through a secret revelation of a mystical nature surely the introduction of material means ofgrace-the printed word (accessible to everyone) water (in Bapshytism) and bread and wine (the Eucharist)-actually become impediments to real fellowship with God They are insufficiently spiritual for Gnostic piety as rebirth (a prominent Gnostic theme) is by the Spirit in opposishytion to matter Furthermore the Gnosis (Revelation Knowledge) was based on the idea that only a few really knew the secrets while Christianitys emphasis on Word

world nature and history through spirishyChtistianitys cardinal belief in salvation by God tual ascent

be(~oming fleshand by his fleshly resurrection 9 Feminist Ancient Gnosticism as we have seen divided the world into spirit andpromising resurrection of our bodies was anathema matter as columns of good and bad They defined characteristics of femininityto Gnosti(~ism as it was foolishness to Gteeks who as love freedom affirmation and nurture and these were in thegood column whilegenerally sav spirit as good and matteras evil

and sacrament available to anyone who could read or eat challenged this private spiritual elitism

7 Anti-historical Lee notes Gnostic ltknowledge is unrelated in any vital sense either to nature or to history (p 102) As spirit is opposed to matter and individual inwardness is opposed to an institutional church etershynity is opposed to time Salvation for the Gnostic is redemption from the body institutions and the grindshying process of history into which the pure self is mercilessly thrown

In biblical religion God not only created the world (material as well as spiritual) and pronounced itgood but also created matter and history in which to unfold his salvation In fact Christianitys cardinal belief in salvashytion by God becoming flesh and by his fleshly resurrection promising resurrection of our bodies was anathema to Gnosticism as it was foolishness to Greeks who generally saw spirit as good and matter as evil In Christianity redemption does not take place in a supershyspiritual sphere above real human history but within it Gnosticism however emphasizes instead the selfs pershysonal direct encounter with God here and now and has little or no place for the historical events of Gods saving activity

8 Anti-Jewish While biblical religion focused on Gods personal involvement with the world in creation and redemption through the bloody sacrifices that anshyticipated the Messiah Gnosticism harbored a deep distrust of the Old Testament God In fact two Gnostic sects appear in this connection Marcion (d 160 AD) rejected the Old Testament entirely on the basis that it represented a wrathful Judge who created matter and

imprisoned souls in history while the New Testament God (Jesus) was the God ofLove The Creator-God (Old Testament) and the Redeemer-God (New Testament) were viewed as opposites in Marcionism In addition to the Old Testament Lukes Gospel and Pauls epistles un- -=

derwent radical revisions In the following century Mani a Persian evangelist

whose ideas spread quickly to the West and were emshybraced by St Augustine before his conversion founded a powerful sect ofManichaeism Once again it was deeply dualistic (spirit vs matter Light vs Darkness etc) and championed salvation chiefly in terms of secret knowlshy

edge of the principles for overcoming the

those of masculinity were defined as jusshytice law wrath and strength and put in the bad column This is in sharp contrast to the Christian God who in both Testaments is a good gracious loving and savingaswellas just holy and sovereign FatherSophia the Greek word for wisdom after the goddess of wisshydom became the God of many Gnostics The 13th-century mystic Meister Eckhart wrote What does God do all day long God gives birth From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed giving birth and this image is replete in the mystical literature lt~ncient gnosticism Lee writes loathed the patriarchal and aushythoritarian qualities of official Christianity From the gnostic point of view the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) The antipathy toward nature was reflected in the Gnostic celebration of the androgynous [ie sexless] selfWhile the body may be either male or female the spirit is free

One must beware of concluding that the knowlshyedge championed by the Gnostics was the same thing that we mean normally by the term Lee observes

The difference between orthodox knowledge and gnostic knowledge has been described as the difference between open revelation and secret revelation Although it is true for both faiths that the Holy Spirit is at work to open the eyes ofthe believer that he may know the truth within orthodox thought the Holy Spirits work takes place in the presence of and in terms of given historical data and within the context ofthe Holy Catholic Church Thus in the Apostles Creed the article affirming belief in the Holy Spirit is securely nestled between beliefin the person and work of Jesus Christ and a willingness to learn from the Holy Catholic Church (p 101)

6 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modern REFORMATION

Gnostic knowledge is not only anti -historical and subjective it is anti-intellectual and immediate This is why St Irenaeus called it pseudo-knowledge and Paul told Timothy it was knowledge falsely called (1 Tm 620) It preferred what we often call heart knowledge to head knowledge although Christianity knew no such dichotomy

Especially popular in Alexandria Gnosticism threatened Christianitys very existence not as an extershynal threat but as an int~rnal rival In other words it attempted to reinterpret biblical religion and reshape it into something other than that which was announced by the prophets fulfilled in Christ and proclaimed by the apostles Even as Christianity officially condemned the heresy and the ancient fathers wrote voluminously on the subject the philosophical influence of Greek Platonism continued to shape the medieval church Nevshyertheless whenever the unadulterated Gnostic tenets would reappear as in such medieval sects as the Albigensians the Cathari (Pure Ones) and Bogemils the church reasserted its apostolic and catholic condemshynations At the time of the Reformation the Anabaptists revived Gnosticism and a number of Renaissance hushymanists including Petrarch had also embraced this revival

A number of scholars both Roman Catholic and Protestant have argued that the Reformation represhysented not only a reaction against Pelagianism (the ancient heresy ofworks- righteousness) but also against Gnosticism By charging that the church had allowed Greek philosophy priority in interpreting Scripture the Reformers recovered the Bibles clear declarations on creation redemption worship the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit the doctrine of the church Word and sacrament and a host of related teachings

The New Gnosticism Without offering a chronicle on Gnosticism throughout church history our purpose here is simply to refer to that portion ofhistory that most directly bears on the current revival

A trip to the local bookstore confirms that there is a revival of explicit Gnostic spirituality in American culshyture with the New Age movement claiming direct descent 5 Often passing for psychology philosophy and religion Gnosticism is now back with a vengeance and forms the broad parameters (if there are any) for the smorgasbord of American spirituality After two world wars Westerners have become disillusioned with the grand scheme of turning this world into Paradise Reshystored Albert Camus Jean-Paul Sartre and Andre Malraux poured their energies into lamenting the sense of despair and alienation and the theme of humanity being thrown into the world imprisoned in evil mateshy

rial structures is prominent in their work The popularshyity of existentialism blended with an older Transcendentalism that was always seething just beneath the surface of the American consciousness to produce a post-war generation ofseekerswho were ripe for Gnosshytic spirituality It is that older Transcendentalism that must be explained before we can understand the ways in which modern evangelicalism and liberalism represent sister denominations in what Harold Bloom calls The American Religion Gnosticism

Mysticism has a long tradition within Christianity and although it developed out ofthe same influences and centers as Gnosticism itself it was deemed acceptable even by some who had opposed the heresy The ladder of spiritual ascent and the dualism between spirit and matter the inwardness and related themes remind us that the difference is a matter ofdegree In a sympathetic treatment titled Mysticism in the Wesleyan Tradition (Zondervan 1989) United Methodist theologian Robshyert G Tuttle Jr traces the influences ofGreek and Roman Catholic mysticism on John Wesley Through the varishyous Holiness groups in America evangelicalism was heavily influenced by a form ofspirituality that was conshysidered by many especially at Princeton Seminary to be a rival to the historic Christianity recovered in the Reforshymation But there were other influences in the culture that contributed to the Gnostic awakening in America Just as the medieval church was unwittingly shaped by Greek Platonic influences modern American Chrisshytianity both liberal and evangelical is shaped by Romanticism-itself a revival of Greek and Gnostic influences

The Romantics include such worthies as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) who resigned his Boston

COMPA R E amp CO N TR AS T We cannot communicate with God mentally for Heis a Spirit But we canreach Him with our Spirit andit islhrough our Spirit that we come to know God This is ohereason God put teachers (those who are really called to teach) in the churchshyto renew our minds Many times those who teach do so with only a naipral knowledge that they have gainedfrom the Bible and other sources Kenneth Hagin Man on Three Dimensions 1985

It is an illusory belief of the Enthusiasts that those who keep reading Scripture or hearing the Word are chilgren as if no one were spiritual unless he scorned doctrine In their pride therefore they despise the ministry of men and even Scripture itself in order to attain the Spirit They then proudly try to peddle all the delusions that Satan suggests to them as secret revelations of the Spirit John Calvin Commentary on 1 Thes 520 1525

JUL Y IAUGU ST 1995 7

Unitarian pastorate in 1832 because he could no longer accept institutional religion and refused to serve Comshymunion (Since Unitarians do not have a genuine Communion it is difficult to regard this as a major deshyparture) After all Emerson said he was himself a spark of God and enjoyed direct access without an incarnate Mediator and the impediments of physical sacraments At Harvard Emerson declared that orthodox Christianshyity was dead and the only way forward was to recover the spiritual dimension of religion The jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes was a great fan of Emersons Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was closely associated with Emerson and other Transcendentalists as many of the American Romantics were now being called The Westminster Dictionary of Church History defines Transhyscendentalism as an optimistic mystic and naturalistic state ofmind rather than a system of thought which had a wide influence on American literature philosophy and religion Based on English romanticism (Coleridge Wordsworth Carlyle) and German philosophical idealshyism it found Calvinistic orthodoxy too harsh and Unitarian liberalism too arid It emphasized individual experience as sacred unique and authoritative

The sense of alienation is apparent in Nathaniel Hawthorne Taking no root I soon weary of any soil in which I may be temporarily deposited The same impashytience I may feel or conceive of as regards this earthly life6 If this feeling was true in the early 19th century it is

- certainly exacerbated by the influences ofmodernity the rootlessness precipitated by rapid travel mobility disshyplacement of families and technological advances that tend to dehumanize existence As for the Gnostic preocshycupation with spirit and the eternal over matter and time Emerson declared I am to invite men drenched in

How Do New Agers Trace TheirRoots

At first the traditions were transmitted ihtimately by alchemists Gnostics cabalists and hermetics ltAmong the middot bold and isolated voiCes were MeistecEckhart Giovanni Pico 4ella Mirandola andEmamiel Swederiborg We are spiritually tree they said the stewards of our OWn evolution Humankind has a choice We can 3wakerito our true nature Drawing fully ftbm our inner-resources we can achieve a new dhpension of mind we can see mOl~e ~

t The Transcendentalists supposed[y threatened the old order with their~new ideas but the ide~s were not newThey s()ught understanding from liPany sources experIence intu middot ition the Quaker idea of the Inner Light the Bh(lgavad Gitq the German Romantic Philosophers middotand the English mefashyphysical writers of the seventeenthcentury Llthough they were charged with havingfontempt for history they replied tnat humankin4 coutd be lihrated from history MarilynFerguson The Aquarian Con~piracy 1980

Time to recover themselves and come out of time and taste their native immortal air7 Like the ancient Gnostics who according to St Ignatius did not bother themselves with the physical needs of this world Emersons spiritual arrogance knew no bounds I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes to wit imprisoned spirits They have no other watchman or lover or defender but 18

The recurring note in Romanticism and especially in its American Transcendental variety is personal expeshyrience the selfs transcendence of community flesh history creed doctrine church Word and sacraments to ascend to the lofty heights ofdeity Each individual self is God and requires no mediation for access to the divine

We do not have to look very far to see the influence of this movement on 19th-century Protestantism The reshyvivalistic evangelicals wanted to escape from this world by a personal experience of being born again and sucshycessive experiences A second blessing or a rededication would revive the soul in its flight toward Deity and full surrender Doctrine was considered an encumbrance as were creeds liturgies and sacraments and the anti-intelshylectual strain of Gnosticism reared its ugly head In orthodox Christianity grace redeems this world in Gnosticism it redeems the self from nature Grace did not save nature but provided a way ofescapeAt the same time the liberals according to Philip Lee made ample room for nature on their stage by moving grace into the wings There remained in both camps a gnostic separashytion ot Creation from Redemption (p 93)

At this point psychology was born and took root quickly in America more than anywhere else It offered an alternative to theology as the study ofthe self and selfshyconsciousness replaced the study of God and his redemptive acts George Ripley declared during this peshyriod The time has come when a revision of theology is demanded Let the study oftheology commence with the study of human consciousness9 But this psychological orientation not only demanded the first word it ended up swallowing everything within reach and the stage was set for the therapeutic revolution of the 20th century with peace ofmind and eventually self-esteem becoming more important than sin and grace Narcissism (selfshyworship) became legitimate and in fact the only religious duty Although C J Jung a father of modern psychology was openly and self-described as a Gnostic his mysticism is easily absorbed into the greater Gnostic ooze of contemporary pop-psychology and recovery movements

The preaching also turned from the objective emshyphasis on Gods saving work in Christ to techniques for self- improvement psychologically and morally conshyceived Considered too offensive for the immortal and innocent self the Law was not suitable for preaching

8 JUL Y I AUG US T 19 9 5 modern R EFORMATION

unless it could be shown that it was somehow beneficial for personal transformation Divine commands had to be seen as attainable and reasonable principles for selfshyenhancement and universal love Damnation was entirely out of place as a purpose for the Law or for any sociable discourse Similarly the Gospel hardly distinshyguishable now from the Gnostic law became a secret formula (gnosis) for rebirth self-realization and the personal unmediated experience with the Divine This was true equally for liberals and evangelicals Unitarians and revivalists as well as for the many Gnostic

redeem but merely reveals according to Lee (p 107) All of these writers point to the breakdown in the Reformations orthodox stance in both conservative and liberal camps as opening the door to Transcendentalism and finally to the current orientation Beyond the libshyeral-evangelical split Wade Clark Roof now says we cannot discern any real differences between New Age and evangelical spirituality on a number of counts This new Gnosticism laquocelebrates experience rather than docshytrine the personal rather than the institutional the

cults that were born in this environment Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine (Christian Science Unity Adventism etc) however differently each may have stated it for personal experience and objective toth for

Horace Bushnell marks the departure from an evangelical Calvinism to an evangelical Roshy pesonal transformationand in this sense each manticism My heart wants the Father my heart wants the Son my heart wants the Holy is in its own yay Gnostic Ghost My heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me and I mean to hold by my heart I am glad a man can do it when there is no other mooringlo The Morshymon laquotestimony is quite similar when its truth-claims are founded upon a burning in the bosom Similarly when evangelicals sing Romantic hymns such as He Lives with the line laquoYou ask me how I know he lives He lives within my heart they have little trouble accommoshydating to the Romanticism of Schleiermacher father of modern liberalism when he said that the essence of Christianity islaquothe feeling ofabsolute dependence And when evangelicals eschew creeds doctrines liturgies and sacraments over personal experience how can they quibble with the liberal Adolf von Harnack who beshylieved that the authentically spiritual is composed of those things that are inward spontaneous and ethical as opposed to the outward organized ceremonial and dogmaticll Gnosticism becomes the tie that binds

At last we come to our own century A number of books have been published in recent years pointing up the laquoGnosticization of American religion including Philip Lees Against The Protestant Gnostics (Oxford 1987) and Harold Blooms The American Religion (Simon and Schuster 1992) Although Bloom a distinshyguished Yale professor and the nations leading literary critic identifies himself as a Jewish Gnostic he provides a provocative insight into the popularization of Gnostishycism Other studies have pointed tangentially to this same condition such as those of professors James D Hunter (University ofVirginia ) Wade Clark Roof (Unishyversity of California) and Robert Wuthnow (Princeton University) Christopher Laschs The Culture ofNarcisshysism and Robert Bellahs Habits ofthe Heart also point in the same direction

In spite of their rivalry fundamentalism and libershyalism both essentially proclaim a Christ who does not

mythic and dreamlike over the cognitive peoples relishygion over official religion soft caring images of deity over hard impersonal images the feminine and the anshydrogynous over the masculine (Roof p 132) Although Roofdoes not make the point these are clearly the tenets of ancient Gnosticism

Note Lees point on Christ as Revealer [Gnosis] over Christ as Redeemer

Another way to shed light on the American tendency to regard Christ as revealer only is to observe the Amerishycan fascination with technique For the evangelicals conversion is a technique a necessary one for salvation The history of Israel and the life of Jesus which indeed were often spiritualized beyond recognition were imshyportant only insofar as they could be employed to bring sinners to repentance (p 109)

Lee says that the liberal approach to the Scriptures following its Transcendental heritage was to see them as laquotechniques for living the Christian life and the Bible became laquoa rich source of those truths that we in our hearts already know (p Ill) But this is now precisely the same attitude often taken by evangelicals to the Scripshytures Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine for personal experience and objective truth for personal transformation and in this sense each is in its own way Gnostic The anti-intellectualism is understandable acshycording to Lee laquoIf God is immanent present within our psyche if we already have the truth within then why go through all the hassle of studying theology (p Ill) Isnt this precisely the point of the division many of us grew up with between head knowledge and heart knowlshyedge The former is intellectual the latter spiritual-that is gnosis James D Hunter observes laquoThe spiritual asshypects of Evangelical life are increasingly approached by

JULYAUGUST 1995 9

means of an interpreted in terms of principles rules steps laws codes guidelines and the like 12 Wade Clark Roof adds Salvation as a theological doctrine becomes reduced to simple steps easy proceshydures and formulas for psychological rewards The approach to religious truth changes-awayfrom anyobshyjective grounds on which it must be judged to a more subjective more instrumental understanding of what it does for the believer and how it can do what it does most efficiently (p 195)

Pentecostalism represents an even greater depenshydence on Gnostic tendencies Lee writes Just as faith healing held an important place among the medieval gnostics ofsouthern France it has also been a significant element in the more extreme sects ofProtestantism The Savior God is pitted against the natural God and before millions of television viewers the Savior God prevails (p 119) Roman Catholic scholar Ronald Knoxs work Enthusiasm (Oxford 1950) remains a classic study ofthis subject Even the desire to speak in tongues as if the biblical idea of tongues was a super-natural language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natural human language in a direct spiritual encounter of immediate ecstasy Although the biblical writers were well aware of this practice ofecstatic utterances in pashygan religion they did not use the Greek word for this practice but instead chose glossai (lit languages) leading us to conclude that tongues refers in the New Testament to known earthly speech

The outer edges ofPentecostalism are especially blashytant in Gnostic emphases as a number of works have shown including The Agony of Deceit 13 Salvation is knowledge-Revelation Knowledge (Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Hagin Paul Crouch and other faith

the author himself applauds the Gnostic tendency Bloom concludes of this group To know also that one is completely free-the Emersonian Wildness-because ones solitude is shared with the Holy Spirit carries the rapture to a Sublime elevation And though Assemblies of God theology is officially trinitarian in praxis the Pentecostal knows only Oneness and calls the Holy Spirit by the name ofJesus not the Jesus ofthe Gospels or even the Christ of Paul but the American Jesus a Penteshycostal like oneself 14 (It is worth noting that the Assemblies of God were involved in a rift within Pentecostalism over this very point siding with the orshythodox doctrine of the Trinity over Oneness Pentecostals)

For those of us who were raised in fundamentalist evangelical or pentecostal sects the experience of reshybirth comes neither through the Word ofthe Gospel nor through the water of Baptism but through a Spirit Bapshytism that is direct and immediate The Word is primarily seen as an instrument for coaxing the individual into accepting the new birth The new birth especially if one judges by the testimonies ofconverts is not so much the result of hearing with human ears in human words a declaration of things that happened in human history In short it is not so much the preaching ofthe Cross but the preaching of my personal relationship with Jesus the day when Jesus came into my heart that is central Lee again Whereas classical Calvinism had held that the Christians assurance of salvation was guaranteed only through Christ and his Church with his means ofgrace now assurance could be found only in the personal expeshyrience ofhaving been born again This was a radical shift for Calvin had considered any attempt to put conversion in the power of man himself to be gross popery In fact

Rebirth in God is the exact opposite ofrebirth into a new and more acceptable self as the selfshyEven the desire to speak in tongues as if the acclaimed born again Christians would see the event (pp 144255) biblical idea of tongues was asuper-natural

Norman Vincent Peale exploited the peace of mind craze earlier this century a movement that borrowed its capital from Transhy

language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natutal human language in adirectj scendentalism directly Nevertheless the

liberal Peale was hailed as a great evangelist by spiritu81 encounte of immediate ecstasy evangelical Billy Graham and was asked to parshy

teachers use the upper case to distinguish this from mere written revelation) The Word that truly saves is not the written text of Scripture proclaiming Christ the Reshydeemer but is rather the Rhema Word that is spoken directly to the spirit by Gods Spirit Bloom writes Paul was arguing against Corinthian Enthusiasts or Gnostics and yet I wonder why his strictures have not discouraged American Pentecostals more than they seem to have donePentecostalism is American shamanism although

ticipate in the crusades Lee once again notes the tie that binds For both of them Christianity is understood from a gnostic point ofview The real world with which religion has to do is the world within (p 199) This is not to suggest that Billy Graham is a liberal Rather it is to argue that in our day Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

Also in terms of their views of Christ liberals and evangelicals reveal a common Gnostic tendency While the liberals divided the Jesus of History (a normal Jew

10 JULYAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

who lived in first -century Palestine) from the Christ of Faith (resurrected God-Man) proclaiming that the Spirit of Christ lives and calls us into vital communion even though his body is not raised evangelicals often seem to worship the spirit of Jesus apart from his hushymanity Jesus in my heart at the end of the day is more important for personal Christian experience piety and worship than Jesus in history Although evangelicals inshysist on a historical resurrection as a matter of official creed in actual practice one wonders why it is imporshytant if the spirit ofJesus is in ones heart After all no one believes that Jesus takes up physical residence in ones heart so what can we mean by asking Jesus into our heart other than inviting his spirit Little is said of the biblical notion that it is~the Holy Spirit who unites us not to the spirit ofJesus in our hearts but to the God-Man in heaven according to both his divine and human natures

In Gnosticism not only the object of faith (Christ) but the act of faith becomes radically revised In Chrisshytianity faith is trust in Gods specific promise ofsalvation through Christ In Gnosticism faith is magic It is a technique for getting what we want by believing in it strongly enough As C Peter Wagner an advocate of the Vineyard movement puts it Empirical evidence also validates the absolute necessity of faith or whatever else you want to call it-possibility thinking or goal setshyting-as a prerequisite for church growth15 Is faith really a synonym for possibility thinking and goal setshyting Then would not everyone possess faith Or is faith a unique gift from God to trust in Christ as in biblical teaching The Second Helvetic Confession (a 16th censhytury Reformed statement) declares Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles Creed and thus also of God himself the greatest good and especially of Gods promise and of Christ who is the fulfillment of all promises

But Wagners worldview is also dominated by the Gnostic fascination with dualism between Light and Darkness as spiritual warfare takes on an increasingly super-spiritual preoccupation Like Frank Perettis novshyels this popular view of spiritual warfare in which individual believers decide the outcome of battles beshytween good angels and bad angels is too close to Manichaean Gnosticism for comfort

The Gnostic revolution has been demonstrating its elasticity in recent years in the spirituality of the baby boomers whose interest in the sacred has been celshyebrated in national periodicals the study of which has become something of a cottage industry Wade Clark Roof sampled a wide variety of seekers For instance Sonny DAntonio raised Roman Catholic considers

himself a believer but not a belonger The material parts of the church turned me off he says (p 18) Mollie Stone raised a Pentecostal tried Native American spirishytuality then Quakerism for its inner peace and is turned on to Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovshyery groups although she is not herself an alcoholic or related to one As for churches Creeds and doctrines divide people she says (p 23) Roof observes The distinction between spirit and institution is of major

COMPARE amp CONTltRAST Who can say [ have keptmy heart pure [ amciean a11d without sin Prov 209

[At a Campus Crusade staff retreat] middot hundreds came forward to kneel and pray Their lovk for Christ had prompted tl1em to join the staff in the first plate Now they were demonstrating their desire to continue in their ministry with pure hearts free ofsin filled with th~ Holy Spirit The response was unanimous Bill Bright The Coming Rtpivai

Our own ag~ has certain Ana6~piists whofeign thatJnBaptism Gods people are reborn into a pure and angelic life unsullied by any carnal filth But ifafter baptismanyone falls away they leave him nothing but Gods inexQrablejudgment In short to the sinner who has lapsed after receiving grace they hold out no hope of pardon For they recognize no other forgiveness of sins than that by which they were first reborn John Calvin The Institutes ofthe Christian Religion

importance Although Roof does not point to Gnostishycism his studies mark undeniable parallels Spirit is the inner experiential aspect of religion institution is the outer established form of religion This distinction is increasingly pertinent because ofthe strong emphasis on self in contemporary culture and the related shift from objective to subjective ways of ordering experience (p 30) Religion is too restricting but spirituality offers a way ofplugging into the divine with the correct spiritual technology Roof explains As a computer programmer who happens to be an evangelical put it without any prompting on our part We all access God differently (p 258)

The whole point ofChristianity however is that one cannot access God at all He must come to us through a personal Word (God in flesh) and a written Word (Scripture) and when we do come to him it must be through Christ and we come to Christ through the orshydained means It might offend the Gnostic and narcissistic individualism of our age but we do not all access God differentli

Roof refers to the Outer and Inner Worlds the former suspect while the latter is always respected Dishyrect experience is always more trustworthy iffor no other reason than because of its inwardness and withinshyness-two qualities that have come to be much

JULYAUGUST 1995 11

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

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still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

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I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

gard for sacraments If the self enjoyed a direct and imshymediate relationship with Gods Spirit and knowledge came through a secret revelation of a mystical nature surely the introduction of material means ofgrace-the printed word (accessible to everyone) water (in Bapshytism) and bread and wine (the Eucharist)-actually become impediments to real fellowship with God They are insufficiently spiritual for Gnostic piety as rebirth (a prominent Gnostic theme) is by the Spirit in opposishytion to matter Furthermore the Gnosis (Revelation Knowledge) was based on the idea that only a few really knew the secrets while Christianitys emphasis on Word

world nature and history through spirishyChtistianitys cardinal belief in salvation by God tual ascent

be(~oming fleshand by his fleshly resurrection 9 Feminist Ancient Gnosticism as we have seen divided the world into spirit andpromising resurrection of our bodies was anathema matter as columns of good and bad They defined characteristics of femininityto Gnosti(~ism as it was foolishness to Gteeks who as love freedom affirmation and nurture and these were in thegood column whilegenerally sav spirit as good and matteras evil

and sacrament available to anyone who could read or eat challenged this private spiritual elitism

7 Anti-historical Lee notes Gnostic ltknowledge is unrelated in any vital sense either to nature or to history (p 102) As spirit is opposed to matter and individual inwardness is opposed to an institutional church etershynity is opposed to time Salvation for the Gnostic is redemption from the body institutions and the grindshying process of history into which the pure self is mercilessly thrown

In biblical religion God not only created the world (material as well as spiritual) and pronounced itgood but also created matter and history in which to unfold his salvation In fact Christianitys cardinal belief in salvashytion by God becoming flesh and by his fleshly resurrection promising resurrection of our bodies was anathema to Gnosticism as it was foolishness to Greeks who generally saw spirit as good and matter as evil In Christianity redemption does not take place in a supershyspiritual sphere above real human history but within it Gnosticism however emphasizes instead the selfs pershysonal direct encounter with God here and now and has little or no place for the historical events of Gods saving activity

8 Anti-Jewish While biblical religion focused on Gods personal involvement with the world in creation and redemption through the bloody sacrifices that anshyticipated the Messiah Gnosticism harbored a deep distrust of the Old Testament God In fact two Gnostic sects appear in this connection Marcion (d 160 AD) rejected the Old Testament entirely on the basis that it represented a wrathful Judge who created matter and

imprisoned souls in history while the New Testament God (Jesus) was the God ofLove The Creator-God (Old Testament) and the Redeemer-God (New Testament) were viewed as opposites in Marcionism In addition to the Old Testament Lukes Gospel and Pauls epistles un- -=

derwent radical revisions In the following century Mani a Persian evangelist

whose ideas spread quickly to the West and were emshybraced by St Augustine before his conversion founded a powerful sect ofManichaeism Once again it was deeply dualistic (spirit vs matter Light vs Darkness etc) and championed salvation chiefly in terms of secret knowlshy

edge of the principles for overcoming the

those of masculinity were defined as jusshytice law wrath and strength and put in the bad column This is in sharp contrast to the Christian God who in both Testaments is a good gracious loving and savingaswellas just holy and sovereign FatherSophia the Greek word for wisdom after the goddess of wisshydom became the God of many Gnostics The 13th-century mystic Meister Eckhart wrote What does God do all day long God gives birth From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed giving birth and this image is replete in the mystical literature lt~ncient gnosticism Lee writes loathed the patriarchal and aushythoritarian qualities of official Christianity From the gnostic point of view the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) The antipathy toward nature was reflected in the Gnostic celebration of the androgynous [ie sexless] selfWhile the body may be either male or female the spirit is free

One must beware of concluding that the knowlshyedge championed by the Gnostics was the same thing that we mean normally by the term Lee observes

The difference between orthodox knowledge and gnostic knowledge has been described as the difference between open revelation and secret revelation Although it is true for both faiths that the Holy Spirit is at work to open the eyes ofthe believer that he may know the truth within orthodox thought the Holy Spirits work takes place in the presence of and in terms of given historical data and within the context ofthe Holy Catholic Church Thus in the Apostles Creed the article affirming belief in the Holy Spirit is securely nestled between beliefin the person and work of Jesus Christ and a willingness to learn from the Holy Catholic Church (p 101)

6 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modern REFORMATION

Gnostic knowledge is not only anti -historical and subjective it is anti-intellectual and immediate This is why St Irenaeus called it pseudo-knowledge and Paul told Timothy it was knowledge falsely called (1 Tm 620) It preferred what we often call heart knowledge to head knowledge although Christianity knew no such dichotomy

Especially popular in Alexandria Gnosticism threatened Christianitys very existence not as an extershynal threat but as an int~rnal rival In other words it attempted to reinterpret biblical religion and reshape it into something other than that which was announced by the prophets fulfilled in Christ and proclaimed by the apostles Even as Christianity officially condemned the heresy and the ancient fathers wrote voluminously on the subject the philosophical influence of Greek Platonism continued to shape the medieval church Nevshyertheless whenever the unadulterated Gnostic tenets would reappear as in such medieval sects as the Albigensians the Cathari (Pure Ones) and Bogemils the church reasserted its apostolic and catholic condemshynations At the time of the Reformation the Anabaptists revived Gnosticism and a number of Renaissance hushymanists including Petrarch had also embraced this revival

A number of scholars both Roman Catholic and Protestant have argued that the Reformation represhysented not only a reaction against Pelagianism (the ancient heresy ofworks- righteousness) but also against Gnosticism By charging that the church had allowed Greek philosophy priority in interpreting Scripture the Reformers recovered the Bibles clear declarations on creation redemption worship the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit the doctrine of the church Word and sacrament and a host of related teachings

The New Gnosticism Without offering a chronicle on Gnosticism throughout church history our purpose here is simply to refer to that portion ofhistory that most directly bears on the current revival

A trip to the local bookstore confirms that there is a revival of explicit Gnostic spirituality in American culshyture with the New Age movement claiming direct descent 5 Often passing for psychology philosophy and religion Gnosticism is now back with a vengeance and forms the broad parameters (if there are any) for the smorgasbord of American spirituality After two world wars Westerners have become disillusioned with the grand scheme of turning this world into Paradise Reshystored Albert Camus Jean-Paul Sartre and Andre Malraux poured their energies into lamenting the sense of despair and alienation and the theme of humanity being thrown into the world imprisoned in evil mateshy

rial structures is prominent in their work The popularshyity of existentialism blended with an older Transcendentalism that was always seething just beneath the surface of the American consciousness to produce a post-war generation ofseekerswho were ripe for Gnosshytic spirituality It is that older Transcendentalism that must be explained before we can understand the ways in which modern evangelicalism and liberalism represent sister denominations in what Harold Bloom calls The American Religion Gnosticism

Mysticism has a long tradition within Christianity and although it developed out ofthe same influences and centers as Gnosticism itself it was deemed acceptable even by some who had opposed the heresy The ladder of spiritual ascent and the dualism between spirit and matter the inwardness and related themes remind us that the difference is a matter ofdegree In a sympathetic treatment titled Mysticism in the Wesleyan Tradition (Zondervan 1989) United Methodist theologian Robshyert G Tuttle Jr traces the influences ofGreek and Roman Catholic mysticism on John Wesley Through the varishyous Holiness groups in America evangelicalism was heavily influenced by a form ofspirituality that was conshysidered by many especially at Princeton Seminary to be a rival to the historic Christianity recovered in the Reforshymation But there were other influences in the culture that contributed to the Gnostic awakening in America Just as the medieval church was unwittingly shaped by Greek Platonic influences modern American Chrisshytianity both liberal and evangelical is shaped by Romanticism-itself a revival of Greek and Gnostic influences

The Romantics include such worthies as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) who resigned his Boston

COMPA R E amp CO N TR AS T We cannot communicate with God mentally for Heis a Spirit But we canreach Him with our Spirit andit islhrough our Spirit that we come to know God This is ohereason God put teachers (those who are really called to teach) in the churchshyto renew our minds Many times those who teach do so with only a naipral knowledge that they have gainedfrom the Bible and other sources Kenneth Hagin Man on Three Dimensions 1985

It is an illusory belief of the Enthusiasts that those who keep reading Scripture or hearing the Word are chilgren as if no one were spiritual unless he scorned doctrine In their pride therefore they despise the ministry of men and even Scripture itself in order to attain the Spirit They then proudly try to peddle all the delusions that Satan suggests to them as secret revelations of the Spirit John Calvin Commentary on 1 Thes 520 1525

JUL Y IAUGU ST 1995 7

Unitarian pastorate in 1832 because he could no longer accept institutional religion and refused to serve Comshymunion (Since Unitarians do not have a genuine Communion it is difficult to regard this as a major deshyparture) After all Emerson said he was himself a spark of God and enjoyed direct access without an incarnate Mediator and the impediments of physical sacraments At Harvard Emerson declared that orthodox Christianshyity was dead and the only way forward was to recover the spiritual dimension of religion The jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes was a great fan of Emersons Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was closely associated with Emerson and other Transcendentalists as many of the American Romantics were now being called The Westminster Dictionary of Church History defines Transhyscendentalism as an optimistic mystic and naturalistic state ofmind rather than a system of thought which had a wide influence on American literature philosophy and religion Based on English romanticism (Coleridge Wordsworth Carlyle) and German philosophical idealshyism it found Calvinistic orthodoxy too harsh and Unitarian liberalism too arid It emphasized individual experience as sacred unique and authoritative

The sense of alienation is apparent in Nathaniel Hawthorne Taking no root I soon weary of any soil in which I may be temporarily deposited The same impashytience I may feel or conceive of as regards this earthly life6 If this feeling was true in the early 19th century it is

- certainly exacerbated by the influences ofmodernity the rootlessness precipitated by rapid travel mobility disshyplacement of families and technological advances that tend to dehumanize existence As for the Gnostic preocshycupation with spirit and the eternal over matter and time Emerson declared I am to invite men drenched in

How Do New Agers Trace TheirRoots

At first the traditions were transmitted ihtimately by alchemists Gnostics cabalists and hermetics ltAmong the middot bold and isolated voiCes were MeistecEckhart Giovanni Pico 4ella Mirandola andEmamiel Swederiborg We are spiritually tree they said the stewards of our OWn evolution Humankind has a choice We can 3wakerito our true nature Drawing fully ftbm our inner-resources we can achieve a new dhpension of mind we can see mOl~e ~

t The Transcendentalists supposed[y threatened the old order with their~new ideas but the ide~s were not newThey s()ught understanding from liPany sources experIence intu middot ition the Quaker idea of the Inner Light the Bh(lgavad Gitq the German Romantic Philosophers middotand the English mefashyphysical writers of the seventeenthcentury Llthough they were charged with havingfontempt for history they replied tnat humankin4 coutd be lihrated from history MarilynFerguson The Aquarian Con~piracy 1980

Time to recover themselves and come out of time and taste their native immortal air7 Like the ancient Gnostics who according to St Ignatius did not bother themselves with the physical needs of this world Emersons spiritual arrogance knew no bounds I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes to wit imprisoned spirits They have no other watchman or lover or defender but 18

The recurring note in Romanticism and especially in its American Transcendental variety is personal expeshyrience the selfs transcendence of community flesh history creed doctrine church Word and sacraments to ascend to the lofty heights ofdeity Each individual self is God and requires no mediation for access to the divine

We do not have to look very far to see the influence of this movement on 19th-century Protestantism The reshyvivalistic evangelicals wanted to escape from this world by a personal experience of being born again and sucshycessive experiences A second blessing or a rededication would revive the soul in its flight toward Deity and full surrender Doctrine was considered an encumbrance as were creeds liturgies and sacraments and the anti-intelshylectual strain of Gnosticism reared its ugly head In orthodox Christianity grace redeems this world in Gnosticism it redeems the self from nature Grace did not save nature but provided a way ofescapeAt the same time the liberals according to Philip Lee made ample room for nature on their stage by moving grace into the wings There remained in both camps a gnostic separashytion ot Creation from Redemption (p 93)

At this point psychology was born and took root quickly in America more than anywhere else It offered an alternative to theology as the study ofthe self and selfshyconsciousness replaced the study of God and his redemptive acts George Ripley declared during this peshyriod The time has come when a revision of theology is demanded Let the study oftheology commence with the study of human consciousness9 But this psychological orientation not only demanded the first word it ended up swallowing everything within reach and the stage was set for the therapeutic revolution of the 20th century with peace ofmind and eventually self-esteem becoming more important than sin and grace Narcissism (selfshyworship) became legitimate and in fact the only religious duty Although C J Jung a father of modern psychology was openly and self-described as a Gnostic his mysticism is easily absorbed into the greater Gnostic ooze of contemporary pop-psychology and recovery movements

The preaching also turned from the objective emshyphasis on Gods saving work in Christ to techniques for self- improvement psychologically and morally conshyceived Considered too offensive for the immortal and innocent self the Law was not suitable for preaching

8 JUL Y I AUG US T 19 9 5 modern R EFORMATION

unless it could be shown that it was somehow beneficial for personal transformation Divine commands had to be seen as attainable and reasonable principles for selfshyenhancement and universal love Damnation was entirely out of place as a purpose for the Law or for any sociable discourse Similarly the Gospel hardly distinshyguishable now from the Gnostic law became a secret formula (gnosis) for rebirth self-realization and the personal unmediated experience with the Divine This was true equally for liberals and evangelicals Unitarians and revivalists as well as for the many Gnostic

redeem but merely reveals according to Lee (p 107) All of these writers point to the breakdown in the Reformations orthodox stance in both conservative and liberal camps as opening the door to Transcendentalism and finally to the current orientation Beyond the libshyeral-evangelical split Wade Clark Roof now says we cannot discern any real differences between New Age and evangelical spirituality on a number of counts This new Gnosticism laquocelebrates experience rather than docshytrine the personal rather than the institutional the

cults that were born in this environment Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine (Christian Science Unity Adventism etc) however differently each may have stated it for personal experience and objective toth for

Horace Bushnell marks the departure from an evangelical Calvinism to an evangelical Roshy pesonal transformationand in this sense each manticism My heart wants the Father my heart wants the Son my heart wants the Holy is in its own yay Gnostic Ghost My heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me and I mean to hold by my heart I am glad a man can do it when there is no other mooringlo The Morshymon laquotestimony is quite similar when its truth-claims are founded upon a burning in the bosom Similarly when evangelicals sing Romantic hymns such as He Lives with the line laquoYou ask me how I know he lives He lives within my heart they have little trouble accommoshydating to the Romanticism of Schleiermacher father of modern liberalism when he said that the essence of Christianity islaquothe feeling ofabsolute dependence And when evangelicals eschew creeds doctrines liturgies and sacraments over personal experience how can they quibble with the liberal Adolf von Harnack who beshylieved that the authentically spiritual is composed of those things that are inward spontaneous and ethical as opposed to the outward organized ceremonial and dogmaticll Gnosticism becomes the tie that binds

At last we come to our own century A number of books have been published in recent years pointing up the laquoGnosticization of American religion including Philip Lees Against The Protestant Gnostics (Oxford 1987) and Harold Blooms The American Religion (Simon and Schuster 1992) Although Bloom a distinshyguished Yale professor and the nations leading literary critic identifies himself as a Jewish Gnostic he provides a provocative insight into the popularization of Gnostishycism Other studies have pointed tangentially to this same condition such as those of professors James D Hunter (University ofVirginia ) Wade Clark Roof (Unishyversity of California) and Robert Wuthnow (Princeton University) Christopher Laschs The Culture ofNarcisshysism and Robert Bellahs Habits ofthe Heart also point in the same direction

In spite of their rivalry fundamentalism and libershyalism both essentially proclaim a Christ who does not

mythic and dreamlike over the cognitive peoples relishygion over official religion soft caring images of deity over hard impersonal images the feminine and the anshydrogynous over the masculine (Roof p 132) Although Roofdoes not make the point these are clearly the tenets of ancient Gnosticism

Note Lees point on Christ as Revealer [Gnosis] over Christ as Redeemer

Another way to shed light on the American tendency to regard Christ as revealer only is to observe the Amerishycan fascination with technique For the evangelicals conversion is a technique a necessary one for salvation The history of Israel and the life of Jesus which indeed were often spiritualized beyond recognition were imshyportant only insofar as they could be employed to bring sinners to repentance (p 109)

Lee says that the liberal approach to the Scriptures following its Transcendental heritage was to see them as laquotechniques for living the Christian life and the Bible became laquoa rich source of those truths that we in our hearts already know (p Ill) But this is now precisely the same attitude often taken by evangelicals to the Scripshytures Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine for personal experience and objective truth for personal transformation and in this sense each is in its own way Gnostic The anti-intellectualism is understandable acshycording to Lee laquoIf God is immanent present within our psyche if we already have the truth within then why go through all the hassle of studying theology (p Ill) Isnt this precisely the point of the division many of us grew up with between head knowledge and heart knowlshyedge The former is intellectual the latter spiritual-that is gnosis James D Hunter observes laquoThe spiritual asshypects of Evangelical life are increasingly approached by

JULYAUGUST 1995 9

means of an interpreted in terms of principles rules steps laws codes guidelines and the like 12 Wade Clark Roof adds Salvation as a theological doctrine becomes reduced to simple steps easy proceshydures and formulas for psychological rewards The approach to religious truth changes-awayfrom anyobshyjective grounds on which it must be judged to a more subjective more instrumental understanding of what it does for the believer and how it can do what it does most efficiently (p 195)

Pentecostalism represents an even greater depenshydence on Gnostic tendencies Lee writes Just as faith healing held an important place among the medieval gnostics ofsouthern France it has also been a significant element in the more extreme sects ofProtestantism The Savior God is pitted against the natural God and before millions of television viewers the Savior God prevails (p 119) Roman Catholic scholar Ronald Knoxs work Enthusiasm (Oxford 1950) remains a classic study ofthis subject Even the desire to speak in tongues as if the biblical idea of tongues was a super-natural language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natural human language in a direct spiritual encounter of immediate ecstasy Although the biblical writers were well aware of this practice ofecstatic utterances in pashygan religion they did not use the Greek word for this practice but instead chose glossai (lit languages) leading us to conclude that tongues refers in the New Testament to known earthly speech

The outer edges ofPentecostalism are especially blashytant in Gnostic emphases as a number of works have shown including The Agony of Deceit 13 Salvation is knowledge-Revelation Knowledge (Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Hagin Paul Crouch and other faith

the author himself applauds the Gnostic tendency Bloom concludes of this group To know also that one is completely free-the Emersonian Wildness-because ones solitude is shared with the Holy Spirit carries the rapture to a Sublime elevation And though Assemblies of God theology is officially trinitarian in praxis the Pentecostal knows only Oneness and calls the Holy Spirit by the name ofJesus not the Jesus ofthe Gospels or even the Christ of Paul but the American Jesus a Penteshycostal like oneself 14 (It is worth noting that the Assemblies of God were involved in a rift within Pentecostalism over this very point siding with the orshythodox doctrine of the Trinity over Oneness Pentecostals)

For those of us who were raised in fundamentalist evangelical or pentecostal sects the experience of reshybirth comes neither through the Word ofthe Gospel nor through the water of Baptism but through a Spirit Bapshytism that is direct and immediate The Word is primarily seen as an instrument for coaxing the individual into accepting the new birth The new birth especially if one judges by the testimonies ofconverts is not so much the result of hearing with human ears in human words a declaration of things that happened in human history In short it is not so much the preaching ofthe Cross but the preaching of my personal relationship with Jesus the day when Jesus came into my heart that is central Lee again Whereas classical Calvinism had held that the Christians assurance of salvation was guaranteed only through Christ and his Church with his means ofgrace now assurance could be found only in the personal expeshyrience ofhaving been born again This was a radical shift for Calvin had considered any attempt to put conversion in the power of man himself to be gross popery In fact

Rebirth in God is the exact opposite ofrebirth into a new and more acceptable self as the selfshyEven the desire to speak in tongues as if the acclaimed born again Christians would see the event (pp 144255) biblical idea of tongues was asuper-natural

Norman Vincent Peale exploited the peace of mind craze earlier this century a movement that borrowed its capital from Transhy

language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natutal human language in adirectj scendentalism directly Nevertheless the

liberal Peale was hailed as a great evangelist by spiritu81 encounte of immediate ecstasy evangelical Billy Graham and was asked to parshy

teachers use the upper case to distinguish this from mere written revelation) The Word that truly saves is not the written text of Scripture proclaiming Christ the Reshydeemer but is rather the Rhema Word that is spoken directly to the spirit by Gods Spirit Bloom writes Paul was arguing against Corinthian Enthusiasts or Gnostics and yet I wonder why his strictures have not discouraged American Pentecostals more than they seem to have donePentecostalism is American shamanism although

ticipate in the crusades Lee once again notes the tie that binds For both of them Christianity is understood from a gnostic point ofview The real world with which religion has to do is the world within (p 199) This is not to suggest that Billy Graham is a liberal Rather it is to argue that in our day Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

Also in terms of their views of Christ liberals and evangelicals reveal a common Gnostic tendency While the liberals divided the Jesus of History (a normal Jew

10 JULYAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

who lived in first -century Palestine) from the Christ of Faith (resurrected God-Man) proclaiming that the Spirit of Christ lives and calls us into vital communion even though his body is not raised evangelicals often seem to worship the spirit of Jesus apart from his hushymanity Jesus in my heart at the end of the day is more important for personal Christian experience piety and worship than Jesus in history Although evangelicals inshysist on a historical resurrection as a matter of official creed in actual practice one wonders why it is imporshytant if the spirit ofJesus is in ones heart After all no one believes that Jesus takes up physical residence in ones heart so what can we mean by asking Jesus into our heart other than inviting his spirit Little is said of the biblical notion that it is~the Holy Spirit who unites us not to the spirit ofJesus in our hearts but to the God-Man in heaven according to both his divine and human natures

In Gnosticism not only the object of faith (Christ) but the act of faith becomes radically revised In Chrisshytianity faith is trust in Gods specific promise ofsalvation through Christ In Gnosticism faith is magic It is a technique for getting what we want by believing in it strongly enough As C Peter Wagner an advocate of the Vineyard movement puts it Empirical evidence also validates the absolute necessity of faith or whatever else you want to call it-possibility thinking or goal setshyting-as a prerequisite for church growth15 Is faith really a synonym for possibility thinking and goal setshyting Then would not everyone possess faith Or is faith a unique gift from God to trust in Christ as in biblical teaching The Second Helvetic Confession (a 16th censhytury Reformed statement) declares Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles Creed and thus also of God himself the greatest good and especially of Gods promise and of Christ who is the fulfillment of all promises

But Wagners worldview is also dominated by the Gnostic fascination with dualism between Light and Darkness as spiritual warfare takes on an increasingly super-spiritual preoccupation Like Frank Perettis novshyels this popular view of spiritual warfare in which individual believers decide the outcome of battles beshytween good angels and bad angels is too close to Manichaean Gnosticism for comfort

The Gnostic revolution has been demonstrating its elasticity in recent years in the spirituality of the baby boomers whose interest in the sacred has been celshyebrated in national periodicals the study of which has become something of a cottage industry Wade Clark Roof sampled a wide variety of seekers For instance Sonny DAntonio raised Roman Catholic considers

himself a believer but not a belonger The material parts of the church turned me off he says (p 18) Mollie Stone raised a Pentecostal tried Native American spirishytuality then Quakerism for its inner peace and is turned on to Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovshyery groups although she is not herself an alcoholic or related to one As for churches Creeds and doctrines divide people she says (p 23) Roof observes The distinction between spirit and institution is of major

COMPARE amp CONTltRAST Who can say [ have keptmy heart pure [ amciean a11d without sin Prov 209

[At a Campus Crusade staff retreat] middot hundreds came forward to kneel and pray Their lovk for Christ had prompted tl1em to join the staff in the first plate Now they were demonstrating their desire to continue in their ministry with pure hearts free ofsin filled with th~ Holy Spirit The response was unanimous Bill Bright The Coming Rtpivai

Our own ag~ has certain Ana6~piists whofeign thatJnBaptism Gods people are reborn into a pure and angelic life unsullied by any carnal filth But ifafter baptismanyone falls away they leave him nothing but Gods inexQrablejudgment In short to the sinner who has lapsed after receiving grace they hold out no hope of pardon For they recognize no other forgiveness of sins than that by which they were first reborn John Calvin The Institutes ofthe Christian Religion

importance Although Roof does not point to Gnostishycism his studies mark undeniable parallels Spirit is the inner experiential aspect of religion institution is the outer established form of religion This distinction is increasingly pertinent because ofthe strong emphasis on self in contemporary culture and the related shift from objective to subjective ways of ordering experience (p 30) Religion is too restricting but spirituality offers a way ofplugging into the divine with the correct spiritual technology Roof explains As a computer programmer who happens to be an evangelical put it without any prompting on our part We all access God differently (p 258)

The whole point ofChristianity however is that one cannot access God at all He must come to us through a personal Word (God in flesh) and a written Word (Scripture) and when we do come to him it must be through Christ and we come to Christ through the orshydained means It might offend the Gnostic and narcissistic individualism of our age but we do not all access God differentli

Roof refers to the Outer and Inner Worlds the former suspect while the latter is always respected Dishyrect experience is always more trustworthy iffor no other reason than because of its inwardness and withinshyness-two qualities that have come to be much

JULYAUGUST 1995 11

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

modernR EFORMATION

the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

Gnostic knowledge is not only anti -historical and subjective it is anti-intellectual and immediate This is why St Irenaeus called it pseudo-knowledge and Paul told Timothy it was knowledge falsely called (1 Tm 620) It preferred what we often call heart knowledge to head knowledge although Christianity knew no such dichotomy

Especially popular in Alexandria Gnosticism threatened Christianitys very existence not as an extershynal threat but as an int~rnal rival In other words it attempted to reinterpret biblical religion and reshape it into something other than that which was announced by the prophets fulfilled in Christ and proclaimed by the apostles Even as Christianity officially condemned the heresy and the ancient fathers wrote voluminously on the subject the philosophical influence of Greek Platonism continued to shape the medieval church Nevshyertheless whenever the unadulterated Gnostic tenets would reappear as in such medieval sects as the Albigensians the Cathari (Pure Ones) and Bogemils the church reasserted its apostolic and catholic condemshynations At the time of the Reformation the Anabaptists revived Gnosticism and a number of Renaissance hushymanists including Petrarch had also embraced this revival

A number of scholars both Roman Catholic and Protestant have argued that the Reformation represhysented not only a reaction against Pelagianism (the ancient heresy ofworks- righteousness) but also against Gnosticism By charging that the church had allowed Greek philosophy priority in interpreting Scripture the Reformers recovered the Bibles clear declarations on creation redemption worship the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit the doctrine of the church Word and sacrament and a host of related teachings

The New Gnosticism Without offering a chronicle on Gnosticism throughout church history our purpose here is simply to refer to that portion ofhistory that most directly bears on the current revival

A trip to the local bookstore confirms that there is a revival of explicit Gnostic spirituality in American culshyture with the New Age movement claiming direct descent 5 Often passing for psychology philosophy and religion Gnosticism is now back with a vengeance and forms the broad parameters (if there are any) for the smorgasbord of American spirituality After two world wars Westerners have become disillusioned with the grand scheme of turning this world into Paradise Reshystored Albert Camus Jean-Paul Sartre and Andre Malraux poured their energies into lamenting the sense of despair and alienation and the theme of humanity being thrown into the world imprisoned in evil mateshy

rial structures is prominent in their work The popularshyity of existentialism blended with an older Transcendentalism that was always seething just beneath the surface of the American consciousness to produce a post-war generation ofseekerswho were ripe for Gnosshytic spirituality It is that older Transcendentalism that must be explained before we can understand the ways in which modern evangelicalism and liberalism represent sister denominations in what Harold Bloom calls The American Religion Gnosticism

Mysticism has a long tradition within Christianity and although it developed out ofthe same influences and centers as Gnosticism itself it was deemed acceptable even by some who had opposed the heresy The ladder of spiritual ascent and the dualism between spirit and matter the inwardness and related themes remind us that the difference is a matter ofdegree In a sympathetic treatment titled Mysticism in the Wesleyan Tradition (Zondervan 1989) United Methodist theologian Robshyert G Tuttle Jr traces the influences ofGreek and Roman Catholic mysticism on John Wesley Through the varishyous Holiness groups in America evangelicalism was heavily influenced by a form ofspirituality that was conshysidered by many especially at Princeton Seminary to be a rival to the historic Christianity recovered in the Reforshymation But there were other influences in the culture that contributed to the Gnostic awakening in America Just as the medieval church was unwittingly shaped by Greek Platonic influences modern American Chrisshytianity both liberal and evangelical is shaped by Romanticism-itself a revival of Greek and Gnostic influences

The Romantics include such worthies as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) who resigned his Boston

COMPA R E amp CO N TR AS T We cannot communicate with God mentally for Heis a Spirit But we canreach Him with our Spirit andit islhrough our Spirit that we come to know God This is ohereason God put teachers (those who are really called to teach) in the churchshyto renew our minds Many times those who teach do so with only a naipral knowledge that they have gainedfrom the Bible and other sources Kenneth Hagin Man on Three Dimensions 1985

It is an illusory belief of the Enthusiasts that those who keep reading Scripture or hearing the Word are chilgren as if no one were spiritual unless he scorned doctrine In their pride therefore they despise the ministry of men and even Scripture itself in order to attain the Spirit They then proudly try to peddle all the delusions that Satan suggests to them as secret revelations of the Spirit John Calvin Commentary on 1 Thes 520 1525

JUL Y IAUGU ST 1995 7

Unitarian pastorate in 1832 because he could no longer accept institutional religion and refused to serve Comshymunion (Since Unitarians do not have a genuine Communion it is difficult to regard this as a major deshyparture) After all Emerson said he was himself a spark of God and enjoyed direct access without an incarnate Mediator and the impediments of physical sacraments At Harvard Emerson declared that orthodox Christianshyity was dead and the only way forward was to recover the spiritual dimension of religion The jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes was a great fan of Emersons Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was closely associated with Emerson and other Transcendentalists as many of the American Romantics were now being called The Westminster Dictionary of Church History defines Transhyscendentalism as an optimistic mystic and naturalistic state ofmind rather than a system of thought which had a wide influence on American literature philosophy and religion Based on English romanticism (Coleridge Wordsworth Carlyle) and German philosophical idealshyism it found Calvinistic orthodoxy too harsh and Unitarian liberalism too arid It emphasized individual experience as sacred unique and authoritative

The sense of alienation is apparent in Nathaniel Hawthorne Taking no root I soon weary of any soil in which I may be temporarily deposited The same impashytience I may feel or conceive of as regards this earthly life6 If this feeling was true in the early 19th century it is

- certainly exacerbated by the influences ofmodernity the rootlessness precipitated by rapid travel mobility disshyplacement of families and technological advances that tend to dehumanize existence As for the Gnostic preocshycupation with spirit and the eternal over matter and time Emerson declared I am to invite men drenched in

How Do New Agers Trace TheirRoots

At first the traditions were transmitted ihtimately by alchemists Gnostics cabalists and hermetics ltAmong the middot bold and isolated voiCes were MeistecEckhart Giovanni Pico 4ella Mirandola andEmamiel Swederiborg We are spiritually tree they said the stewards of our OWn evolution Humankind has a choice We can 3wakerito our true nature Drawing fully ftbm our inner-resources we can achieve a new dhpension of mind we can see mOl~e ~

t The Transcendentalists supposed[y threatened the old order with their~new ideas but the ide~s were not newThey s()ught understanding from liPany sources experIence intu middot ition the Quaker idea of the Inner Light the Bh(lgavad Gitq the German Romantic Philosophers middotand the English mefashyphysical writers of the seventeenthcentury Llthough they were charged with havingfontempt for history they replied tnat humankin4 coutd be lihrated from history MarilynFerguson The Aquarian Con~piracy 1980

Time to recover themselves and come out of time and taste their native immortal air7 Like the ancient Gnostics who according to St Ignatius did not bother themselves with the physical needs of this world Emersons spiritual arrogance knew no bounds I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes to wit imprisoned spirits They have no other watchman or lover or defender but 18

The recurring note in Romanticism and especially in its American Transcendental variety is personal expeshyrience the selfs transcendence of community flesh history creed doctrine church Word and sacraments to ascend to the lofty heights ofdeity Each individual self is God and requires no mediation for access to the divine

We do not have to look very far to see the influence of this movement on 19th-century Protestantism The reshyvivalistic evangelicals wanted to escape from this world by a personal experience of being born again and sucshycessive experiences A second blessing or a rededication would revive the soul in its flight toward Deity and full surrender Doctrine was considered an encumbrance as were creeds liturgies and sacraments and the anti-intelshylectual strain of Gnosticism reared its ugly head In orthodox Christianity grace redeems this world in Gnosticism it redeems the self from nature Grace did not save nature but provided a way ofescapeAt the same time the liberals according to Philip Lee made ample room for nature on their stage by moving grace into the wings There remained in both camps a gnostic separashytion ot Creation from Redemption (p 93)

At this point psychology was born and took root quickly in America more than anywhere else It offered an alternative to theology as the study ofthe self and selfshyconsciousness replaced the study of God and his redemptive acts George Ripley declared during this peshyriod The time has come when a revision of theology is demanded Let the study oftheology commence with the study of human consciousness9 But this psychological orientation not only demanded the first word it ended up swallowing everything within reach and the stage was set for the therapeutic revolution of the 20th century with peace ofmind and eventually self-esteem becoming more important than sin and grace Narcissism (selfshyworship) became legitimate and in fact the only religious duty Although C J Jung a father of modern psychology was openly and self-described as a Gnostic his mysticism is easily absorbed into the greater Gnostic ooze of contemporary pop-psychology and recovery movements

The preaching also turned from the objective emshyphasis on Gods saving work in Christ to techniques for self- improvement psychologically and morally conshyceived Considered too offensive for the immortal and innocent self the Law was not suitable for preaching

8 JUL Y I AUG US T 19 9 5 modern R EFORMATION

unless it could be shown that it was somehow beneficial for personal transformation Divine commands had to be seen as attainable and reasonable principles for selfshyenhancement and universal love Damnation was entirely out of place as a purpose for the Law or for any sociable discourse Similarly the Gospel hardly distinshyguishable now from the Gnostic law became a secret formula (gnosis) for rebirth self-realization and the personal unmediated experience with the Divine This was true equally for liberals and evangelicals Unitarians and revivalists as well as for the many Gnostic

redeem but merely reveals according to Lee (p 107) All of these writers point to the breakdown in the Reformations orthodox stance in both conservative and liberal camps as opening the door to Transcendentalism and finally to the current orientation Beyond the libshyeral-evangelical split Wade Clark Roof now says we cannot discern any real differences between New Age and evangelical spirituality on a number of counts This new Gnosticism laquocelebrates experience rather than docshytrine the personal rather than the institutional the

cults that were born in this environment Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine (Christian Science Unity Adventism etc) however differently each may have stated it for personal experience and objective toth for

Horace Bushnell marks the departure from an evangelical Calvinism to an evangelical Roshy pesonal transformationand in this sense each manticism My heart wants the Father my heart wants the Son my heart wants the Holy is in its own yay Gnostic Ghost My heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me and I mean to hold by my heart I am glad a man can do it when there is no other mooringlo The Morshymon laquotestimony is quite similar when its truth-claims are founded upon a burning in the bosom Similarly when evangelicals sing Romantic hymns such as He Lives with the line laquoYou ask me how I know he lives He lives within my heart they have little trouble accommoshydating to the Romanticism of Schleiermacher father of modern liberalism when he said that the essence of Christianity islaquothe feeling ofabsolute dependence And when evangelicals eschew creeds doctrines liturgies and sacraments over personal experience how can they quibble with the liberal Adolf von Harnack who beshylieved that the authentically spiritual is composed of those things that are inward spontaneous and ethical as opposed to the outward organized ceremonial and dogmaticll Gnosticism becomes the tie that binds

At last we come to our own century A number of books have been published in recent years pointing up the laquoGnosticization of American religion including Philip Lees Against The Protestant Gnostics (Oxford 1987) and Harold Blooms The American Religion (Simon and Schuster 1992) Although Bloom a distinshyguished Yale professor and the nations leading literary critic identifies himself as a Jewish Gnostic he provides a provocative insight into the popularization of Gnostishycism Other studies have pointed tangentially to this same condition such as those of professors James D Hunter (University ofVirginia ) Wade Clark Roof (Unishyversity of California) and Robert Wuthnow (Princeton University) Christopher Laschs The Culture ofNarcisshysism and Robert Bellahs Habits ofthe Heart also point in the same direction

In spite of their rivalry fundamentalism and libershyalism both essentially proclaim a Christ who does not

mythic and dreamlike over the cognitive peoples relishygion over official religion soft caring images of deity over hard impersonal images the feminine and the anshydrogynous over the masculine (Roof p 132) Although Roofdoes not make the point these are clearly the tenets of ancient Gnosticism

Note Lees point on Christ as Revealer [Gnosis] over Christ as Redeemer

Another way to shed light on the American tendency to regard Christ as revealer only is to observe the Amerishycan fascination with technique For the evangelicals conversion is a technique a necessary one for salvation The history of Israel and the life of Jesus which indeed were often spiritualized beyond recognition were imshyportant only insofar as they could be employed to bring sinners to repentance (p 109)

Lee says that the liberal approach to the Scriptures following its Transcendental heritage was to see them as laquotechniques for living the Christian life and the Bible became laquoa rich source of those truths that we in our hearts already know (p Ill) But this is now precisely the same attitude often taken by evangelicals to the Scripshytures Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine for personal experience and objective truth for personal transformation and in this sense each is in its own way Gnostic The anti-intellectualism is understandable acshycording to Lee laquoIf God is immanent present within our psyche if we already have the truth within then why go through all the hassle of studying theology (p Ill) Isnt this precisely the point of the division many of us grew up with between head knowledge and heart knowlshyedge The former is intellectual the latter spiritual-that is gnosis James D Hunter observes laquoThe spiritual asshypects of Evangelical life are increasingly approached by

JULYAUGUST 1995 9

means of an interpreted in terms of principles rules steps laws codes guidelines and the like 12 Wade Clark Roof adds Salvation as a theological doctrine becomes reduced to simple steps easy proceshydures and formulas for psychological rewards The approach to religious truth changes-awayfrom anyobshyjective grounds on which it must be judged to a more subjective more instrumental understanding of what it does for the believer and how it can do what it does most efficiently (p 195)

Pentecostalism represents an even greater depenshydence on Gnostic tendencies Lee writes Just as faith healing held an important place among the medieval gnostics ofsouthern France it has also been a significant element in the more extreme sects ofProtestantism The Savior God is pitted against the natural God and before millions of television viewers the Savior God prevails (p 119) Roman Catholic scholar Ronald Knoxs work Enthusiasm (Oxford 1950) remains a classic study ofthis subject Even the desire to speak in tongues as if the biblical idea of tongues was a super-natural language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natural human language in a direct spiritual encounter of immediate ecstasy Although the biblical writers were well aware of this practice ofecstatic utterances in pashygan religion they did not use the Greek word for this practice but instead chose glossai (lit languages) leading us to conclude that tongues refers in the New Testament to known earthly speech

The outer edges ofPentecostalism are especially blashytant in Gnostic emphases as a number of works have shown including The Agony of Deceit 13 Salvation is knowledge-Revelation Knowledge (Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Hagin Paul Crouch and other faith

the author himself applauds the Gnostic tendency Bloom concludes of this group To know also that one is completely free-the Emersonian Wildness-because ones solitude is shared with the Holy Spirit carries the rapture to a Sublime elevation And though Assemblies of God theology is officially trinitarian in praxis the Pentecostal knows only Oneness and calls the Holy Spirit by the name ofJesus not the Jesus ofthe Gospels or even the Christ of Paul but the American Jesus a Penteshycostal like oneself 14 (It is worth noting that the Assemblies of God were involved in a rift within Pentecostalism over this very point siding with the orshythodox doctrine of the Trinity over Oneness Pentecostals)

For those of us who were raised in fundamentalist evangelical or pentecostal sects the experience of reshybirth comes neither through the Word ofthe Gospel nor through the water of Baptism but through a Spirit Bapshytism that is direct and immediate The Word is primarily seen as an instrument for coaxing the individual into accepting the new birth The new birth especially if one judges by the testimonies ofconverts is not so much the result of hearing with human ears in human words a declaration of things that happened in human history In short it is not so much the preaching ofthe Cross but the preaching of my personal relationship with Jesus the day when Jesus came into my heart that is central Lee again Whereas classical Calvinism had held that the Christians assurance of salvation was guaranteed only through Christ and his Church with his means ofgrace now assurance could be found only in the personal expeshyrience ofhaving been born again This was a radical shift for Calvin had considered any attempt to put conversion in the power of man himself to be gross popery In fact

Rebirth in God is the exact opposite ofrebirth into a new and more acceptable self as the selfshyEven the desire to speak in tongues as if the acclaimed born again Christians would see the event (pp 144255) biblical idea of tongues was asuper-natural

Norman Vincent Peale exploited the peace of mind craze earlier this century a movement that borrowed its capital from Transhy

language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natutal human language in adirectj scendentalism directly Nevertheless the

liberal Peale was hailed as a great evangelist by spiritu81 encounte of immediate ecstasy evangelical Billy Graham and was asked to parshy

teachers use the upper case to distinguish this from mere written revelation) The Word that truly saves is not the written text of Scripture proclaiming Christ the Reshydeemer but is rather the Rhema Word that is spoken directly to the spirit by Gods Spirit Bloom writes Paul was arguing against Corinthian Enthusiasts or Gnostics and yet I wonder why his strictures have not discouraged American Pentecostals more than they seem to have donePentecostalism is American shamanism although

ticipate in the crusades Lee once again notes the tie that binds For both of them Christianity is understood from a gnostic point ofview The real world with which religion has to do is the world within (p 199) This is not to suggest that Billy Graham is a liberal Rather it is to argue that in our day Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

Also in terms of their views of Christ liberals and evangelicals reveal a common Gnostic tendency While the liberals divided the Jesus of History (a normal Jew

10 JULYAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

who lived in first -century Palestine) from the Christ of Faith (resurrected God-Man) proclaiming that the Spirit of Christ lives and calls us into vital communion even though his body is not raised evangelicals often seem to worship the spirit of Jesus apart from his hushymanity Jesus in my heart at the end of the day is more important for personal Christian experience piety and worship than Jesus in history Although evangelicals inshysist on a historical resurrection as a matter of official creed in actual practice one wonders why it is imporshytant if the spirit ofJesus is in ones heart After all no one believes that Jesus takes up physical residence in ones heart so what can we mean by asking Jesus into our heart other than inviting his spirit Little is said of the biblical notion that it is~the Holy Spirit who unites us not to the spirit ofJesus in our hearts but to the God-Man in heaven according to both his divine and human natures

In Gnosticism not only the object of faith (Christ) but the act of faith becomes radically revised In Chrisshytianity faith is trust in Gods specific promise ofsalvation through Christ In Gnosticism faith is magic It is a technique for getting what we want by believing in it strongly enough As C Peter Wagner an advocate of the Vineyard movement puts it Empirical evidence also validates the absolute necessity of faith or whatever else you want to call it-possibility thinking or goal setshyting-as a prerequisite for church growth15 Is faith really a synonym for possibility thinking and goal setshyting Then would not everyone possess faith Or is faith a unique gift from God to trust in Christ as in biblical teaching The Second Helvetic Confession (a 16th censhytury Reformed statement) declares Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles Creed and thus also of God himself the greatest good and especially of Gods promise and of Christ who is the fulfillment of all promises

But Wagners worldview is also dominated by the Gnostic fascination with dualism between Light and Darkness as spiritual warfare takes on an increasingly super-spiritual preoccupation Like Frank Perettis novshyels this popular view of spiritual warfare in which individual believers decide the outcome of battles beshytween good angels and bad angels is too close to Manichaean Gnosticism for comfort

The Gnostic revolution has been demonstrating its elasticity in recent years in the spirituality of the baby boomers whose interest in the sacred has been celshyebrated in national periodicals the study of which has become something of a cottage industry Wade Clark Roof sampled a wide variety of seekers For instance Sonny DAntonio raised Roman Catholic considers

himself a believer but not a belonger The material parts of the church turned me off he says (p 18) Mollie Stone raised a Pentecostal tried Native American spirishytuality then Quakerism for its inner peace and is turned on to Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovshyery groups although she is not herself an alcoholic or related to one As for churches Creeds and doctrines divide people she says (p 23) Roof observes The distinction between spirit and institution is of major

COMPARE amp CONTltRAST Who can say [ have keptmy heart pure [ amciean a11d without sin Prov 209

[At a Campus Crusade staff retreat] middot hundreds came forward to kneel and pray Their lovk for Christ had prompted tl1em to join the staff in the first plate Now they were demonstrating their desire to continue in their ministry with pure hearts free ofsin filled with th~ Holy Spirit The response was unanimous Bill Bright The Coming Rtpivai

Our own ag~ has certain Ana6~piists whofeign thatJnBaptism Gods people are reborn into a pure and angelic life unsullied by any carnal filth But ifafter baptismanyone falls away they leave him nothing but Gods inexQrablejudgment In short to the sinner who has lapsed after receiving grace they hold out no hope of pardon For they recognize no other forgiveness of sins than that by which they were first reborn John Calvin The Institutes ofthe Christian Religion

importance Although Roof does not point to Gnostishycism his studies mark undeniable parallels Spirit is the inner experiential aspect of religion institution is the outer established form of religion This distinction is increasingly pertinent because ofthe strong emphasis on self in contemporary culture and the related shift from objective to subjective ways of ordering experience (p 30) Religion is too restricting but spirituality offers a way ofplugging into the divine with the correct spiritual technology Roof explains As a computer programmer who happens to be an evangelical put it without any prompting on our part We all access God differently (p 258)

The whole point ofChristianity however is that one cannot access God at all He must come to us through a personal Word (God in flesh) and a written Word (Scripture) and when we do come to him it must be through Christ and we come to Christ through the orshydained means It might offend the Gnostic and narcissistic individualism of our age but we do not all access God differentli

Roof refers to the Outer and Inner Worlds the former suspect while the latter is always respected Dishyrect experience is always more trustworthy iffor no other reason than because of its inwardness and withinshyness-two qualities that have come to be much

JULYAUGUST 1995 11

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

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this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

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focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

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on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

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A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

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spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

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ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

Unitarian pastorate in 1832 because he could no longer accept institutional religion and refused to serve Comshymunion (Since Unitarians do not have a genuine Communion it is difficult to regard this as a major deshyparture) After all Emerson said he was himself a spark of God and enjoyed direct access without an incarnate Mediator and the impediments of physical sacraments At Harvard Emerson declared that orthodox Christianshyity was dead and the only way forward was to recover the spiritual dimension of religion The jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes was a great fan of Emersons Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was closely associated with Emerson and other Transcendentalists as many of the American Romantics were now being called The Westminster Dictionary of Church History defines Transhyscendentalism as an optimistic mystic and naturalistic state ofmind rather than a system of thought which had a wide influence on American literature philosophy and religion Based on English romanticism (Coleridge Wordsworth Carlyle) and German philosophical idealshyism it found Calvinistic orthodoxy too harsh and Unitarian liberalism too arid It emphasized individual experience as sacred unique and authoritative

The sense of alienation is apparent in Nathaniel Hawthorne Taking no root I soon weary of any soil in which I may be temporarily deposited The same impashytience I may feel or conceive of as regards this earthly life6 If this feeling was true in the early 19th century it is

- certainly exacerbated by the influences ofmodernity the rootlessness precipitated by rapid travel mobility disshyplacement of families and technological advances that tend to dehumanize existence As for the Gnostic preocshycupation with spirit and the eternal over matter and time Emerson declared I am to invite men drenched in

How Do New Agers Trace TheirRoots

At first the traditions were transmitted ihtimately by alchemists Gnostics cabalists and hermetics ltAmong the middot bold and isolated voiCes were MeistecEckhart Giovanni Pico 4ella Mirandola andEmamiel Swederiborg We are spiritually tree they said the stewards of our OWn evolution Humankind has a choice We can 3wakerito our true nature Drawing fully ftbm our inner-resources we can achieve a new dhpension of mind we can see mOl~e ~

t The Transcendentalists supposed[y threatened the old order with their~new ideas but the ide~s were not newThey s()ught understanding from liPany sources experIence intu middot ition the Quaker idea of the Inner Light the Bh(lgavad Gitq the German Romantic Philosophers middotand the English mefashyphysical writers of the seventeenthcentury Llthough they were charged with havingfontempt for history they replied tnat humankin4 coutd be lihrated from history MarilynFerguson The Aquarian Con~piracy 1980

Time to recover themselves and come out of time and taste their native immortal air7 Like the ancient Gnostics who according to St Ignatius did not bother themselves with the physical needs of this world Emersons spiritual arrogance knew no bounds I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes to wit imprisoned spirits They have no other watchman or lover or defender but 18

The recurring note in Romanticism and especially in its American Transcendental variety is personal expeshyrience the selfs transcendence of community flesh history creed doctrine church Word and sacraments to ascend to the lofty heights ofdeity Each individual self is God and requires no mediation for access to the divine

We do not have to look very far to see the influence of this movement on 19th-century Protestantism The reshyvivalistic evangelicals wanted to escape from this world by a personal experience of being born again and sucshycessive experiences A second blessing or a rededication would revive the soul in its flight toward Deity and full surrender Doctrine was considered an encumbrance as were creeds liturgies and sacraments and the anti-intelshylectual strain of Gnosticism reared its ugly head In orthodox Christianity grace redeems this world in Gnosticism it redeems the self from nature Grace did not save nature but provided a way ofescapeAt the same time the liberals according to Philip Lee made ample room for nature on their stage by moving grace into the wings There remained in both camps a gnostic separashytion ot Creation from Redemption (p 93)

At this point psychology was born and took root quickly in America more than anywhere else It offered an alternative to theology as the study ofthe self and selfshyconsciousness replaced the study of God and his redemptive acts George Ripley declared during this peshyriod The time has come when a revision of theology is demanded Let the study oftheology commence with the study of human consciousness9 But this psychological orientation not only demanded the first word it ended up swallowing everything within reach and the stage was set for the therapeutic revolution of the 20th century with peace ofmind and eventually self-esteem becoming more important than sin and grace Narcissism (selfshyworship) became legitimate and in fact the only religious duty Although C J Jung a father of modern psychology was openly and self-described as a Gnostic his mysticism is easily absorbed into the greater Gnostic ooze of contemporary pop-psychology and recovery movements

The preaching also turned from the objective emshyphasis on Gods saving work in Christ to techniques for self- improvement psychologically and morally conshyceived Considered too offensive for the immortal and innocent self the Law was not suitable for preaching

8 JUL Y I AUG US T 19 9 5 modern R EFORMATION

unless it could be shown that it was somehow beneficial for personal transformation Divine commands had to be seen as attainable and reasonable principles for selfshyenhancement and universal love Damnation was entirely out of place as a purpose for the Law or for any sociable discourse Similarly the Gospel hardly distinshyguishable now from the Gnostic law became a secret formula (gnosis) for rebirth self-realization and the personal unmediated experience with the Divine This was true equally for liberals and evangelicals Unitarians and revivalists as well as for the many Gnostic

redeem but merely reveals according to Lee (p 107) All of these writers point to the breakdown in the Reformations orthodox stance in both conservative and liberal camps as opening the door to Transcendentalism and finally to the current orientation Beyond the libshyeral-evangelical split Wade Clark Roof now says we cannot discern any real differences between New Age and evangelical spirituality on a number of counts This new Gnosticism laquocelebrates experience rather than docshytrine the personal rather than the institutional the

cults that were born in this environment Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine (Christian Science Unity Adventism etc) however differently each may have stated it for personal experience and objective toth for

Horace Bushnell marks the departure from an evangelical Calvinism to an evangelical Roshy pesonal transformationand in this sense each manticism My heart wants the Father my heart wants the Son my heart wants the Holy is in its own yay Gnostic Ghost My heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me and I mean to hold by my heart I am glad a man can do it when there is no other mooringlo The Morshymon laquotestimony is quite similar when its truth-claims are founded upon a burning in the bosom Similarly when evangelicals sing Romantic hymns such as He Lives with the line laquoYou ask me how I know he lives He lives within my heart they have little trouble accommoshydating to the Romanticism of Schleiermacher father of modern liberalism when he said that the essence of Christianity islaquothe feeling ofabsolute dependence And when evangelicals eschew creeds doctrines liturgies and sacraments over personal experience how can they quibble with the liberal Adolf von Harnack who beshylieved that the authentically spiritual is composed of those things that are inward spontaneous and ethical as opposed to the outward organized ceremonial and dogmaticll Gnosticism becomes the tie that binds

At last we come to our own century A number of books have been published in recent years pointing up the laquoGnosticization of American religion including Philip Lees Against The Protestant Gnostics (Oxford 1987) and Harold Blooms The American Religion (Simon and Schuster 1992) Although Bloom a distinshyguished Yale professor and the nations leading literary critic identifies himself as a Jewish Gnostic he provides a provocative insight into the popularization of Gnostishycism Other studies have pointed tangentially to this same condition such as those of professors James D Hunter (University ofVirginia ) Wade Clark Roof (Unishyversity of California) and Robert Wuthnow (Princeton University) Christopher Laschs The Culture ofNarcisshysism and Robert Bellahs Habits ofthe Heart also point in the same direction

In spite of their rivalry fundamentalism and libershyalism both essentially proclaim a Christ who does not

mythic and dreamlike over the cognitive peoples relishygion over official religion soft caring images of deity over hard impersonal images the feminine and the anshydrogynous over the masculine (Roof p 132) Although Roofdoes not make the point these are clearly the tenets of ancient Gnosticism

Note Lees point on Christ as Revealer [Gnosis] over Christ as Redeemer

Another way to shed light on the American tendency to regard Christ as revealer only is to observe the Amerishycan fascination with technique For the evangelicals conversion is a technique a necessary one for salvation The history of Israel and the life of Jesus which indeed were often spiritualized beyond recognition were imshyportant only insofar as they could be employed to bring sinners to repentance (p 109)

Lee says that the liberal approach to the Scriptures following its Transcendental heritage was to see them as laquotechniques for living the Christian life and the Bible became laquoa rich source of those truths that we in our hearts already know (p Ill) But this is now precisely the same attitude often taken by evangelicals to the Scripshytures Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine for personal experience and objective truth for personal transformation and in this sense each is in its own way Gnostic The anti-intellectualism is understandable acshycording to Lee laquoIf God is immanent present within our psyche if we already have the truth within then why go through all the hassle of studying theology (p Ill) Isnt this precisely the point of the division many of us grew up with between head knowledge and heart knowlshyedge The former is intellectual the latter spiritual-that is gnosis James D Hunter observes laquoThe spiritual asshypects of Evangelical life are increasingly approached by

JULYAUGUST 1995 9

means of an interpreted in terms of principles rules steps laws codes guidelines and the like 12 Wade Clark Roof adds Salvation as a theological doctrine becomes reduced to simple steps easy proceshydures and formulas for psychological rewards The approach to religious truth changes-awayfrom anyobshyjective grounds on which it must be judged to a more subjective more instrumental understanding of what it does for the believer and how it can do what it does most efficiently (p 195)

Pentecostalism represents an even greater depenshydence on Gnostic tendencies Lee writes Just as faith healing held an important place among the medieval gnostics ofsouthern France it has also been a significant element in the more extreme sects ofProtestantism The Savior God is pitted against the natural God and before millions of television viewers the Savior God prevails (p 119) Roman Catholic scholar Ronald Knoxs work Enthusiasm (Oxford 1950) remains a classic study ofthis subject Even the desire to speak in tongues as if the biblical idea of tongues was a super-natural language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natural human language in a direct spiritual encounter of immediate ecstasy Although the biblical writers were well aware of this practice ofecstatic utterances in pashygan religion they did not use the Greek word for this practice but instead chose glossai (lit languages) leading us to conclude that tongues refers in the New Testament to known earthly speech

The outer edges ofPentecostalism are especially blashytant in Gnostic emphases as a number of works have shown including The Agony of Deceit 13 Salvation is knowledge-Revelation Knowledge (Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Hagin Paul Crouch and other faith

the author himself applauds the Gnostic tendency Bloom concludes of this group To know also that one is completely free-the Emersonian Wildness-because ones solitude is shared with the Holy Spirit carries the rapture to a Sublime elevation And though Assemblies of God theology is officially trinitarian in praxis the Pentecostal knows only Oneness and calls the Holy Spirit by the name ofJesus not the Jesus ofthe Gospels or even the Christ of Paul but the American Jesus a Penteshycostal like oneself 14 (It is worth noting that the Assemblies of God were involved in a rift within Pentecostalism over this very point siding with the orshythodox doctrine of the Trinity over Oneness Pentecostals)

For those of us who were raised in fundamentalist evangelical or pentecostal sects the experience of reshybirth comes neither through the Word ofthe Gospel nor through the water of Baptism but through a Spirit Bapshytism that is direct and immediate The Word is primarily seen as an instrument for coaxing the individual into accepting the new birth The new birth especially if one judges by the testimonies ofconverts is not so much the result of hearing with human ears in human words a declaration of things that happened in human history In short it is not so much the preaching ofthe Cross but the preaching of my personal relationship with Jesus the day when Jesus came into my heart that is central Lee again Whereas classical Calvinism had held that the Christians assurance of salvation was guaranteed only through Christ and his Church with his means ofgrace now assurance could be found only in the personal expeshyrience ofhaving been born again This was a radical shift for Calvin had considered any attempt to put conversion in the power of man himself to be gross popery In fact

Rebirth in God is the exact opposite ofrebirth into a new and more acceptable self as the selfshyEven the desire to speak in tongues as if the acclaimed born again Christians would see the event (pp 144255) biblical idea of tongues was asuper-natural

Norman Vincent Peale exploited the peace of mind craze earlier this century a movement that borrowed its capital from Transhy

language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natutal human language in adirectj scendentalism directly Nevertheless the

liberal Peale was hailed as a great evangelist by spiritu81 encounte of immediate ecstasy evangelical Billy Graham and was asked to parshy

teachers use the upper case to distinguish this from mere written revelation) The Word that truly saves is not the written text of Scripture proclaiming Christ the Reshydeemer but is rather the Rhema Word that is spoken directly to the spirit by Gods Spirit Bloom writes Paul was arguing against Corinthian Enthusiasts or Gnostics and yet I wonder why his strictures have not discouraged American Pentecostals more than they seem to have donePentecostalism is American shamanism although

ticipate in the crusades Lee once again notes the tie that binds For both of them Christianity is understood from a gnostic point ofview The real world with which religion has to do is the world within (p 199) This is not to suggest that Billy Graham is a liberal Rather it is to argue that in our day Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

Also in terms of their views of Christ liberals and evangelicals reveal a common Gnostic tendency While the liberals divided the Jesus of History (a normal Jew

10 JULYAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

who lived in first -century Palestine) from the Christ of Faith (resurrected God-Man) proclaiming that the Spirit of Christ lives and calls us into vital communion even though his body is not raised evangelicals often seem to worship the spirit of Jesus apart from his hushymanity Jesus in my heart at the end of the day is more important for personal Christian experience piety and worship than Jesus in history Although evangelicals inshysist on a historical resurrection as a matter of official creed in actual practice one wonders why it is imporshytant if the spirit ofJesus is in ones heart After all no one believes that Jesus takes up physical residence in ones heart so what can we mean by asking Jesus into our heart other than inviting his spirit Little is said of the biblical notion that it is~the Holy Spirit who unites us not to the spirit ofJesus in our hearts but to the God-Man in heaven according to both his divine and human natures

In Gnosticism not only the object of faith (Christ) but the act of faith becomes radically revised In Chrisshytianity faith is trust in Gods specific promise ofsalvation through Christ In Gnosticism faith is magic It is a technique for getting what we want by believing in it strongly enough As C Peter Wagner an advocate of the Vineyard movement puts it Empirical evidence also validates the absolute necessity of faith or whatever else you want to call it-possibility thinking or goal setshyting-as a prerequisite for church growth15 Is faith really a synonym for possibility thinking and goal setshyting Then would not everyone possess faith Or is faith a unique gift from God to trust in Christ as in biblical teaching The Second Helvetic Confession (a 16th censhytury Reformed statement) declares Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles Creed and thus also of God himself the greatest good and especially of Gods promise and of Christ who is the fulfillment of all promises

But Wagners worldview is also dominated by the Gnostic fascination with dualism between Light and Darkness as spiritual warfare takes on an increasingly super-spiritual preoccupation Like Frank Perettis novshyels this popular view of spiritual warfare in which individual believers decide the outcome of battles beshytween good angels and bad angels is too close to Manichaean Gnosticism for comfort

The Gnostic revolution has been demonstrating its elasticity in recent years in the spirituality of the baby boomers whose interest in the sacred has been celshyebrated in national periodicals the study of which has become something of a cottage industry Wade Clark Roof sampled a wide variety of seekers For instance Sonny DAntonio raised Roman Catholic considers

himself a believer but not a belonger The material parts of the church turned me off he says (p 18) Mollie Stone raised a Pentecostal tried Native American spirishytuality then Quakerism for its inner peace and is turned on to Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovshyery groups although she is not herself an alcoholic or related to one As for churches Creeds and doctrines divide people she says (p 23) Roof observes The distinction between spirit and institution is of major

COMPARE amp CONTltRAST Who can say [ have keptmy heart pure [ amciean a11d without sin Prov 209

[At a Campus Crusade staff retreat] middot hundreds came forward to kneel and pray Their lovk for Christ had prompted tl1em to join the staff in the first plate Now they were demonstrating their desire to continue in their ministry with pure hearts free ofsin filled with th~ Holy Spirit The response was unanimous Bill Bright The Coming Rtpivai

Our own ag~ has certain Ana6~piists whofeign thatJnBaptism Gods people are reborn into a pure and angelic life unsullied by any carnal filth But ifafter baptismanyone falls away they leave him nothing but Gods inexQrablejudgment In short to the sinner who has lapsed after receiving grace they hold out no hope of pardon For they recognize no other forgiveness of sins than that by which they were first reborn John Calvin The Institutes ofthe Christian Religion

importance Although Roof does not point to Gnostishycism his studies mark undeniable parallels Spirit is the inner experiential aspect of religion institution is the outer established form of religion This distinction is increasingly pertinent because ofthe strong emphasis on self in contemporary culture and the related shift from objective to subjective ways of ordering experience (p 30) Religion is too restricting but spirituality offers a way ofplugging into the divine with the correct spiritual technology Roof explains As a computer programmer who happens to be an evangelical put it without any prompting on our part We all access God differently (p 258)

The whole point ofChristianity however is that one cannot access God at all He must come to us through a personal Word (God in flesh) and a written Word (Scripture) and when we do come to him it must be through Christ and we come to Christ through the orshydained means It might offend the Gnostic and narcissistic individualism of our age but we do not all access God differentli

Roof refers to the Outer and Inner Worlds the former suspect while the latter is always respected Dishyrect experience is always more trustworthy iffor no other reason than because of its inwardness and withinshyness-two qualities that have come to be much

JULYAUGUST 1995 11

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

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on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

unless it could be shown that it was somehow beneficial for personal transformation Divine commands had to be seen as attainable and reasonable principles for selfshyenhancement and universal love Damnation was entirely out of place as a purpose for the Law or for any sociable discourse Similarly the Gospel hardly distinshyguishable now from the Gnostic law became a secret formula (gnosis) for rebirth self-realization and the personal unmediated experience with the Divine This was true equally for liberals and evangelicals Unitarians and revivalists as well as for the many Gnostic

redeem but merely reveals according to Lee (p 107) All of these writers point to the breakdown in the Reformations orthodox stance in both conservative and liberal camps as opening the door to Transcendentalism and finally to the current orientation Beyond the libshyeral-evangelical split Wade Clark Roof now says we cannot discern any real differences between New Age and evangelical spirituality on a number of counts This new Gnosticism laquocelebrates experience rather than docshytrine the personal rather than the institutional the

cults that were born in this environment Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine (Christian Science Unity Adventism etc) however differently each may have stated it for personal experience and objective toth for

Horace Bushnell marks the departure from an evangelical Calvinism to an evangelical Roshy pesonal transformationand in this sense each manticism My heart wants the Father my heart wants the Son my heart wants the Holy is in its own yay Gnostic Ghost My heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me and I mean to hold by my heart I am glad a man can do it when there is no other mooringlo The Morshymon laquotestimony is quite similar when its truth-claims are founded upon a burning in the bosom Similarly when evangelicals sing Romantic hymns such as He Lives with the line laquoYou ask me how I know he lives He lives within my heart they have little trouble accommoshydating to the Romanticism of Schleiermacher father of modern liberalism when he said that the essence of Christianity islaquothe feeling ofabsolute dependence And when evangelicals eschew creeds doctrines liturgies and sacraments over personal experience how can they quibble with the liberal Adolf von Harnack who beshylieved that the authentically spiritual is composed of those things that are inward spontaneous and ethical as opposed to the outward organized ceremonial and dogmaticll Gnosticism becomes the tie that binds

At last we come to our own century A number of books have been published in recent years pointing up the laquoGnosticization of American religion including Philip Lees Against The Protestant Gnostics (Oxford 1987) and Harold Blooms The American Religion (Simon and Schuster 1992) Although Bloom a distinshyguished Yale professor and the nations leading literary critic identifies himself as a Jewish Gnostic he provides a provocative insight into the popularization of Gnostishycism Other studies have pointed tangentially to this same condition such as those of professors James D Hunter (University ofVirginia ) Wade Clark Roof (Unishyversity of California) and Robert Wuthnow (Princeton University) Christopher Laschs The Culture ofNarcisshysism and Robert Bellahs Habits ofthe Heart also point in the same direction

In spite of their rivalry fundamentalism and libershyalism both essentially proclaim a Christ who does not

mythic and dreamlike over the cognitive peoples relishygion over official religion soft caring images of deity over hard impersonal images the feminine and the anshydrogynous over the masculine (Roof p 132) Although Roofdoes not make the point these are clearly the tenets of ancient Gnosticism

Note Lees point on Christ as Revealer [Gnosis] over Christ as Redeemer

Another way to shed light on the American tendency to regard Christ as revealer only is to observe the Amerishycan fascination with technique For the evangelicals conversion is a technique a necessary one for salvation The history of Israel and the life of Jesus which indeed were often spiritualized beyond recognition were imshyportant only insofar as they could be employed to bring sinners to repentance (p 109)

Lee says that the liberal approach to the Scriptures following its Transcendental heritage was to see them as laquotechniques for living the Christian life and the Bible became laquoa rich source of those truths that we in our hearts already know (p Ill) But this is now precisely the same attitude often taken by evangelicals to the Scripshytures Both liberals and evangelicals disdain doctrine for personal experience and objective truth for personal transformation and in this sense each is in its own way Gnostic The anti-intellectualism is understandable acshycording to Lee laquoIf God is immanent present within our psyche if we already have the truth within then why go through all the hassle of studying theology (p Ill) Isnt this precisely the point of the division many of us grew up with between head knowledge and heart knowlshyedge The former is intellectual the latter spiritual-that is gnosis James D Hunter observes laquoThe spiritual asshypects of Evangelical life are increasingly approached by

JULYAUGUST 1995 9

means of an interpreted in terms of principles rules steps laws codes guidelines and the like 12 Wade Clark Roof adds Salvation as a theological doctrine becomes reduced to simple steps easy proceshydures and formulas for psychological rewards The approach to religious truth changes-awayfrom anyobshyjective grounds on which it must be judged to a more subjective more instrumental understanding of what it does for the believer and how it can do what it does most efficiently (p 195)

Pentecostalism represents an even greater depenshydence on Gnostic tendencies Lee writes Just as faith healing held an important place among the medieval gnostics ofsouthern France it has also been a significant element in the more extreme sects ofProtestantism The Savior God is pitted against the natural God and before millions of television viewers the Savior God prevails (p 119) Roman Catholic scholar Ronald Knoxs work Enthusiasm (Oxford 1950) remains a classic study ofthis subject Even the desire to speak in tongues as if the biblical idea of tongues was a super-natural language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natural human language in a direct spiritual encounter of immediate ecstasy Although the biblical writers were well aware of this practice ofecstatic utterances in pashygan religion they did not use the Greek word for this practice but instead chose glossai (lit languages) leading us to conclude that tongues refers in the New Testament to known earthly speech

The outer edges ofPentecostalism are especially blashytant in Gnostic emphases as a number of works have shown including The Agony of Deceit 13 Salvation is knowledge-Revelation Knowledge (Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Hagin Paul Crouch and other faith

the author himself applauds the Gnostic tendency Bloom concludes of this group To know also that one is completely free-the Emersonian Wildness-because ones solitude is shared with the Holy Spirit carries the rapture to a Sublime elevation And though Assemblies of God theology is officially trinitarian in praxis the Pentecostal knows only Oneness and calls the Holy Spirit by the name ofJesus not the Jesus ofthe Gospels or even the Christ of Paul but the American Jesus a Penteshycostal like oneself 14 (It is worth noting that the Assemblies of God were involved in a rift within Pentecostalism over this very point siding with the orshythodox doctrine of the Trinity over Oneness Pentecostals)

For those of us who were raised in fundamentalist evangelical or pentecostal sects the experience of reshybirth comes neither through the Word ofthe Gospel nor through the water of Baptism but through a Spirit Bapshytism that is direct and immediate The Word is primarily seen as an instrument for coaxing the individual into accepting the new birth The new birth especially if one judges by the testimonies ofconverts is not so much the result of hearing with human ears in human words a declaration of things that happened in human history In short it is not so much the preaching ofthe Cross but the preaching of my personal relationship with Jesus the day when Jesus came into my heart that is central Lee again Whereas classical Calvinism had held that the Christians assurance of salvation was guaranteed only through Christ and his Church with his means ofgrace now assurance could be found only in the personal expeshyrience ofhaving been born again This was a radical shift for Calvin had considered any attempt to put conversion in the power of man himself to be gross popery In fact

Rebirth in God is the exact opposite ofrebirth into a new and more acceptable self as the selfshyEven the desire to speak in tongues as if the acclaimed born again Christians would see the event (pp 144255) biblical idea of tongues was asuper-natural

Norman Vincent Peale exploited the peace of mind craze earlier this century a movement that borrowed its capital from Transhy

language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natutal human language in adirectj scendentalism directly Nevertheless the

liberal Peale was hailed as a great evangelist by spiritu81 encounte of immediate ecstasy evangelical Billy Graham and was asked to parshy

teachers use the upper case to distinguish this from mere written revelation) The Word that truly saves is not the written text of Scripture proclaiming Christ the Reshydeemer but is rather the Rhema Word that is spoken directly to the spirit by Gods Spirit Bloom writes Paul was arguing against Corinthian Enthusiasts or Gnostics and yet I wonder why his strictures have not discouraged American Pentecostals more than they seem to have donePentecostalism is American shamanism although

ticipate in the crusades Lee once again notes the tie that binds For both of them Christianity is understood from a gnostic point ofview The real world with which religion has to do is the world within (p 199) This is not to suggest that Billy Graham is a liberal Rather it is to argue that in our day Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

Also in terms of their views of Christ liberals and evangelicals reveal a common Gnostic tendency While the liberals divided the Jesus of History (a normal Jew

10 JULYAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

who lived in first -century Palestine) from the Christ of Faith (resurrected God-Man) proclaiming that the Spirit of Christ lives and calls us into vital communion even though his body is not raised evangelicals often seem to worship the spirit of Jesus apart from his hushymanity Jesus in my heart at the end of the day is more important for personal Christian experience piety and worship than Jesus in history Although evangelicals inshysist on a historical resurrection as a matter of official creed in actual practice one wonders why it is imporshytant if the spirit ofJesus is in ones heart After all no one believes that Jesus takes up physical residence in ones heart so what can we mean by asking Jesus into our heart other than inviting his spirit Little is said of the biblical notion that it is~the Holy Spirit who unites us not to the spirit ofJesus in our hearts but to the God-Man in heaven according to both his divine and human natures

In Gnosticism not only the object of faith (Christ) but the act of faith becomes radically revised In Chrisshytianity faith is trust in Gods specific promise ofsalvation through Christ In Gnosticism faith is magic It is a technique for getting what we want by believing in it strongly enough As C Peter Wagner an advocate of the Vineyard movement puts it Empirical evidence also validates the absolute necessity of faith or whatever else you want to call it-possibility thinking or goal setshyting-as a prerequisite for church growth15 Is faith really a synonym for possibility thinking and goal setshyting Then would not everyone possess faith Or is faith a unique gift from God to trust in Christ as in biblical teaching The Second Helvetic Confession (a 16th censhytury Reformed statement) declares Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles Creed and thus also of God himself the greatest good and especially of Gods promise and of Christ who is the fulfillment of all promises

But Wagners worldview is also dominated by the Gnostic fascination with dualism between Light and Darkness as spiritual warfare takes on an increasingly super-spiritual preoccupation Like Frank Perettis novshyels this popular view of spiritual warfare in which individual believers decide the outcome of battles beshytween good angels and bad angels is too close to Manichaean Gnosticism for comfort

The Gnostic revolution has been demonstrating its elasticity in recent years in the spirituality of the baby boomers whose interest in the sacred has been celshyebrated in national periodicals the study of which has become something of a cottage industry Wade Clark Roof sampled a wide variety of seekers For instance Sonny DAntonio raised Roman Catholic considers

himself a believer but not a belonger The material parts of the church turned me off he says (p 18) Mollie Stone raised a Pentecostal tried Native American spirishytuality then Quakerism for its inner peace and is turned on to Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovshyery groups although she is not herself an alcoholic or related to one As for churches Creeds and doctrines divide people she says (p 23) Roof observes The distinction between spirit and institution is of major

COMPARE amp CONTltRAST Who can say [ have keptmy heart pure [ amciean a11d without sin Prov 209

[At a Campus Crusade staff retreat] middot hundreds came forward to kneel and pray Their lovk for Christ had prompted tl1em to join the staff in the first plate Now they were demonstrating their desire to continue in their ministry with pure hearts free ofsin filled with th~ Holy Spirit The response was unanimous Bill Bright The Coming Rtpivai

Our own ag~ has certain Ana6~piists whofeign thatJnBaptism Gods people are reborn into a pure and angelic life unsullied by any carnal filth But ifafter baptismanyone falls away they leave him nothing but Gods inexQrablejudgment In short to the sinner who has lapsed after receiving grace they hold out no hope of pardon For they recognize no other forgiveness of sins than that by which they were first reborn John Calvin The Institutes ofthe Christian Religion

importance Although Roof does not point to Gnostishycism his studies mark undeniable parallels Spirit is the inner experiential aspect of religion institution is the outer established form of religion This distinction is increasingly pertinent because ofthe strong emphasis on self in contemporary culture and the related shift from objective to subjective ways of ordering experience (p 30) Religion is too restricting but spirituality offers a way ofplugging into the divine with the correct spiritual technology Roof explains As a computer programmer who happens to be an evangelical put it without any prompting on our part We all access God differently (p 258)

The whole point ofChristianity however is that one cannot access God at all He must come to us through a personal Word (God in flesh) and a written Word (Scripture) and when we do come to him it must be through Christ and we come to Christ through the orshydained means It might offend the Gnostic and narcissistic individualism of our age but we do not all access God differentli

Roof refers to the Outer and Inner Worlds the former suspect while the latter is always respected Dishyrect experience is always more trustworthy iffor no other reason than because of its inwardness and withinshyness-two qualities that have come to be much

JULYAUGUST 1995 11

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

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focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

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on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

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A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

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spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

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ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

means of an interpreted in terms of principles rules steps laws codes guidelines and the like 12 Wade Clark Roof adds Salvation as a theological doctrine becomes reduced to simple steps easy proceshydures and formulas for psychological rewards The approach to religious truth changes-awayfrom anyobshyjective grounds on which it must be judged to a more subjective more instrumental understanding of what it does for the believer and how it can do what it does most efficiently (p 195)

Pentecostalism represents an even greater depenshydence on Gnostic tendencies Lee writes Just as faith healing held an important place among the medieval gnostics ofsouthern France it has also been a significant element in the more extreme sects ofProtestantism The Savior God is pitted against the natural God and before millions of television viewers the Savior God prevails (p 119) Roman Catholic scholar Ronald Knoxs work Enthusiasm (Oxford 1950) remains a classic study ofthis subject Even the desire to speak in tongues as if the biblical idea of tongues was a super-natural language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natural human language in a direct spiritual encounter of immediate ecstasy Although the biblical writers were well aware of this practice ofecstatic utterances in pashygan religion they did not use the Greek word for this practice but instead chose glossai (lit languages) leading us to conclude that tongues refers in the New Testament to known earthly speech

The outer edges ofPentecostalism are especially blashytant in Gnostic emphases as a number of works have shown including The Agony of Deceit 13 Salvation is knowledge-Revelation Knowledge (Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Hagin Paul Crouch and other faith

the author himself applauds the Gnostic tendency Bloom concludes of this group To know also that one is completely free-the Emersonian Wildness-because ones solitude is shared with the Holy Spirit carries the rapture to a Sublime elevation And though Assemblies of God theology is officially trinitarian in praxis the Pentecostal knows only Oneness and calls the Holy Spirit by the name ofJesus not the Jesus ofthe Gospels or even the Christ of Paul but the American Jesus a Penteshycostal like oneself 14 (It is worth noting that the Assemblies of God were involved in a rift within Pentecostalism over this very point siding with the orshythodox doctrine of the Trinity over Oneness Pentecostals)

For those of us who were raised in fundamentalist evangelical or pentecostal sects the experience of reshybirth comes neither through the Word ofthe Gospel nor through the water of Baptism but through a Spirit Bapshytism that is direct and immediate The Word is primarily seen as an instrument for coaxing the individual into accepting the new birth The new birth especially if one judges by the testimonies ofconverts is not so much the result of hearing with human ears in human words a declaration of things that happened in human history In short it is not so much the preaching ofthe Cross but the preaching of my personal relationship with Jesus the day when Jesus came into my heart that is central Lee again Whereas classical Calvinism had held that the Christians assurance of salvation was guaranteed only through Christ and his Church with his means ofgrace now assurance could be found only in the personal expeshyrience ofhaving been born again This was a radical shift for Calvin had considered any attempt to put conversion in the power of man himself to be gross popery In fact

Rebirth in God is the exact opposite ofrebirth into a new and more acceptable self as the selfshyEven the desire to speak in tongues as if the acclaimed born again Christians would see the event (pp 144255) biblical idea of tongues was asuper-natural

Norman Vincent Peale exploited the peace of mind craze earlier this century a movement that borrowed its capital from Transhy

language unknown to mortals shows the desire to escape even natutal human language in adirectj scendentalism directly Nevertheless the

liberal Peale was hailed as a great evangelist by spiritu81 encounte of immediate ecstasy evangelical Billy Graham and was asked to parshy

teachers use the upper case to distinguish this from mere written revelation) The Word that truly saves is not the written text of Scripture proclaiming Christ the Reshydeemer but is rather the Rhema Word that is spoken directly to the spirit by Gods Spirit Bloom writes Paul was arguing against Corinthian Enthusiasts or Gnostics and yet I wonder why his strictures have not discouraged American Pentecostals more than they seem to have donePentecostalism is American shamanism although

ticipate in the crusades Lee once again notes the tie that binds For both of them Christianity is understood from a gnostic point ofview The real world with which religion has to do is the world within (p 199) This is not to suggest that Billy Graham is a liberal Rather it is to argue that in our day Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

Also in terms of their views of Christ liberals and evangelicals reveal a common Gnostic tendency While the liberals divided the Jesus of History (a normal Jew

10 JULYAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

who lived in first -century Palestine) from the Christ of Faith (resurrected God-Man) proclaiming that the Spirit of Christ lives and calls us into vital communion even though his body is not raised evangelicals often seem to worship the spirit of Jesus apart from his hushymanity Jesus in my heart at the end of the day is more important for personal Christian experience piety and worship than Jesus in history Although evangelicals inshysist on a historical resurrection as a matter of official creed in actual practice one wonders why it is imporshytant if the spirit ofJesus is in ones heart After all no one believes that Jesus takes up physical residence in ones heart so what can we mean by asking Jesus into our heart other than inviting his spirit Little is said of the biblical notion that it is~the Holy Spirit who unites us not to the spirit ofJesus in our hearts but to the God-Man in heaven according to both his divine and human natures

In Gnosticism not only the object of faith (Christ) but the act of faith becomes radically revised In Chrisshytianity faith is trust in Gods specific promise ofsalvation through Christ In Gnosticism faith is magic It is a technique for getting what we want by believing in it strongly enough As C Peter Wagner an advocate of the Vineyard movement puts it Empirical evidence also validates the absolute necessity of faith or whatever else you want to call it-possibility thinking or goal setshyting-as a prerequisite for church growth15 Is faith really a synonym for possibility thinking and goal setshyting Then would not everyone possess faith Or is faith a unique gift from God to trust in Christ as in biblical teaching The Second Helvetic Confession (a 16th censhytury Reformed statement) declares Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles Creed and thus also of God himself the greatest good and especially of Gods promise and of Christ who is the fulfillment of all promises

But Wagners worldview is also dominated by the Gnostic fascination with dualism between Light and Darkness as spiritual warfare takes on an increasingly super-spiritual preoccupation Like Frank Perettis novshyels this popular view of spiritual warfare in which individual believers decide the outcome of battles beshytween good angels and bad angels is too close to Manichaean Gnosticism for comfort

The Gnostic revolution has been demonstrating its elasticity in recent years in the spirituality of the baby boomers whose interest in the sacred has been celshyebrated in national periodicals the study of which has become something of a cottage industry Wade Clark Roof sampled a wide variety of seekers For instance Sonny DAntonio raised Roman Catholic considers

himself a believer but not a belonger The material parts of the church turned me off he says (p 18) Mollie Stone raised a Pentecostal tried Native American spirishytuality then Quakerism for its inner peace and is turned on to Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovshyery groups although she is not herself an alcoholic or related to one As for churches Creeds and doctrines divide people she says (p 23) Roof observes The distinction between spirit and institution is of major

COMPARE amp CONTltRAST Who can say [ have keptmy heart pure [ amciean a11d without sin Prov 209

[At a Campus Crusade staff retreat] middot hundreds came forward to kneel and pray Their lovk for Christ had prompted tl1em to join the staff in the first plate Now they were demonstrating their desire to continue in their ministry with pure hearts free ofsin filled with th~ Holy Spirit The response was unanimous Bill Bright The Coming Rtpivai

Our own ag~ has certain Ana6~piists whofeign thatJnBaptism Gods people are reborn into a pure and angelic life unsullied by any carnal filth But ifafter baptismanyone falls away they leave him nothing but Gods inexQrablejudgment In short to the sinner who has lapsed after receiving grace they hold out no hope of pardon For they recognize no other forgiveness of sins than that by which they were first reborn John Calvin The Institutes ofthe Christian Religion

importance Although Roof does not point to Gnostishycism his studies mark undeniable parallels Spirit is the inner experiential aspect of religion institution is the outer established form of religion This distinction is increasingly pertinent because ofthe strong emphasis on self in contemporary culture and the related shift from objective to subjective ways of ordering experience (p 30) Religion is too restricting but spirituality offers a way ofplugging into the divine with the correct spiritual technology Roof explains As a computer programmer who happens to be an evangelical put it without any prompting on our part We all access God differently (p 258)

The whole point ofChristianity however is that one cannot access God at all He must come to us through a personal Word (God in flesh) and a written Word (Scripture) and when we do come to him it must be through Christ and we come to Christ through the orshydained means It might offend the Gnostic and narcissistic individualism of our age but we do not all access God differentli

Roof refers to the Outer and Inner Worlds the former suspect while the latter is always respected Dishyrect experience is always more trustworthy iffor no other reason than because of its inwardness and withinshyness-two qualities that have come to be much

JULYAUGUST 1995 11

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

modernR EFORMATION

the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

who lived in first -century Palestine) from the Christ of Faith (resurrected God-Man) proclaiming that the Spirit of Christ lives and calls us into vital communion even though his body is not raised evangelicals often seem to worship the spirit of Jesus apart from his hushymanity Jesus in my heart at the end of the day is more important for personal Christian experience piety and worship than Jesus in history Although evangelicals inshysist on a historical resurrection as a matter of official creed in actual practice one wonders why it is imporshytant if the spirit ofJesus is in ones heart After all no one believes that Jesus takes up physical residence in ones heart so what can we mean by asking Jesus into our heart other than inviting his spirit Little is said of the biblical notion that it is~the Holy Spirit who unites us not to the spirit ofJesus in our hearts but to the God-Man in heaven according to both his divine and human natures

In Gnosticism not only the object of faith (Christ) but the act of faith becomes radically revised In Chrisshytianity faith is trust in Gods specific promise ofsalvation through Christ In Gnosticism faith is magic It is a technique for getting what we want by believing in it strongly enough As C Peter Wagner an advocate of the Vineyard movement puts it Empirical evidence also validates the absolute necessity of faith or whatever else you want to call it-possibility thinking or goal setshyting-as a prerequisite for church growth15 Is faith really a synonym for possibility thinking and goal setshyting Then would not everyone possess faith Or is faith a unique gift from God to trust in Christ as in biblical teaching The Second Helvetic Confession (a 16th censhytury Reformed statement) declares Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the Scriptures and in the Apostles Creed and thus also of God himself the greatest good and especially of Gods promise and of Christ who is the fulfillment of all promises

But Wagners worldview is also dominated by the Gnostic fascination with dualism between Light and Darkness as spiritual warfare takes on an increasingly super-spiritual preoccupation Like Frank Perettis novshyels this popular view of spiritual warfare in which individual believers decide the outcome of battles beshytween good angels and bad angels is too close to Manichaean Gnosticism for comfort

The Gnostic revolution has been demonstrating its elasticity in recent years in the spirituality of the baby boomers whose interest in the sacred has been celshyebrated in national periodicals the study of which has become something of a cottage industry Wade Clark Roof sampled a wide variety of seekers For instance Sonny DAntonio raised Roman Catholic considers

himself a believer but not a belonger The material parts of the church turned me off he says (p 18) Mollie Stone raised a Pentecostal tried Native American spirishytuality then Quakerism for its inner peace and is turned on to Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovshyery groups although she is not herself an alcoholic or related to one As for churches Creeds and doctrines divide people she says (p 23) Roof observes The distinction between spirit and institution is of major

COMPARE amp CONTltRAST Who can say [ have keptmy heart pure [ amciean a11d without sin Prov 209

[At a Campus Crusade staff retreat] middot hundreds came forward to kneel and pray Their lovk for Christ had prompted tl1em to join the staff in the first plate Now they were demonstrating their desire to continue in their ministry with pure hearts free ofsin filled with th~ Holy Spirit The response was unanimous Bill Bright The Coming Rtpivai

Our own ag~ has certain Ana6~piists whofeign thatJnBaptism Gods people are reborn into a pure and angelic life unsullied by any carnal filth But ifafter baptismanyone falls away they leave him nothing but Gods inexQrablejudgment In short to the sinner who has lapsed after receiving grace they hold out no hope of pardon For they recognize no other forgiveness of sins than that by which they were first reborn John Calvin The Institutes ofthe Christian Religion

importance Although Roof does not point to Gnostishycism his studies mark undeniable parallels Spirit is the inner experiential aspect of religion institution is the outer established form of religion This distinction is increasingly pertinent because ofthe strong emphasis on self in contemporary culture and the related shift from objective to subjective ways of ordering experience (p 30) Religion is too restricting but spirituality offers a way ofplugging into the divine with the correct spiritual technology Roof explains As a computer programmer who happens to be an evangelical put it without any prompting on our part We all access God differently (p 258)

The whole point ofChristianity however is that one cannot access God at all He must come to us through a personal Word (God in flesh) and a written Word (Scripture) and when we do come to him it must be through Christ and we come to Christ through the orshydained means It might offend the Gnostic and narcissistic individualism of our age but we do not all access God differentli

Roof refers to the Outer and Inner Worlds the former suspect while the latter is always respected Dishyrect experience is always more trustworthy iffor no other reason than because of its inwardness and withinshyness-two qualities that have come to be much

JULYAUGUST 1995 11

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

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still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

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I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

appreciated in a highly expressive narcissistic culture (p 67) But it is the surveys themselves that bear the greatest interest Fifty-three percent of the Boomers said it was laquomore important to be alone and to meditate than to worship with others (p 70) But this was as true for many evangelicals as New Agers Linda one respondent

In our dayt Gnosticism unites more than orthodox Christianity divides

an evangelical who likes James Dobson and believes that America is in moral trouble tells us You dont have to go to church I think the reason I do is because it helps me to grow Its especially good for my family to teach them the good and moral things (p 105) In other words the church imparts knowledge not of sin and salvation by Christs atonement butby practical techniques for Chrisshytian living It is purely narcissistic and individualistic as well as moralistic The church that will get the vote of the seeker then is the church that offers (and delivers) more gnosis-saving techniques and secret formulae-than others In fact according to Roofs surveys 80 percent of Americans believe an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent ofany churches or synagogues (p 256) Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement People have God within them so churches arent really necessary Right to the point the question taps two views common to spiritual seekers one an immanent as opposed to a transhyscendent view of God and two an anti-institutional stance toward religion The results Sixty percent of seekers view God in this mystical sense (p 84) The mystical seekers spiritualityis rooted more in their own biographies and experiences than in any grand religious narrative that purports to provide answers for all times and in all places and this blends easily with secular or pagan modes of thought (p 85) In Christianity it is Christs crisis experience on a Roman scaffold outside center-city Jerusalem in Gnosticism it is Lindas crisis experience that counts

If experience is most trustworthy and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of a religion are downplayed (Heart Knowledge overHead Knowledge) what is to keep us from another Dark Ages of gross superstition Belief in ESP astrology and reincarnation is actually highest among college graduates says Roof (p 71) The unknown God of ancient Greece turns out to be not so distant from the spirituality of the nineties As Roof puts it even thegod ofevangelicals is amorphous and undeshyfined This God is thought of in very human terms God as it were is created in ones own image and one might add God is created in ones own experience Even the evangelicals Roof notes put a strong emphasis on

the moral aspects of faith over cognitive belief The American Religion is united in its affirmation that Its not so much what you believe or which religion you follow its how you live (p 186) Jesus is not as much a Savior as a moral Hero Teacher and Guide for the gnostikoi- those in the knowNot just dropouts but many loyalists and returnees speak of Jesus in a way that is vague theologically but morally uplifting Theologishycal language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations If there is one theme throughout that characterizes the languages of boomer faith it is the subjectivist character of the affirmations I feel I have foundI believe (p 203)

One thing that needs to be said before concluding this article is that the critique of Gnosticism should not (indeed must not) down-play the necessity of a living personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ However it is given by the Holy Spirit not attained by us We do not appropriate salvation and the gifts of the Spirit the Spirit confers Christ and all of his blessings to the believer in communion with the whole church While we focus on the objective content of the Faith (Christ and him crucified and raised for our salvation) we must not in reaction jett ison the subjective applicashytion of redemption In any ase we must always keep in mind that our friendship with God (which is a wondershyful promise in the Go el) is expressed in joyful obediencenot in the nar -i_ i t ic pursuit ofintimacy as an end in itself

In the next article I an to relate all of this backshyground-much of i i - n the theoretical language

and tedious descri ~ io~-to the practical issues of

Christian life and wor ~ deg I al 0 want to offer a way outbull

of the Gnostic m aze ~

Michael S Horton is the pres e- 2 ~ o gt s U ITED for REFORMATION Educated at Biola University and Wa s - 56 - - ca l Seminary Michael is a Ph D candishydate at Wycliffe Hall Ox rd a- - 6 ersily of Coventry and is the authoreditor0

of eight books including 7 e bull -s $ Deceit Made in America The Shaping of American Evangelica lism p ~ bull -az-g Back Into Grace and Beyond Culture Wars (1995 Gold Medalli - C ~ = - 3~ 1lt olthe Year for Christianity amp Society)

5 Marylin Ferguson The bull ~ _E i~ lt -a cy (New York SI Martins 1987) p 120 Claiming the Gnostics b nae is -~ o s~aes like that of the founding fathers and 01 the American Transcendental ts oe - j- the dream of the Aquarian Conspiracy in America is a framewo rk lor no-- = middot - ex - sion autonomy awakening creativity-and reconciliation The move e a ()C eate hierarchical structures and is averse to dogma She says By in egla r - 2 - a d science art and technology it will succeed where all the king s horses an a e middot r 5 men have failed 6 Cited in Vernon L Parn 9t e q~~ - c Revolution in America vol 2 of Main Currents in American Thought ( ew Y aJ 9race 1959) pp 441-2 7 Emerson Journals ed E I Ore 0 1 5 p 288 8 Ibid vol 8 p 316 9 Cited in Lee p 104 10 Martin Marty The Righteous Em ( ew York Dial 1970) pp 184-7 11 Cited in Lee p 155 12 James D Hunter American E-a E ca r Conservative Religion and the Quandry of Modernity (New Brunswick Ru tg ers U er ty Press 1983) p 75 13 See The Agony of Deceit ed Aic ael Horton (Chicago Moody Press 1991) 14 Harold Bloom The American Regon The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster 1993) p 77 15 Cited in Lee p 210

12 J U LYA U G U ST 1995 modern R EFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

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still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

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I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON

icans are often accused by foreigners ofexpressing a ~gr sy familiarity even with people they have met for tLL~t time Similarly there is a greasy familiarity inshyherent to Gnosticism based on the belief that we have direct and immediate access to God whenever and howshyever we want Whenever the children in the public school pray to whomever and however God has to hear and whenever sincere people gather in a building to worship according to their own personal tastes and opinions

God is im pressed that we took the time and cared enough to worship from our hearts It was real and we were vulnerable honest before God Greasy familiarity

Calvinism is the fundamental enemy of the Amerishycan Religion This is argued in nearly every recent work on the subject Harold Bloom cites Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Presbyterian scholar J Gresham Machen as two major antagonists of American Gnosticism Simishylarly Anne Douglas Philip Lee and Wade Clark Roof

flanked by a host of historians all argue that the repudiation ofCalvinism led to the femishynization of religion and culture

Ann Douglas professor of English at Harvard and Columbia University in her latshyest book on New York City in the 1920s writes

Calvinism had suffered the most specshytacular defeat in the history of American religious life The Calvinists liberal nineshyteenth-century descendants insisted that God was less a father than a mother an indulgent Parent (the term is that of the clergyman Noah Worcester) offering love forgiveness and nurture to all who seek Him The Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell known as the American Schleiermacher explained that true relishygious experience meant falling back into Gods arms pressed to the divine breast even as a child in the bosom of its mother

JULY IAUGUST 19 9 5 13

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

modernR EFORMATION

the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

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still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

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I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

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a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

God she says became well behaved even domestic1 In her provocative book The Feminization ofAmerican Culture Douglas demonstrates that Calvinism was unshyseated by an Arminian and Gnostic tidal-wave that refused to believe any longer in the value of matter the depravity of the self helplessness in salvation total deshypendence on divine sovereignty freedom or mercy Just as the mainline evangelicals failed to stand by J Gresham Machen in his struggle for the Presbyterian Church durshying the 20s and only rose up in defiance when theological error finally created moral compromises many of to days evangelicals are ready to attack the blashytant Gnosticism of Sophia worship in the mainline churches while less obvious but equally disastrous forms ofGnosticism plague the evangelical world itself 2

nique has shoved aside heavy truth and where pragmashytism an intuitive immediate flash of insight way of problem-solving is valued over wisdom an accumushylated wealth of insights from the family the church and books from those who have long since passed from this world It is a lightness and rootlessness that is apparent in the replacement of neighborhoods with planned tracts of homogeneous quickly erected cheap homes with imitation marble brick and other light and inexpensive replicas of heavy things It is seen in the superficiality of our conversation in the suspicion of tradition institushytions and authority

In the church we see this lightness of being even in the architecture The church growth movement mergshying these Gnostic influences with marketing rids

churches of all of that heavy stuff The buildshying is designed for utility not for worship Regardless of the denomination the American The goal is to create an atmosphere of neushytrality and comfort for the people not toReligion is invard deeply distrustful of institutions evoke a sense of divine transcendence for worshippers After all Its just a building Gone too are the sharp lines rough edges

mediated grace the intellect theologycreeds and the delnand to look outside of oneselffor salvation carved wood and heavy furniture (especially

It would seem that the critics of modern American religion are basically on target in describing the entire religious landscape from New Age or liberal to evanshy

- gelical and Pentecostal as essentially Gnostic Regardless of the denomination the American Religion is inward deeply distrustful of institutions mediated grace the intellect theology creeds and the demand to look outside ofoneself for salvation This of course has enormous implications for the Christian life and worshyship as well as theology

In this article we will first pursue the major Gnostic trends in Christian worship then analyze these trends in the light of Scripture concluding with suggestions for disentangling ourselves

A Lightness afBeing Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) predicted that the death ofGod- that is the end ofany serious theologishycal consciousness in Western society would lead to a rain ofgods a combination of nihilism (belief in nothshying cynical despair) and a new Buddhism By turning from the external (God the world other selves an obshyjective and historical atonement and resurrection) to the internal spirit Americans especially have created an atmosphere of incredible lightness an airy existence of anti-material spirit-like existence Jackson Lears speaks of the weightlessness of human existence in the modshyern world and David Wells has effectively made this point 3

We see this in the modern world where light tech-

the pulpit and communion table) for they cannot as easily be moved out of the way to make room on the stage for the performers This lightness is further served by the church growth worship committees decishysion to not only get rid of the rough masculine edges of the architecture and bathe the stage in warm mauve and turquoise light but to get rid of the Word sacraments and discipline-the very marks ofa true church In fact Newsweek reported some months back that a Lutheran Church in Phoenix had managed to pare the service down to twenty minutes simply by getting rid of the sermon and the sacraments

Most contemporary evangelical churches do not go this far with the church growth emphasis but the general trend is toward a different tone a different content and a different goal Traditionally the goal of the Protestant sermon was to afford an opportunity for God himself to address his people through the Law and the Gospel The content therefore was driven by the divine command to preach the truth of Gods Word and to teach the people the great doctrines of Scripture Therefore the tone was dictated by the part of the divine address which the minister happened to be expounding In contemporary preaching the goal is to meet the felt needs of the self by providing spiritual technology and the tone is always therefore congenial happy informal and-above all friendly It has not been improperly described as church light and it is this lightness of being the weightlessness of it all that characterizes Gnosticism in every age

Take the communion ware for example It is no coincidence that the traditional Protestant churchesshy

14 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

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focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

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on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

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A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

the ones with heavy brick stone or wood sharp edges architecturally and a chancel instead of a stage-also tend to serve Communion in heavy chalices as part of a common cup with real wine Meanwhile the contemshy

J porary churches that are given to lightness in other areas offer individual light plastic cups to each person seated in the pew (or more likely theater seat) Even the large heavy pulpit Bible set aloft on the high heavy pulpit is substituted with the roaming D J who would not think of interrupting his intimacy with the audience by referring to a Bible and written sermon notes

Narcissistic Expressivism In art there is such a thing as German Expressionism In painting it is thick bold (even garish) strokes of bright reds and blacks depicting the nihilistic despair and anshyger of existentialism It is interesting but quite noisy

There is something similar in popular American culture When Alexis de Tocqueville a French commenshytator came to America in the early 19th century he observed of Americans To escape from imposed sysshytems is their goal and to seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward themSo each man is narrowly shut up in himself and from that basis makes the pretension to judge the worldThus the Americans have needed no books to teach them philosophic method having found it in themselves4

When this Gnostic individualism and narcissism (self-worship) met 19th century Romanticism and Transcendentalism the expressive selfwas center-stage After all Emerson declared of himself I see all the currents of the universe being circulated through me I am a part and parcel of God Walt Whitman added his narcissistic anthem The Song of Myself But when Transcendentalism met the 20th century therapeutic revolution nothing would ever be the same again We see this in its most banal form in the TV talk-show where self-expression is the goal of everyone from the host to the guests and the audience equally Everyone believes that his or her own personal feelings on the subject are more valuable than the collective intellectual wisdom of the ages

In many ways the church is becoming patterned on this talk-show approach Recovery and self-help groups discipleship groups and other small groups are often more important than the worship service-which is unshyderstandable if the regular service is simply a larger gathering of these small groups We share our experishyences or our personal testimony and this often becomes

h the center of discourse Imagine telling such a group ~ Tm sorry to interrupt the time of sharing and fellowshy

ship but we wont be having testimonies anymore

Instead were going to talk about the historical saving acts ofGod especially the saving life atoning death and justifying resurrection ofJesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies these benefits through Word and sacrashyment We have been so transformed by this worlds way of thinking that the transformation of the mind by the Word will at first appear to be utterly unrecognizable

M AR TIN L8T1-1 E RON

TUE WORD amp THE SPIRIT t

1 exhort you to be on your gtI~rd against those noxious spirits who say man~cquires the HQIYSpirit by sitting Tn (1 qorner etc A hundred thousand devilsyovwill acquire and yqu will not come to God God has always worked with something physicaL Whenever He wanted to do something with usHe~id it through th~Wordan4 matters physical Nor can you givemeaniIlstance in which a persgt1 was made a Christian and received the Holy Spirit withoutsome- thing external Whence have our adversaries the knowledge that Christ is the Savior Did they notacquire this by reaclil1g by hearing They certainly did not get it directly from heav~lltlfeygot it from the Scdpture and the Word~ ~ Sermfn on Luke 222 1528

Observe how [Paul] extols and exalts Scripture and thewitness ofthe written Word by using and repeatingthe phrase accorctinglo the Scriptures He does so in the first place in order to restraiIlthe wild spirits who despise Scripture and public preaching and lookfor other private revelations instead Nowadays such spiriisare foUnd swarming everywhere deranged by the devil regarding Scripturea dead letter extolling nothing Qut the spirit and yet keeping neither

the Word nor the spirit Bul there you hear St Paul adducing Scripture ashis strongest witness and pointing out that there is

nothihg stable to support ourgoctrine and faith except the material otwritten Word put down inktters and preached verbally by him and others for it is clearly stated here Scripture Scripture

But Scripture is not pure spiritasthey sputter that the spirit alone must do it that Scripture isa dead letter and can give no life But it is like thi$ Although the letter does not in and of itself give life yet it must be there must be heard and received and the Holy Spirit mustwork throughjt in the heart and in and through the Word the heart must keep itself in faith against the devil and all temptation for if it wen~to let the Word goifwould soon entirely lose Christand the Spirit~ rherefore you had better not boast much ab0tltthe Spirit if youdoilPthave the visible external Word for it will surely nofbe a good spirit but the wretchedd~vil from hell Sermon on 1 Cor 15 1533

Giveatten9ance to reading (1 Tm 413) Why does he enjoin reading if the letter is a dead thing Listen to Christ Neitherpra)~ I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on Me thropgh their word Un 1720) The word here certainly mean~ the spoken or the written Word not the inner word Therefore the Word should be heard andread above all else It is a vehicle orthe Holy Spirit When the Word is read the Spirit is present Sermon on IJohn 513 1527

JULYAUGUST 1995 15

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

Like the Gnosticism of old the Song of Myself narcissism pervades modern thinking including the thinking of the church Since the church building itself is designed to make me comfortable and the liturgy and sermons are calculated to satisfy my self and the songs are increasingly centered around my feelings experishyences and longings it is not a very large step from there to the expressivism that marks so much of contemporary praise Some approaches are more modest insisting that individual selves be allowed to express themselves in their own unique (ie individual) way being vulnerable and honest before God Others push this narcissistic expressivism to the limits insisting that the expression of joy means unplanned services of emotional release through laughter roaring clapping dancing or exhibitshying other personal emotions Inhibitions are part of the carnal stifling of the spirit (they say it stifles the Holy Spirit but they really mean their own) Structured sershyvices are like physical structures and institutions words sacraments and doctrines in general Each self must be free to express its unique identity and exhibit the ecstasy of intimate immediate encounters with God

Close Encounters ofthe Very Worst Kind Ifwe could simply recover the apostolic and Reformation sense of divine sovereignty and transcendence much of contemporary Gnosticism would be recognized as heshyretical But just as liberalism was known for its emphasis on divine immanence (closeness) rather than his transhyscendence (otherness) evangelicalism has inherited that serious charge

Essential to this Gnostic orientation is the immeshydiacy of the divine-human relationship At the time of the Reformation Martin Luther contrasted the theolshyogy of glory (held by Roman Catholics and Anabaptists) with the theology ofthe cross (held by the apostles and the reformers) Every person Luther said is a mystic deep-down We all want to climb a ladder into Gods presence-whether its a ladder of experience and emotion or a ladder of merit (If you do this Ill do that steps to victory etc) or a ladder of speculation (Im going to figure God out apart from his public self-discloshysure in Scripture) Luther called this the human longing to see the naked God It is a theology ofglory because it despises the shameful humiliation ofChrists way ofsavshyingsinners-both his own humiliation and ours It is too high and lofty too spiritual to be satisfied with a Reshydeemer-God who became flesh a true human being suffered for our sins and rose again for our justification leaving us with his Holy Spirit and nothing but a book some water and some bread and wine But like Paul Luther determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified even though the super-apostles as Paul called the Gnostics in Corinth insisted on something higher

16 J ULYAUGUS T 1995

and more exciting (1 Cor 1 2)

We automatically assume that having a personal reshylationship with God is a good thing We invite people not so much to confess that they are helpless sinners spiritushyally dead and enemies ofGod who need to turn from self to rely on Christ alone for salvation but instead we push them more to enter into a personal relationship with God by experiencing a direct encounter of rebirth In Scripture it is not always a good thing to be close to God

As early as Genesis 3 we find the first couple created in Gods image fleeing from Gods presence The last thing they wanted was a personal relationship with God because their rebellion had placed them in a different relation to God Where he was before a close friend now he was an angry judge It was only when God caught up to them stripped them of their pretenses to righteousshyness (the fig leaves) and clothed them with the bloody skins ofan animal sacrifice (pointing forward to Christ) that they were no longer afraid of being close to God

Later Cain and Abel disagreed over worship-styles -Abel believed that it was dangerous to approach God in a way that was attractive comfortable or reasonable to the seeker and offered the first-born of his flock in sacshyrifice as God commanded in anticipation ofhis offering of his only-begotten Son Cain could not figure out why God would need a bloody sacrifice so he decided to be vulnerable and honest bringing God something better than that which he commanded He brought flowers and a fruit basket probably not unlike an FTD floral arshyrangement - When you care enough to send the very best But it was not what God commanded and Cain was rejected by God It was his jealousy for Abels accepshytance by God that Cain became the first persecutor ofthe church and Abel became its first martyr

At Mount Sinai after God led his people out of Egyptian bondage the Law was given to Israel God chose Israel not because of her righteousness but beshycause ofhis free mercy (Dt 94-6) No nation could own Yahweh or be owned by him apart from a formal arshyrangement-a covenant It was hardly as if God was everybodys friend and they just didnt know it yet God was the enemy of the nations and only befriended Israel by means of a covenant through earthly means ofgrace (Word and sacraments promising a coming Savior) Even Israel could not approach God on its own terms as we see at Mount Sinai God instructed Moses that as in any covenant or treaty a mediator was needed God did not have a personal relationship with each Israelite but was the father of the nation You must be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him (Ex 18 19) Notice the legal courtroom language here The people cannot relate to God directly they need a lawyer and Moses is that mediator Finally the people were fully assembled at the foot of the Mount

modern R EFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

modernR EFORMATION

the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

We read the account from Exodus

On the morning ofthe third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trum pet blast Everyone in the camp trembled Then Moses led the people out ofthe camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot ofthe mountain Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD deshyscended on it in fire The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace the whole mountain trembled violently and the sound ~fthetrumpetgrew louder and louder Then Moses spoke and the Voice of God anshyswered him The LORD descended to the top ofMount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain So Moses went up and the LORD said to him Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to seethe LORD and many ofthem perish (Ex 1916-22)

After God delivered the Ten Commandments at the top of the mountain Moses returned to the people beshylow When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke they trembled with fear They stayed at a distance and said to Moses Speak to us yourself and we will listen But do not have God speak to us or we will die (Ex 2018-19) First we learn that staying at a distance because of fear is the normal reaction to being in the presence of God Gnostics have no place for fear as Marcion declared the Old Testashyment God unloving and insufficiently warm and friendly They want a direct enshycounter and this kind of distance requiring a mediator is unbearable to them They want to be able to find God directly but here they are warned not to force their way through to see the LORD lestmany ofthem perishThe people were so conscious of the Creator-creature disshytinction not to mention their own sinfulness in the presence ofAbsolute Hoshyliness that they did not want a direct encounter They did not want a theology ofglory You speak to us and we will listen but do not have God speak to us or we will die So much for He walks with me and talks with me

Nadab and Abihu were Aarons pride and joy These two sons were consecrated to Gods service summa grads from seminary and their whole lives were devoted to the pious worship of God as Israels priests One day they decided in their great zeal to offer a ceremony that was not commanded So fire came out of the presence of the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD Moses then said to Aaron This is what the LORD spoke of when he said Among those who apshy

proach me I will show myself holy in the sight of all the people I will be honoredraquo Aaron remained silent (Lv 101-3) In this same text God demands You must distinguish between the holy and the common while the mystical tendency is to regard everything as sacred The self alone meditating on heavenly things is just as sacred as the public worship of God through Word and sacrament according to Gnosticism But Nadab and Abihu serve as lessons to us all God did not make allowshyances for sincerity But their heart was right was not a sufficient argument We recall how God killed Uzzah one of the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant when he stretched out his hand to keep the Ark from falling (1 Chr 139-13)

One ofthe best examples ofthe theology ofthe cross versus the theology of glory is found in Genesis 28 Jacobs Ladder Although in Sunday school we used to sing of this ladder as ifwe were climbing it the text itself says the very opposite In Jacobs dream God is standing at the top and angels are ascending and descending the ladder God is making all of the promises and all of the moves Jacobs response when he awoke is instructive He was afraid and said How awesome is this place

middot MartinLuther on HearingJipdSpeak To Us

People think If I could hear God speaking in His own Person would run so fast to hear Him that my feet would bleed If in formertirries ~Omeone had said I know of a place in the worldWhere God speaksandwhenyou arrive there you hear God Himself talking and if I had come there had seen a poor preacher baptize and preach and pepple had said This is the place there God is speaking throughthcent preacherhe is teachingGodsWord-then I no doubt would have

said Ha thave takenpains to com~ here and I see only a minister We ltshQul~ )ike to have God speak with us in HisMaje~ty but I advise you Do not gbtl1ere

So experience certainly teaches If He weret9 speak in His majesty you would see what a running would begin as therea MouniSirtai where after all only the angels spoke yet the mountain smoked ancl trembled But now you have the Word of God in church in books in your home andthiis as certainly Gods Word as if God Himself Were speaking Sermon on John 4 1540

This is none other than the house ofGod this is the gate of heavenraquo Thus he named the spot Beth El The House of God When we come to the New Testament Jesus makes the bold announcement laquoYou shall see greater things than that He then added I tell you the truth you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son ofMan On 1 50shy51) Jesus was Jacobs ladder He was Beth El the House of God the temple that would be destroyed and then rebuilt (raised) after three days Throughout the Scripshytures God is only approachable through a human mediator and he only saves in human history using human words and physical earthly elements Those who

J U LYAUG UST 19 95 17

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

modernR EFORMATION

the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

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still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

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I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

attempt to worship God in their own way find him as much a consuming fire in the New Testament as in the Old (Heb 1229) But thats the Old Testament Gnostics will say Yes but while much changes in the administration of the covenant between the two testashyments one thing remains the same The covenant of grace still requires a mediator We cannot approach God directly Just as God struck down Nadab and Abihu so he killed Ananias and Saphira in his presence (Acts 5 1-11)

As Jesus was Jacobs ladder so he is the true Ark of the Covenant but even the social rif- raf could say of himThatwhich was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this we proshyclaim concerning the Word of life (1 J n 1 1-2) Unlike Uzzah they could touch him and live Johns epistle written especially against the ancient Gnostics who deshynied that God could actually become flesh (good Spirit vs evil matter) announces that the God who could not be seen without the experience leading to the death ofthe viewer was in fact heard seen and touched- not by our spiritual ascent but by Gods physical descent It is not by our escaping the earthly physical historical realm in an ascent to Glory but by Gods descent in flesh that many could see God and live Even Moses could not see God and live Furthermore if Moses was a good mediator between God and Israel though he was a sinner himself surely someone who was himselfboth God (the offended judge) and man (the offending race) could perfectly and savingly represent sinners

If God had been formed in Marys virgin womb without a fully human nature Mary could not have surshyvived the experience If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash But instead prostishytutes approach him thieves repent and sinners eat with him In the Gospel of John we see God playing the barshytender at a wedding reception On 2 3) and screaming in outrage over the unnatural horror of death On 1138shy44) Gnostics would have read these texts in utter disgust First Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorshyrence of the world Further for the Gnostic death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison-house of the body It was hardly something to lament The resurrection of the body was for the Gnosshytic hell rather than heaven

He who has seen me Jesus declared has seen the Father On 149) Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation by types and shadows not by direct enshycounters It was by the historical incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of

18 JULY IAUGUST 1995

this God-Man through the prescribed means of grace (Word and sacrament) that they can expect a father rather than a judge The naked God that Luther said inspired the mystics was actually the consuming fire (Heb 1228) and the only way of finding salvation inshystead of judgment was through the clothed God Jesus Christ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life Jesus declared in John 6 to the bewildershyment ofhis audience as well as Johns (primarily Greeks) What a crude earthly religion So much for ascending the heights through super-spiritual encounters If one is to be saved one must accept the death of individualism inwardness emotional and experiential ladders of ecshystasy merit and speculation Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for [Gnostic] wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power ofGod and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 123)

The Way Out ofGnosticism Gnosticism became such a great threat to the ancient church because it appealed to the felt needs of a Greek culture basically reinterpreting Christianity in the light of pagan philosophy St Augustine and others who beshycame Christians in that time and place repudiated the Gnosticism they had once whole-heartedly embraced and for many of them the influences continued to linger until their death Similarly we have reconstructed Chrisshytianity as a system ofpsychological well-being and moral uplift The necessity ofearthly means ofgrace (word and sacrament) has been rendered unintelligible by a mystishycal spirituality in which the self has direct immediate access to God Not only are words despised in our culshyture (and in our church-culture) the Word-Jesus Christ the God Man who mediates between the sinful creature and a holy God- is seen more as the Master the Guide the Example for the selfs intimate relationship with and experience of God Like those who gave up everything-including what they perceived as relshyevance-in order to tell the truth we too must repent of our worldliness our accommodation to the spirit of the age

To do this we must first recapture the great battleshycries of the Reformation First Scripture Alone We do not find God in our hearts in our experience or in our ideas He finds us and the way he finds us is through printed speeches that by the power of the Holy Spirit become words of life raising us from spiritual death This means that we have to study the Word of God understand the great acts of God in history and their redemptive significance and accept them as the only way of entering into a personal and communal relationshyship with God An exclusively subjective and inward

modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

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on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

focus should be regarded as a sin just like adultery and murder of which we must repent

Second Christ Alone We must reject the Amerishycan Religion with its belief in God -a uniquely American deity who has no theological definition Whether worshipped by the liberals as the Benevolent Spirit or by evangelicals as the mas-

race When Melanchthon Luthees side-kick became too introspective and inward the great reformer would remind him Melanchthon the Gospel is completely outside ofyou The greattruth of justification is that all of our righteousness before God is external-a iustitia alienum or alien righteousness It does not inhere

cot for America and moral virtue or Vemust reJe e(~t the itmericanRelioion with its belief in God by charismatics as the power-source ~ for higher spiritual experience this auniquely AUlerican deity vho has no theological definitionidol must be pulled from every high Vhethel vorshipl)ed blIrthe liberals as the ~Benevolent Spiritplace When we say we believe in

God we (I mean orthodox Chrisshy 01 bIIY evanoelicals as the mascot for AUlerica and ulolal viItuetians) are talking about none other ~ than the Trinitarian God who is or by charismatics as thepowermiddotsour(~e for higher spiritual known only in Jesus Christ Apart bull the ed I t b II d f he h I from Christ there is no intimacy experiencemiddot IS I 0 mus epu erom every Ig p ace with Godbut only fear of judgment In his Harvard address Emerson declared that one of the errors of Christianity is its noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus The spirit of Jesus is clouded by an emphasis on his historical identity he said The soul knows no such persons for Jesus taught faith in the infinitude of man As Roger Lundin observes Emerson rejected Communion for this reason since as Emerson put it it tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God This focus on Christ places a second God between us and God Jesus

- =- becomes our mediatornot in the sense that he commushynicates his saving work to us but by communicating saving knowledge (gnosis) in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God and man-that is an Instructor ofmanHe teaches us howto become like God5 We must reject this orientation

Third Grace Alone As a rambunctious kid I used to try to defythe escalator atthe mall by running up the down escalator but as the saying goes the faster I went the behinder I got Jacobs Ladder is a one-way escalator and it moves from God to us not from us to God We are not saved by being born again by finding God by making Jesus this or that by finding the right techniques for conversion or by surrender but by Christs surrender for us outside center-city Jerusalem so long ago This is applied to us not by our pushing the right buttons but by God graciously condescending to give us life and all of Christs benefits while [we] were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 15)

Fourth Faith Alone We are justified-declared righteous-before God because of what Christ did for us and outside of us not because ofwhat we do or even because ofwhat the Holy Spirit does within us Matthew Fox repeating C J Jungs warning said one way to kill the soul is to worship a God outside you6 but Chrisshytianity insists that this was Satans first lie to the human

within us but is draped over us like a robe Not only is God outside of us all ofour righteousness and holiness that makes us acceptable before God is outside of us as well If we had been justified by love by conversion by being born again by something that happens inside of us we would have something to boast about-but not before God (Rom 42) The self is sinfuL unholy and ungrateful not innocent and needy Salvation can only come by looking outside of ourselves Many in our Roshymantic Gnostic culture will say Deep down so-and-so is a good person What they mean is If you get down into the souL the self the spirit of the person there is good in everyone The real Me is good whatever my actions might suggest otherwiseYet the innocent self is a pagan myth But she has a good heartwe often hear Our hearts however are more sinful than our bodies for they have already committed sins that have not yet requi red the compliance of our hands (Jer 179 and Mk 10 11)

The fifth battle-cry is To God Alone Be Gloryshyan exclamation of praise more than a battle-cry Gnosticism as we have seen is a powerful rival worldview to Christianity The innocent self (the soul or spirit) was thrown into chaos (matter history time) and salvation comes through learning the techniques rules steps and secrets for escaping this material world By contrast Calvin declared The world is the theater of Gods glori While the Gnostics viewed salvation as a contest between the Good God of Spirit and the Bad God of Matter Calvin warned The Manichees [medishyeval Gnostics] made the devil almost the equal of God (1131) like a tug-of-war between God and the devil Although Luther had an acute sense ofSatans activity he declared The devil is Gods devil Like the ancient fathers the reformers would have seen todays spiritual warfare emphasis as a revival ofManichaean Gnosticism

JUL YAUG U S T [ 995 19

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

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on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

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the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

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BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

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I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

Against Anabaptist and monastic escapism Calvin called for worldly activity Secular callings considered sub-spiritual and less than Gods best in the medieval worldview were deemed noble and godly God created the world and upholds it by his sovereign power If God is in charge and this is his world who are we to despise it Lee argues that Calvinism represents a universal proshygram of serving a sovereign God through worldly activity and this is reflected in its contribution to educashytion the arts and humanities business law and human rights and in the rise of modern science

Through the Enlightenment we lost our belief in Gods sovereignty and in his involvement in the daily affairs of natural existence It was as if God went on holishyday after creating the world and hooked the universe up to a machine something like automatic pilot Pentecostalism at least in part represents a Gnostic reacshytion to this worldview but instead of proclaiming Gods involvement with the natural world (ie providence) it has bet all of its chips on Gods super-natural activity against the natural world (ie miracle as they conceive it) We must recover the doctrine ofprovidence and with it the sovereignty of God

Furthermore if we are to truly repent of the idolashytries we must reform our worship accordingly or as the Baptist put itproduce fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt 38)

First like the ancient fathers and the reformers we must reform the public worship of God according to the Word St Paul warned against the godlessness of the last days when men will be lovers of themselves having a form of religion but denying its power (2 Tm 35) The power of true religion is the cross and it must be the center of our worship again But just as Gnosticism can create a form of religion while denying its power it can have power (so-called) while denying its form In Gnosticism form (like matter structure and institushytions) is earthly and unspiritual Whenever we hear that the form of worship is merely a matter of taste or style and is therefore neutral it is the voice of Gnosticism Christianity not only prescribes the substance of relishygion but its form The first of the Ten Commandments requires us to worship the correct God the second that we worship this God correctly The way we worship is not neutral as Nadab and Abihu learned after their innovashytive worship experience

Word and sacrament must be recovered Philip Lee pleads The unsettling truth is that no generation can simply inherit orthodoxy from a previous one Orthoshydoxy must be consciously sought and achieved by a determined Church engaged in an active struggle with itself (p 218) Recent studies have shown that medieval Gnosticism prevailed in regions where the preaching was of the poorest quality What is required at present is

20 JU L Y I AUG U S T I 9 9 5

nothing at all like a crusade or a witch hunt for we are not contending against flesh and blood What could be more Protestant than to begin a new reformation with the preaching ofthe Word But this is not the preaching ofany 01 word but the Word of Law judging our selfshyrighteousness and the Word of Gospel offering us Christs righteousness The preaching within a Chrisshytian congregation if it is to be the preaching ofgrace will be liturgical preaching That is it will not be a lecture an educational experience a talking about the Gospel but rather a sermon (a word) a worshipful experience a talking from the Gospel (p 224) The people will hear the Voice ofGod as they did at Mount Sinai but they will also hear his Voice from Mount Calvary

Just as the word replaced the idea or image in the ancient Christian witness and at the time of the Reforshymation we will have to recover the word at a time when our culture is increasingly illiterate and bored by words Jacques Elluls The Humiliation of the Word and Neil Postmans Amusing Ourselves To Death can help us think through these issues Just as the Reformation refused to capitulate a religion of the Book to the image-based culshyture of the medieval world and ended up in the process creating a print-oriented culture a new Reformation must stick to its guns when it comes to the priority of the word preached and read come what may Therein we will find healing for our souls

If the Word is recovered the sacraments must be as well Calvin wanted the Lords Supper to be celebrated at least once a week and preferred that it be given every time the Word is preached It is the reformers _said following Augustine the visible Word and although we cannot see or touch God in the person 00esus Christ as did the disciples we can feed on his true body and blood through bread and wine Communion is not as Gnostics new and old have held an unnecessary hinshydrance to spiritual worship but its ordained means Nor is it a mere memorial designed to move the emotions and excite the inner piety of the self It is in fact not mans action but Gods It is God giving his Son for the life of his people the actual experience of the forgiveness of sins the actual fellowship or participation in the true body and blood of Christ Through it with the Word and by his Spirit he actually gives us what he promises in the Gospel The same Jesus who said his flesh is true food and his blood true drink (Jn 6) also declared in his institution of the Supper This is my body broken for you Take and eat Taking the cup he said This is my blood of the new covenant (Mt 2628) Through Word and sacrament the believer-in connection with the whole church ofall ages-is linked to the same Mediator who walked on the shores of Galilee healing the sick raising the dead and forgiving sins

Paul demanded of the Corinthians who trampled

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on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

modernR EFORMATION

the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

on this sacred feast Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ And is not the bread that we break a participashytion in the body of Christ Drawing out the implications of this Paul attacked the individualism and narcissism of Corinthian worship influenced by the Gnostic super-apostles Because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10 16-18) The Shepherd of Herrnas an ancient church epistle states that the Gnostics prefer a chair while the orthodox Christians prefer a couch Is the replacement of the pew with individual theater seats more than a coincidence Do we really believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church more than we beshylieve in self Are seekerservices drawing people away from self to Christ as a body of the redeemed Or are they actually oriented to collecting individual selvesshyconsumers-for the purpose ofprivate transformation Do we expect to meet with God in mystical individualshyistic encounters and experiences or in his appointed means ofgrace Do we really believe that God mediates his saving grace through simple earthly elements ofwashyter bread and wine and that his Word and Spirit take these ordinary elements and make them miraculous enshycounters with God on his terms Or are our spirits stifled by such things Does history matter Theology The preaching of the Word as the only avenue of divine speech

Next we will have to recover a doctrine of the Holy Spirit It was he who was involved in Creation (Gn 1 1shy2) who brings divine judgment and salvation throughout redemptive history and it was he who is sent by the Father and the Son to convince the world ofits sin and to bring sinners to repentance and faith On 165shy16) Ours is indeed the Age ofthe Spirit but that is not in opposition to matter institution sacraments or Word It is through these means that the Spirit reigns in the hearts and bodies ofmen and women He gives new life preserves believers in that life and sanctifies them The reformers were careful in keeping Word and Spirit toshygether in an indissoluble bond and we must recover that united emphasis It is the Spirit who makes the means of grace effective and apart from his work the church the Word and the sacraments have no more effect than addressing corpses in a cemetery

Finally reformation will require not only the recovshyery of Word and sacrament but as the reformers insisted church discipline as well Although the Lutherans did not emphasize this point as much as the Reformed both traditions insisted on recovering a genuine sense ofwhat it means to be catholic That does not mean Roman Catholic but catholic in the sense that Calvin meant when he said We cannot become acceptshyable to God without being united in one and the same

faith that is without being members of the Church7 Some evangelical groups are so suspicious ofinstitutions and structure that they do not even have church memshybership People come and go as they please and since Communion is just a time ofmeditation and self-reflecshytion there is no oversight of the Lords Table in spite of Pauls warning (1 Cor 10-11) Like Linda in Roofs studshyies (p 105) many evangelical boomers say that one does not have to go to church or derive ones beliefs within the church The church is merely a resource for personal and moral development From the gnostic point of view Lee writes the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit (p 158) Authority and structures can be abused by sinful pride and wrecklessness However the self is sinful as well and checks and balances must be placed on us all It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the independent sectarian spirit in American evangelicalism has shown itself to be the most divisive and anti -catholic force in the history of Christianity If we are to be biblical Christians not only must we apshyproach God correctly we must approach him together

If we come to the true God in his way through the cross and not through glory we will experience a richshyness and a depth of communion with God that is impossible through our towers of spiritual babel Our Mount Sinai will because of Mount Calvary be turned to Mount Zion

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness gloom and storm to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem the city of the living God to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood ofAbel Therefore sincewe are receivingakingshydom that cannot be shaken let us be thankful and so worship God acceptablywith reverence and awe for our Godisaconsumingfire (Heb 1218-29) f-gt

1 Anne Douglas Terrible Honesty Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1995) p 240 2 See Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg NJ Presbyterian and Reformed 1992) for a helpful popular survey of the wider cultural influences of Gnosticism particular in liberal cultural and ecclesiastical groups For our purposes we have focused on the Gnostic threat within evangelicalism 3 For the best exposition of the loss of transcendence in evangelical faith and practice see David F Wells God In The Wasteland (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1994) He offers surveys of evangelical clergy demonstrating widely-held beliefs in the innocence of the self and an inward experiential orientation 4 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy In America trans and ed by J P Mayer and G Lawrence (New York Harper and Row 1988) p 429 5 Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids Eerdmans 1993) This is a superb treatment of Romanticism and literary theory from a Christian perspective 6 Wade Clark Roof A Generation of Seekers The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco Harper Collins 1993) p 75 7 John Calvin commentary on Isaiah vol 2 p 45

JULYAUGUST 1995 21

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

modernR EFORMATION

the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

A Beachhead for Gnostic Influences BY KIM RIDDLEBARGER

e most difficult problems any theological tradishyne 0 t

tion faces is that there are often fundamental differences Qntical points between the official doctrine afshy

firmed by the divines and academics of that tradition and those doctrines actually believed and practiced on a popular level by the rank and file There is perhaps no greater illustration of this than the popular notion of trichotomy Rejected by virtually all major theoloshygians in all streams of the Christian tradition as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a Biblical conception trichotomy is very likely the reignshying notion of human nature in American Evangelical circles today With few exceptions the Christian church has affirmed with one voice that human nature is twoshyfold As men and women we are necessarily a body-the physical element of our nature and we are also a soul-spirit-an immaterial aspect described in the Bible as either soul or spirit These two are united together as one person as a psychosomatic unity This is simply known as dichotomy Trichotomists howshyever contend that human nature is tri-partite that is as men and women we are body soul and spirit But while the theologians of Evangelicalism following the hisshy

22 JU L Y AUG U S T I 9 9 5

toric precedence overwhelmingly reject the notion of trichotomy the popular teaching and literature of Evangelicalism abounds with trichotomistic views of human nature in one form or another

It is also no accident that the Gnostic impulse now so rampant in the quest for spirituality finds a readyshymade beachhead into Evangelical circles through the trichotomist view ofhuman nature If the Gnostic imshypulse is defined as a quest for secret knowledge (gnosis) and a disparaging of matter including an aversion to things physical and intellectual coupled to the notion that religion is essentially a quest for a vaguely defined spirituality attained via a mystical ascent into the heavenlies to encounter God apart from means and a mediator then the notion that humans are essentially spiritual beings rather than a body-soul unity opens the door to a host of serious theological errors and interesting paradoxes While on the one hand Evangelicals work feverishly to oppose the New Age Movement as it attempts to secretly infiltrate the church on the other the same Evangelicals can be quite unwittingly seduced by the same dualistic sepashyration of reality into a spirit -matter dichotomy that has spawned fads like the New Age movement in the first place For ifwe are essentially spirit rather than flesh as the trichotomists propose then in effect we establish the same kind of dualistic hierarchy associated with classic Gnosticism in which the spirit is exalted above both soul and body Whether we intend to do so or not we have opened the door wide to the essence of Gnosshyticism namely that matter is evil and spirit is good If we adopt the trichotomist understanding of human nature we inevitably set up the same dualistic concepshytion of reality in which the Gnostic impulse thrives and which we immediately recognize in the New Age movement but fail to see when it comes from the lips or pens of certain popular Evangelical figures because it is couched in Biblical rather than philosophical terms Therefore it is important to set out the Biblical evishydence for dichotomy and then evaluate the arguments raised by defenders of trichotomy It is also important to evaluate how trichotomy and its theological cousin

modernR EFORMATION

the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

the so-called Carnal Christian notion of sanctificashytion provides an unwitting justification for the Gnostic impulse As we will see it is surprising how effectively a trichotomistic understanding of essential human nature enables such a pagan ideology to estabshylish a significant bridgehead in the hearts and spirits of countless Evangelicals

Historically Christians have argued that dishychotomy is clearly taught throughout Scripture There is no doubt that the Scriptures not only teach a material aspect that is essential to human nature the same Scriptures preclude any notion of the Gnostic tenshydency to depreciation ofthe body because it is material God created our bodies first and only then did God breathe life into the body he had made (Gn 27) The creation account is unmistakably clear God proshynounced everything that he had made to be good (Gn 131) including the human body We are in one sense dust and therefore material (Gn 317) but as John Murray notes the reason for [Adams] return to dust is not that he is dust but that he has sinnedl

In addition to the creation account there are other vital considerations proving the importance of this material aspect of being human First in the Incarnashytion Jesus Christ as the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed to himself a true human nature (Gal 44) It is the Gnostic impulse that is condemned as the spirit of Antichrist because this spirit emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (1 J n 423) It is the docetic heresy which teaches a truly divine Jesus who only appears in human form rather than a divine Logos who takes on a true human nature as taught in the prologue to Johns Gospel A second equally important consideration is that of the Resurshyrection Jesus resurrection is a bodily one (1 Cor 153-8 Lk 2440-43) and his resurrection is itself the basis for the bodily resurrection of those who are in Christ (1 Cor 1535-58) We will not spend eternity as spirits with harps floating weightlessly on the clouds but instead as redeemed persons in resurrected and glorified bodies forever rejoined to our soul-spirit as Jesus Christ through his own bodily resurrection and glorification has undone the penalty of sin which is death and separation of body from soul It is with this in mind that Murray reminds us of the dangers of the Gnostic impulse to the Christian

The body is not an appendage The notion that the body is the prison-house ofthe soul and that the soul is incarshycerated in the body is pagan in origin and anti-biblical it is Platonic and has no resemblance to the Biblical conception The Bible throughout represents the dissoshylution of the body and separation of body and spirit as

an evil as the retribution and wages of sin and thereshyfore as a disruption of that integrity which God established at creation2

The fact that we have an immaterial element ( called soul or spirit in Scripture) in addition to our bodshyies is equally clear in Scripture It is our Lord who taught us that we are body and soul (Mt 1028) and in Matthew 2641 Jesus likewise contrasts flesh and spirit The terms seem to be used interchangeably A spirit is immaterial (Lk2439) it is within us (1 Cor 2 11) and sanctification is spoken ofas purifying ourshyselves from laquoeverything that contaminates body and spirit (1 Cor 7 1) James tells us that a body without a spirit is dead (226) for at death the spirit leaves the body (Mt2750Lk2346Jn 1930 and Acts 759) The term soul is used in various ways throughout Scripture as referring to life constituted in the body (Mt 625 1039 1625-26 2028 Lk 1426 Jn 1011-18 Acts 1526 2010 Phil 230 1 Jn 316)3 Soul certainly appears to be synonymous with spirit in addition to serving as a synonym for the person themselves (Mt 12 18 Lk 12 19 Acts 2274143323 Rom 29 3 11 Heb 1038 Jas 1 21 520 1 Pt 1 9 225) In light of this evidence Murray concludes the thesis is simply that with sufficient frequency ltsoul as ltspirit is used to desshyignate the distinguishing component in the human person4

A doctrine is not necessarily false simply because it has a dubious pedigree but it is important to rememshyber that a doctrines pedigree is often times a very good clue as to its source and its ultimate consequences And when viewed from the perspective of Christian reflecshytion across the ages there is no doubt that trichotomy has a very dubious pedigree With its roots in Platos distinction between body and soul and Aristotles furshyther division of soul into animal and rational elements the trichotomist notion of human nature as tri-partite is unmistakably Greek and pagan rather than Hebrew and biblical As Louis Berkhof notes the most familiar but also the crudest form oftrichotomy is that which takes the body for the material part ofmans nature the soul as the principle of animal life and the spirit as the God-related rational and immortal eleshyment in mans

Whether the Gnostic impulse is a cause or an efshyfect the trichotomist structure of human nature has served gnostically inclined Evangelicals quite well by appearing to cover several Biblical bases Trichotomy allows for a doctrine ofdepravity-the body is bad and makes us sin Furthermore since we are spiritually dead the miraculous work that God performs upon us when we are born again is that he gives to us a new

JU L Y AU G U S T I 99 5 23

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

spirit or as some would prefer he creates a spirit within us Thus as Christians we have new life which the non-Christian does not possess B B Warfield the great Princeton theologian astutely noted that such schemes fail to see the obvious and fatal theological flaw associated with trichotomy namely

that thus the man is not saved at all a different newly created man is substituted for him When the old man is got rid of--and that the old man has to be ultimately got rid of [wedo] not doubt-the saved man that is left is not at all the old man that was to be saved but a new man that has never needed any saving6

In addition the trichotomist scheme also allows for a doctrine offree will since the bodyas flesh tends toward evil and we are said to be spiritually dead never the less the soul retains the ability (with suffishycient enticements of course) to make a decision to accept Christ as Savior This enables the trichotomist to attempt to take seriously those Biblical passages describing the fallen human condition and yet still allows for the typically American idol namely the conshyception that the human will and not the grace ofGod is the ultimate factor in determining just where exshyactly we will spend our eternity

Another significant impact ofthe trichotomist unshyderstanding ofhuman nature is that it provides much of the theological justification for the rapid growth of Pentecostalism In this case trichotomy allows Penteshycostals to argue that because the spirit is the higher

are tri-partite having a body a soul and a spirit But such analogies are not drawn directly from the Biblical data itself they come only byway ofcrude inference In addition there are two texts that have been used to supposedly prove trichotomy to be the Biblical anthroshypology Several early Christian writers such as Origen found a kind ofconfirmation to these Greek categories in the words of Paul recorded in 1Thessalonians 523 Pauls words laquomay your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless are interpreted to mean that Paul enshydorsed the tri -partite distinction of body soul and spirit But as the late Anthony Hoekema has pointed out when viewed in the light of the rest of the Biblical data which teaches otherwise there must be some other intention on Pauls part

When Paul prays for the Thessalonians that the spirit soul and body ofeach ofthem may be preserved or kept he is obviously not trying to split man into three parts any more than Jesus intended to split man into four parts when he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 1027) This passage therefore also provides no ground for the trichotomic view of the constitution of man7

In Hebrews 4 12 it is argued that the author makes a clear division between soul and spirit implying that they cannot be synonymous But John Murray conshytends that the verb used here-translated as laquodividing in the NIV-is never used elsewhere in Scripture in the

sense of distinguishing between two different things but is always used when distributing There are many notable instances among and dividing up various aspects of the same thing (see Heb 24 Lk 11 17 -18 Mt 2735 Jn 1924)8 The point is not that the Word sepashy

influential Evangelicals wherein trichotomy and the related Carnal Christian teachinghas rates two distinct things-soul from

spirit-but that laquoThe Word of God judges the led to a footllold for the Gnostic impulse thoughts and attitude of the heart (Heb 4 12)

element of human nature laquospeaking in tongues is the divinely appointed means ofby-passing the lower eleshyments ofhuman nature such as the rationality ofmind and soul In the Pentecostal scheme we can commune with God directly without the hindrances of the lower elements of human nature and language Indeed in such schemes we can commune with God directly apart from any means at all Trichotomy conveniently provides the means for a host of neo-gnostically inshyclined Pentecostal practices

The notion of trichotomy has been defended in a number ofways In popular literature and preaching it is often asserted that since God is a Trinity and since as humans we are created in Gods image humans too

The Word does not divide soul from spirit as though these were two distinct entities but the Word does divide soul and spirit in the sense of penetrating into our inner most parts

Every doctrine we affirm has consequences which will inevitably effect our lives as Christians and trishychotomy is no exception There are many notable instances among influential Evangelicals wherein trishychotomy and the related Carnal Christian teaching has led to a foothold for the Gnostic impulse with all of its associated doctrinal fall-out There are several clear examples of this which are important to consider beshycause they so powerfully illustrate how pervasive this tendency can be and how easily it slips into what are otherwise effective Christian ministries There are alshy

24 JU L Y AUG US T I 995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

ways direct consequences in the life of the church whenever Gnosticism makes its influence known

Calvary Chapel founder and pastor Chuck Smith is a prime example ofone whose trichotomist leanings have produced serious doctrinal and ideological conshysequences In commenting upon 1Thessalonians 523 one of two key trichotomist proof-texts Smith asserts we meet God in the realm of our spirit9 In his treatshyment of 1 Corinthians 2-3 Smith affirms the classic Carnal Christian teaching We read that many of the Corinthian Christians hadnt entered the spiritual dishymension yet and that the Holy Spirit gives us knowledge beyond our experience 10 The Gnostic imshypulse associated with trichotomy is at its height when Smith declares that our problem arises from living as redeemed spirits in unredeemed bodies We desire to be delivered from these bodies of flesh so that we can enjoy the full rich overflowing life in the spirifll

In Smiths conception God does not meet us as Protestants have historically affirmed-through means such as the Word and Sacrament-but instead God meets us immediately in the realm of our spirif Because this is the case not all Christians have entered into the spirituar According to Smith we now have two categories ofChristians the carnal and the spirishytuaI when the Bible knows only of one category Christians

This is a classic case of the Gnostic impulse estabshylishing a major beachhead in the very heart of Evangelicalism If this is true what then is the likely source of this Gnostic influence No Chuck Smith has probably not been going to New Age seminars or studyshying the works ofPlot in us But Chuck Smith is an ardent supporter of the dispensational system of annotations found in the famous Scofield Reference Bible at first glance an unlikely source for Gnostic influences When one considers however several of the notes advocatshying trichotomy contained in the Scofield Reference Bible the reader is immediately intrigued for example by the affinities between the notes on 1 Corinthians 2 14 and the mystical and speculative philosophy of PlotinusA simple comparison will suffice The Scofield Bible asserts

Paul divides men into three classes (1) psuchikos meanshying of the senses sensous 0as 3 15 Jude 19) natural i e the Adamic man unrenewed through the new-birth On 335) (2) pneumatikos meaning spiritual ie the renewed man as Spirit-filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God (Eph 518-20) and (3) sarkikos meaning carnal fleshly ie the renewed man who walking after the flesh remains a babe in Christ (1 Cor 3 1-4) The natural man may be learned gentle eloquent fascinating but the spiritual content ofScripshy

ture is absolutely hidden from him and the fleshly or carnal Christian is able to comprehend only its simplest truths milk (1 Cor 32)12

Plotinus in but one example that may be cited affirms an amazingly similar tri-partite structure

All men from birth onward live more by sensation than by thought forced as they are by necessity to give heed to sense impressions Some stayin the sensate their whole life long For them sense is the beginning and the end of everything Good and evil are the pleasures of sense and the pains ofsense it is enough to chase the one and flee the other Those of them who philosophize say that therein wisdom lies Others do lift themselves a little above the earth Their higher part transports them out ofthe pleasurable into the honorable But unable to perceive anything higher and with nowhere to set themshyselves they fall back in virtues name-on the activities and options of that lower realm they had thought to escape But there is another a third class of men-men godlike in the greatness of their strength and the acuity of their perceptions They see clearly the splendors that shine out from on high Thither out ofthe mist and fogs of the earth they lift themselves There they stay seeing from above what is here below taking their pleasure in truth 13

Note that the first level of men the so-called senshysate of Plotinus corresponds directly to the natural man of Scofield Then in the second class there are those who lift themselves above the earth but are not able to perceive anything higher In Plotinus concepshytion this corresponds well to Scofields Carnal Christian who can only comprehend the simplest truth the milk of Scripture Scofields Spirit-filled Christian who is said to have full communion with God mirrors Plotinus third class of men those who attain the highest level above the fog and mist Thus one may not have to look to the mystery religions ofthe Middle East or to the New Age Movement here in America to be influenced by Gnosticism One may be unwittingly taken in merely by adopting the trichotomist anthropology or Carnal Christian unshyderstanding of sanctification so often associated with the Keswick or higher-life teachings that have beshycome part and parcel of fundamentalist theology-a theology from which Chuck Smith has drawn deeply

While Calvary Chapel has done great things in terms of evangelism and in giving many of us our first exposure to serious Bible study-there are indeed eleshyments of the true Evangel present-it is no accident that Calvary Chapel under Chuck Smiths leadership has also pioneered the experience-based form ofworshyship known as Praise and Worship associated with Maranatha Music While in many cases there has been

JU L Y AUG US T 1995 25

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

a commendable emphasis upon the singing of Scripshyture a historic Reformed practice Calvary Chapels now ubiquitous praise songs have opened the door to a seemingly endless stream of praise and worship choshyruses specifically aimed at arousing the subjective emotions of the worshipping subject thereby enabling the worshipper to escape the natural and enter into the spirit above the mists Content-laden hymns and litshyurgy based upon biblical texts can only hinder such a quest Yes our doctrines do have consequences even for our worship

Claiming to be the ministry of balance Calvary Chapel is characterized by a marked imbalance in what it opposes Sacraments as means ofgrace liturgy in any form Reformation theology (especially the doctrines of election justification by an imputed righteousness and a clear Law-Gospel distinction) an educated clergy denominationalism and any form oftradition It is important to notice that the things which are conshydemned are the very things that Protestants have historically thought quite important if not essential The things that are condemned are clearly fruit of the Gnostic impulse brought into the movement by means ofa trichotomist anthropology andCarnal Christian conception of the Christian life

But the Gnostic impulse does not always make a frontal assault Another important illustration of the way in which the Gnostic impulse operates in evangelishycal circles is seen in the work of Charles Ryrie former professor of Dallas Theological Seminary and whose name appears on a rather popular evangelical study Bible While Ryrie whole-heartedly rejects trishychotomy 14 he nevertheless affirms in slightly modified form the Carnal Christian teaching associated with Lewis Sperry ChaferI5 founder of Dallas Theological Seminary In Ryries system the front door is delibershyately slammed to the Gnostic impulse Men and women are not tri-partite but dichotomous For this we should be glad The problem is however the back door is left wide open For once it is argued that there are two-levels of the Christian life (the Carnal and the Spiritual) a hierarchy is re-introduced that once again has the pracshytical consequences of making the Spiritual Christian operate on a higher plain than the Carnal Christian who has merely trusted Jesus as Savior but as ofyet has not fully surrendered to Christs Lordship If the Natushyral Man is not a Christian and the Carnal Christian is a Christian but not yet a disciple the question natushyrally arises What must one do to move on to the next level-the spirituallevelThus another Gnostic prinshyciple is unintentionally re-introduced back into the discussion and that is the notion that religion is a kind of mystical ascent to the divine Whether Ryrie intends

26 JULY IAUGUST 1995

to or not once we have offered a bifurcated notion of sanctification we have set up a system in which climbshying the ladder to the next spiritual level is the norm and we feed the Gnostic impulse yet again We move proshygressively from Natural Man to Carnal Man to Spiritual Man And it is no wonder then that so many who will not hear Ryries rejection of trichotomy will instead hear his natural carnal and spiritual categories through a trichotomist grid

Once again we see the importance of recovering and articulating the biblical concept of human nature as a dichotomy of body and soul-spirit as well as reshytaining the conclusions ofhistoric Christian reflection on these issues If our doctrines do have conseshyquences-and they certainly do-there is no doubt that trichotomy will lead down some very predictable and problematic roads Any scheme which depreciates the body and the mind and which correspondingly elevates the spiritual without due regard to the fact that God the Holy Spirit works through the means that God Himselfhas created is in fact deeply influenced by the Gnostic impulse There is always a real danger in dishyvorcing what God has joined together (body and soul) No matter how well intended we are and no matter how fashionable spirituality may be the Gnostic imshypulse lurks behind every attempt to build a ladder to heaven and we must be very careful to avoid its deshystructive influence We need to be ever mindful ofhow easy it is to allow our minds to be captured by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends up~n hushyman tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Col 28) ~

The Rev Kim Riddlebarger is a graduate of California State University in Fullerton Westminster Theological Seminary in California and is presently a Ph D candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary He is the dean of the CURE Academy and a co-host of The White Horse Inn radio program He is a contributing scholar to Christ the Lord The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Baker Book House) Power Religion The Selling out of the Evangelical Church (Moody Press) and Roman Catholicism Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites amp Divides Us (Moody Press)

1 John Murray The Nature of Man in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 (Carlisle Banner of Truth 1977) p 14 2 Ibid 3 Ibid p 21 4 Ibid 5 Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1986) pp 191 If 6 B B Warfield Review of He That Is Spiritual by Lewis Sperry Chafer reprinted in Mike Horton ed Christ The Lord (Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1992) pp 211shy218 7 Anthony A Hoekema Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1988) pp 204 If John Murray Trichotomy in Collected Writings of John Murray Vol 2 pp 23-33 8 John Murray Trichotomy pp 30-31 9 Chuck Smith New Testament Study Guide (Costa Mesa The Word for Today 1982) p113 10 Ibid p 78 11 Ibid p 193 12 The New Scofield Reference Bible note on 1 Corinthians 214 p 1234 13 Plotinus The Intelligence the Ideas and Being in The Essential Plotinus Elmer 0 Brien (Indianapolis Hacket Publications 1964) pp 46-47 14 Charles C Ryrie Basic Theology (Wheaton Victor Books 1988) pp 195-196 15 See for example the notes in The Ryrie Study Bible especially notes on 1 Cor 210 If See also Ryrie Basic Theology pp 338-339 and So Great a Salvation (Wheaton Victor Books 1992)

modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

BY MICHAEL HORTON 6)bull

1]e average Christian will learn more from hymns than from any systematic theology Hymns chart progression from classic hymns of the 17th and

18th centuries (especially those of Charles Wesley Augustus Toplady John Newton andWilliam Cowper) to the Romantic songs and choruses of the 19th and 20th centuries They reflect the shift from Reformation categories (God sin and grace Christs saving work the Word church sacraments etc) to Romantic indishyvidualism We sing I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses And the voice I hear singing in my ear the voice of God is calling And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own Or He touched me The number of 19th century hymns that talk about the objective truth of Scripture and that which God has done outside of my personal experience is overwhelmed by the numshyber of hymns that focus on my personal experience It is my heart not God and his saving work that receives top billing

If that was true of the 19th century the 20th censhytury only exacerbated this emphasis and the style of the commercial Broadway musical was imitated in

tered and Gnostic tendency but often contain outright heresy--probably not intentionally but as a result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology usually means some form ofGnosticism Below are some classhysic hymns to contrast with examples that I dragged out of a very (happily) dusty box of music books many of us grew up with in fundamentalist and evangelical churches

Classic Hymns All People That On Earth Do Dwell to the tune ofthe Doxology is the Old Hundredth (Psalm 100) comshyposed by Louis Bourgeois Calvins church composer in 1551 The music actually says the same thing as the words moving reverently and majestically through this God-centered psalm The Trinity Hymnal a hallmark ofReformed worship is a great source ofPsalms (Philashydelphia Great Commission Publications)

Who can forget John Newtons Amazing Grace But he also wrote Glorious Things Of Thee Are Sposhyken with the third verse reading Blest inhabitants of Zion washed in the Redeemers blood Jesus whom their souls rely on makes them kings and priests to

God Tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings and as priests his Today the vast)majority of entJries fom ~Iaranatha solemn praises each for a thank-offering brings Like the warm orthodoxy of 18th century Lutheran hymns the Calvinistic

and the Vineyad are not only burdened vith this self-centered and Gnostic tendency but often contain hymns of the same period reflect the harshy

mony of awe and joy thoughtfuloutright heresy- pobably not intentionally but as a reflection and jubilant emotion One acshytually feels like expressing emotion when result of sloppy theology In our day sloppy theology the great lines from redemptive history

usuallv means some form of Gnosth~ism are sung It is notilleluia or some banal Q

Wow Jesus youre so neat chorus For songs that elevated personal experience and happiness instance Newton sings Could we bear from one anshyabove God and his glory Today the vast majority of other what he daily bears from us Yet this glorious entries in the Maranatha Vineyard and related praise Friend and Brother loves us though we treat him thus songbooks are not only burdened with this self-cen- Though for good we render ill he accounts us brethren

JULYAUGUST 1995 27

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

still One ofmy favorites is Cowpers Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder Let us love and sing and wonder let us praise the Saviors Name He has hushed the Laws loud thunder He has quenched Mount Sinais flame He has washed us with his blood He has brought us nigh to God Let uswonder grace and justice joinand point to mercys store when through grace in Christ our trust is justice smiles and asks no more These classic hymns a sampling of the riches of hymnals that are now quite difficult to locate except in used theologishycal book shops are hardly stiff cold and formal The passion is linked to truth There is content without which the great hymn-writers believed there could be no legitim~te godly emotional response

The 19th Century Romantic Hymn or Song When Im With Him is a far cry from Crown Him With Many Crowns The former reads When Im with Him when Im with Him The fairest pleasures ofthe world grow dim And in my heart I feel the thrill of glory When Im with Him when Im with Him Since Jesus Came Into My Heart is typical of the Romantic hymns in that it is a musical testimony of the hymn-writers own personal experience that is set forth as normative for the worshipper Victory perfect peace perfect joy and perfect surrender are prominent themes in these songs heavily influenced not only by Romanticism but by the Keswick Higher Life moveshyment which B B Warfield characterized as Protestant mysticism in Perfectionism (Oxford University Press) The God and the Christ outside of us (the Reformation emphasis) is replaced with God and the Christ within the individuals heart (the medieval and gnostic emshyphasis) Open Your Heart To Jesus is representative of this sort of hymn

The Gnostic disdain for human aspects (body passhysions etc) appears again and again as we Fight manfully onward dark passions to subdue Heaven is a major theme but it is seen more in terms of romantic sentimentalism and escape from nature than as glorifishycation and perfect communion with Christ Sinner why not come and join us on our trip to the sky one hymn-writer querries Ill Do The Best That I Can was a popular hymn written by the Stamps Quartet In Climbing The Stairway of Love we read I now am climbing the stairway that leads to heavn above Each step is guided by Gods great hand of love Im moving higher and nearerthathome up in the sky and ifbyfaith I keep climbing Ill reach it by and bi Here are some other examples Higher yet and higher out of clouds and night nearer yet and nearer rising to the lightshyLight serene and holy where my soul may rest purified and lowly sanctified and blesf

28 JU L Y AUG U S T I 99 5

In the Living Above songs and choruses the first entry is I Want To Rise Above the World I want to live up in the highest heights where Heavens radiance glows Another exults Ive been on the mountain top and seen His face Lifted in His arms to heights I thot could neer be mine The theme of seeing Gods face and experiencing that direct encounter is what Luther meant by the theology of glory the desire to see the naked God in his majesty While Newton was singing about the glorious things that are spoken of Zion Gods holy church Ellen Goreh writes ofbeingIn the Secret of His Presence Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord Go and hide beshyneath His shadow this shall then be your reward and when -e er you leave the silence of the happy meeting place you must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face of the Master in your face Oswald J Smiths Deeper and Deeper expresses a similar idea Into the heart of Jesus deeper and deeper I go Into the will ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the cross ofJesus deeper and deeper I go Into the joy Into the 10ve Rising with soul enraptured far from the world below Even the mention of the cross here is not a reference to the same cross that stood outside ofcentershycity Jerusalem in 33 AD but a metaphor or allegory for ones own personal experience of intimacy with Jesus

The mystical intimacy between the soul and Jesus (ie his Spirit) is represented in The Touch of His Hand On Mine There are days so dark that I seek in vain for the face ofmy Friend Divine but tho darkness hide He is there to guide by the touch of His hand on mine While such authors are often men most men I know would feel somewhat uncomfortable singing love songs to another man even ifhe is Jesus Christ The mystics love for Jesus is romantic the orthodox believers love for Jesus is filial and is always linked to his saving work We do not love Jesus just for who you are for apart from his saving acts we do not have any reason to love him any more than we love any other historical figure

This theme of the namelessness of God is replete in Gnostic as well as mystical literature God cannot be described or ifhe can at all it is by negation-that is by saying what he is not Similarly the Gaithers write Theres Just Something About That NameWell what All of the names for God and for Jesus Christ are pregshynantwith theological meaning but unless one unpacks that truth we are left with just something about that name Nobody seems to know quite what that someshything happens to be It is actually the thing someone says when one does not really know For instance when we vaguely remember a name on a wedding invitation

modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

I cant remember exactly who that is but theres just something about that name

Many of the Gaither songs in fact are deeply Roshymantic in their orientation Jesus seems to be conceived of exclusively as a friend and as someone who lives inside of us Individual experience is key One finds very little objective redemptive doctrinal content in their works and if that is true for the Gaithers it is even a greater problem with the Maranatha Songbook and the Vineyard songbooks Let us limit the discussion to the latter although we CQuid use a great deal of space on the Maranatha Songbook

Remarkably written by a husband and wife team By Your Side goes like thisBy your side I would stay in your arms I would lay Jesus love of my soul nothing from you I with-hold John Barnett writes There is a season for faith beyond reason there is a time for lovers to criAs we have seen the theology ofglory characshyteristic of Gnosticism and mysticism in general has as its goal the ascent into the presence of God to touch him and to see him in all of his glory even though he has said that no one can see him and live Draw me closer Lord goes another Vineyard song Draw me closer dear Lord so that I might touch You so that I might touch You Lord I want to touch You Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love Your glory and Your love and Your majesti This is an invitation to disaster for apart from Christ (who is nowhere to be found in this song) our God is a consuming fire and to see him or touch him is to be turned to ash (Heb 1229)

Im In-Love With You is another love song to Jesus Since the rest of the song does not say much more than the title we need not quote the entire piece A little later in the song book we are encouraged to turn tward to kiss Your face It is difficult to find a single song in the Vineyard song books that actually presents us with a Christ-centered cross-centered doctrinally sound and thoughtful exposition ofbiblishycal teaching for use in praise Clearly the one praising is more central than the one praised I Bless You I Have FoundI Just Want To Praise YouI Only Want To Love You Ill Seek After You and on and on we could go Spirit of God reads I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place With my hands raised up to receive Your love I can see You on each face Spirit of God lift me up Spirit of God lift me up fill me again with Your love sweet Spirit ofGodNotice the theology ofglory The worshipper is expected to sing I can almost see Your holiness as I look around this place Really Isaiah when he saw Gods holiness immediately recognized I am an unclean man and dwell among a people of unclean lips (Is 6) Further

With my hands raised up to receive Your love Rather than hands raised out to receive the earthly elements of bread and wine or to turn the pages of Scripture it is the hands raised up to the air that become receptacles of divine love for the soul Finally can the people really see [C od] em each face At best it is sentimental mysticism at worst it is Gnostic pantheism Emerson and Thoreau would have appreciated the spark of dishyvinity on each face but it is certainly sub-Christian by any measure

The famous Spirit Songwritten by John Wimber readsOh let the Son ofGod enfold you with His Spirit and His love Now how would thatfirst line be rewritshyten in a more classical Christian vein0h trust the Son of God to redeem you by His flesh and His blood It even rhymes with the original version

The Inside God is proclaimed throughout the Promise Keepers album A Life That Shows For exshyample in the songI Want To Be Just Like You a father prays for his son Help me be a living Bible Lord that my little boy can read turning from the external Word to the self The song then continues I know that hell learn from the things that he sees And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me So not only are we missing an external Word now were not even left with an external Christ Compare this with secular song-writer Joan Osborne who asks the question What if God was one of us just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home While Christians are seemingly obsessed with the Inside God it seems there is interest in the external historical objective Outshyside God after all

Conclusion This is not written in order to provoke reaction but to help us recognize the extent to which popular forms of worship have come to be dominated by Gnostic influshyences These influences are not calculated by the song-writers who are no doubt sincere and devoted believers Nor is it to suggest that those who write (or sing) them are heretics even though some of the conshytent is at least heterodox and in a few cases heretical One must persist in heresy and refuse correction in order to be an enemy of the Faith but ignorance is a serious problem that cripples the Church and easily accommodates departures from clear biblical teachshying May God grant us a new generation of Bachs Handels Newtons and Topladys who can tune their harps to sing Gods praises in a way that sacrifices neishyther truth nor love ~

JU L Y I AUG U S T 199 5 29

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

The Pride of Simplicity BY LEONARD PAYTON

galitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds ofelitism George Orwell showed this bitshyter irony in Animal Farm And Christians should

find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying If I were Adam I wouldnt have sinned in the first place The Church falls prey to egalitarian ideas periodically Ours is such a time I will call its chief symptom the pride of simplicity This pride has proshyfound implication for the aesthetics and ethics of the church

Orwells critique was directed toward Soviet -style socialism However his parable transcends that period of history which thankfully (perhaps) appears to be behind us In Orwells story oppressed animals threw off the shackles of their human tyrants They chanted Four legs good two legs bad and All animals are equal Soon however the pigs began to emerge in a leadership role gradually assuming human traits The slogan migrated to Some animals are more equal than others Eventually the pigs moved into the farm house donned human apparel walked on their hind legs ate and drank like men and exercised tyranny easily equal to that of the humans Once again the slogan mutated Four legs good-two legs betterTragically pigs made even worse humans than the humans themselves

A number of swirling ideas inside and outside the church have fueled a similar egalitarianism ideas such as Im OK youre OK the emphasis on civil liberties the individualism of what Jesus means to me multiculturalism diversity and the notion that docshytrine divides and is therefore bad This last point is especially ominous because it equates any earnest purshysuit of the truth with elitism

These ideas have combined to form pride of simshyplicity Gone away is Reverend Williams here to stay is Pastor Bob The drive for seeker sensitivityhas aimed all aspects ofthe church at the lowest common denomishynator Instead of naming our congregations Grace Baptist or Our Redeemers Presbyterian we name them after valleys trees and streams All of this is done in the interest ofchurch growth There is even a congreshygation in California called simply The Coastlands

Barry Liesch tells of a church in Los Angeles with a Coke machine in the back of the sanctuary 1

The pride ofsimplicity has been bubbling up in all aspects of the visible church However this trend has affected worship music more than any other trend in church life We disdain our hymnals because they preshysumablyspeak to the head and not to the heart (Notice the implicit accusation of intellectual elitism here) We replace those hymnals with songs which can be pershyformed while the eyes are closed We reduce our lyric vocabulary to a bare minimum and take special care not to touch anyones hot buttons with language which might sound too doctrinal Here again we see an attack on implied doctrinal elitism And of course the acshycompaniment instrument ofchoice becomes the guitar with its ubiquitous eight chords in fixed inversions which by default cast out any sense of good voice leading As Chuck Kraft says a guitar gives the impresshysion that anyone can learn to play it2 Where has costly worship gone

Once in a while we sing historic hymns with mist in our eyes but it is little more than sentimentality We are so glad to be a part of the family of God that we lose all sense of sacred worship space We clap our hands on beats two and four just like we would at a Beach Boys concert What a shock it would be if we viscerally saw that King to whom we were singing Hosanna

We are lured into such irreverence by the apparent demands of evangelism becoming all things to all menWe quickly transform this principle into the pracshytice of finding the least common denominator which in our time is popular culture Those embracing such a philosophy of ministry often claim I just want to see people come to Christ but this philosophy implies that unless we each take the same approach we someshyhow do not care to see people come to Christ Notice the emerging new elitism Paul never said To the heshydonist I became a hedonist

Unfortunately this ethos of mandatory simplicity soon begets a kind of comfort which when violated is characterized as un-spirit-filled This is a catastrophe for Christian growth since many of Gods attributes are disquieting To ignore those attributes is to worship

30 JULY IAUGUST 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

a god not seen in the Bible in short to violate the first and second commandments Many of the experiences our living Heavenly Father designs for our growth are unpleasant as well And yet when we insist on likable or seeker friendly music we inadvertently despise the chastening of the Lord

I had a surprise collision with that comfort a few years ago as I contemplated a praise chorus much loved by my congregation The text focused on the cuddly attributes of God It pOrtrayed God as the one who meets my needs One can find such texts under every bush They sell well The texts dealing with those other less savory attributes of God are strapped together in that perfunctory omnjbus song Our God is an Aweshysome God in which awesome covers all those leftover unnamed (and probably unwanted) atshytributes

The musician in me winced at the cuddly praise chorus It was truly banal music especially because it arrogated to itself some of the surface features of high art music yet with no understanding ofhigh art form It employed Brahmsian contrapuntal voice leading in a torturously predictable sixteen measure form comshyprised of eight-measure antecedent and consequent phrases The obligatory seventeenth century decorashytion hauling us into the half cadence in measure eight was especially painful since one could feel it coming already in measure five

Previous generations in the church have produced equally unimaginative music One need only think of the gratuitous use of secondary dominant chords preshydictably and copiously placed throughout much church music composed from the late nineteenth censhytury right up to our 60s when sensing the triteness of our society both inside and outside the church we desired transcendence and authenticity We swept away those vapid tunes so often called good old hymns and replaced them with equally vapid contemporary Christian music sprinkled with the holy water of surshyface features commandeered from high art music But a Volkswagen with a Rolls Royce grill is still a Volkswagen Moreover it is better without the grill because it is not pretentious Is the BeatlesYesterday high art because it is accompanied by a string quartet Is contemporary Christian music orchestrated with woodwinds in pairs harp and four horns transcendent

Still an appetite for such music was the starting point for my congregation In it I was faced with what I believed to be two inadequacies one being theologishycal the other aesthetic As a church musician I concluded that the former inadequacy presented the

more pressing problem For that reason I superimshyposed a different set of words over the well-loved

melody those words being God is a Spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth3 This seems to be a mild text as it does not mention Gods jealousy or His wrath Nevertheless the move was a gross miscalculation on my part The new words didnt feel right to many in my congregation And since I did not experience the same feelings toward the tune I had wandered into a mine field

On a couple of other occasions I unwittingly repshylicated my mistake They were different tunes and different texts but I nevertheless received the same vehement reaction Finally I began to see the portenshytous implications of my little experiments Each time I altered the text I was improving on a piece of popular culture What I discovered was that the musical style was unable to carry the text It was like replacing an Edsels engine with a nuclear reactor

This brings me to my main point All styles are not equal This is obvious to anyone who has given any serious thought to aesthetics However the problem before me was an ethical one All styles are not ethically equal And since style is an issue of aesthetics it thereshyfore appears that there is no clear dividing line between ethics and aesthetics in worship music From this truth we can derive the following principle Any style not able to carry a text rightfully belonging in Christian worship is a style unsuited for Christian worship And since the forms are the more disastrous the marriage Since ours is a time in which musically illiterate people produce most of the music we hear the musical forms have all the imagination of Hallmark card poetry or pulp novels These are very simple forms with very little flexibility And as mounting Christian egalitarianism has succumbed to the pride of simplicity these forms have been accepted into the heady realm of the anointed Indeed I have even read straight-faced adshyvertisements for anointed guitar solos

As Christians we must put more pressure on musical form Congratulating diversity or multishyculturalism may seem peaceable but truthfully it is a tired capitulation to sloth and ease And in the end such a stance will only serve further to enervate Chrisshytian worship Im OK youre OK must be replaced with Im a sinner youre a sinner lets grow in the Lord with all our hearts souls minds and strength f-t

Dr Leonard Payton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and the University of California in San Diego He is the music director at St Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City California where he also teaches music theory and conducts an elementary school band This article was previously published in Crossroads a quarterly publication of Ars Nova

1 Barry Leisch People in the Presence of God (Grand Rapids Zondervan 1988) p 27 2 Chuck Kraft OrganGuitar preference reflects view of God Worship Leader (AprilMay 1993) p 7 3 Westminster Shorter Catechism question 4

JULYA UG US T 1995 31

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

bull KurtRudolph Gnosis TheNature amp History ofGnosticism (San Francisco Harper and Row Publishers 1987) This is

the standard introduction to Gnosticism as a distinct historishy

cal-religious system A good introdution

bull Philip J Lee Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York

Oxford University Press 1987) A fascinating look at how an

incipient Gnosticism has affected much of Protestant theolshy

ogy and practice A very important and interesting work

Highly recommended

bull Harold Bloom The American Religion The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York Simon and Schuster

1992) This is one ofthose books that hurts to read because it

is written by a Gnostic Jew who takes a rather penetrating

look at American Evangelicalism and much ofhis criticism is

right on the money

bull Edwin Yamauchi Pre-Christian Gnosticism A Survey of Proposed Evidences rev ed (Grand Rapids Baker House

1983) Yamauchi argues that there is very little evidence for a

pre-Christian Gnosticism and that Gnosticism does not

bloom until the fertile soil of Christianity is present

bull A M Renwick Gnosticism in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Vol 2 ed Geoffrey Bromiley

(Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1982) One of the best

introductions to the subject it covers the history Biblical

background and theological controversy associated with the

rise of Gnosticism You can find this in most any public lishy

brary

bull Edwin Yamauchi Gnosis Gnosticism in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove InterVarsity Press

1993) An excellent introduction to the possible influence of

Gnostic systems of thought in the background of several of

Pauls letters ie Colossians and Philippians

bull Irenaeus Against Heresies in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

Vol 1 (Grand Rapids William B Eerdmans 1979) The masshy

terpiece treatment of Gnosticism by the best theologian of

the early church Much ofwhat we know about ancient Gnosshy

ticism comes through the pen of Irenaeus Highly

recommended

bull Peter Jones The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (Philipsburg

NJ Presbyterian amp Reformed 1992) A good introduction to

Gnosticism in the wider culture ~

TAPE EXCERPT Editors Note The following excerpts are offered as an example of the serious departure from classical Christian categories to the new Gnosticism which is sweeping many of our evangelical churches

Pat Robertson The Holy Spirit in Your Life

The visible doesnt have near the power that the invisible has Well now faith is what reaches along the dividing line between the visible and the invisible Faith reaches heaven andlays hold of the promises of God It brings aboutthe control of the invisible because the invisible is infinitely more powerful than the visible

I n another instance when he wa$ on the Mount of T ransfigu ration Jesus came down from wher~ he had been bathed in the glory of God He had entered across the divide into the invisible world where he had tasted the ppwer of the world of the spirit And now he came to this scene of human need and desperation Butmore than that he came upon his own people who refused to seeth~ power afthe other World

Now there is what is called a Rhema in Greek which triggers faith in us The Rhema of God-somehow that timeless changeless eternal word of our Heavenly Father-takes life and it comes into us through a spoken word Rhema And it seizes our being and faith rises from that word

God could t~ke a 1 O-~year-old child who had just been saved and let that child have a glimpse of the supernatural world He could let him have a perception an understanding of the unseen world that would be greater than his father ~h9 grandfather And would give him such ability to reach into that world that almost instantaneously at a point of time he could reach across the dividing line between visible and invisible and bring forth miracles from the invisible world Now thisis supernatural faith as spoken of in the gifts of the Holy Spirit

A person can go along normally day by day and he has to believe God for the expenses of his family his wife his children his automobile his insurance his payments and whatever hes got hes got to believe God for Maybe its ten thousand fifteen twenty twenty five thousand whatever his income level is or more He has to believe for that thats normal But then one day he is either faced with a crisis or he is challenged where he must believe for a million dollars And he can do it he tries to do it he has nothing in his experience Possibly if he lived 20 years and had his faith tested a million dollars would be nothing to him but now he cant believe But he has to believe because the need is desperate And suddenly something comes upon him Suddenly he isLJshered into the throne room of God He looks to the Father and he says Father I must have a million dollars The need is great upon me You have given me a job and a task to do I must have it Father And something wells up inside of him that is beyond him There s a faith beyond anything hes experienced He has touched the invisible in a way hes never touched it before And within days the million dollars comes That ladies and gentlemen is supernatural faith the gift of faith

Someonecan be out in the woods in a camping trip and he has learned to set up a tent and build a fire and fish and do the things that people do in thattype of environment But suddenly one night a huge grizzly bear breaks through the camp area rips his tent open and there he is lumbering above him-8pr 9 feet high ten feet massive creature intent on destroying him And the man looks in terror and desperation and then he calls out to the Father and he says Father send angels send help now And suddenly sLpernatural beings stand between that man lnd the bear and the bear becomes tame as a dog and turns around and ambles off from the camp and harms nothing Thats supernatural fait~

You can focus your mind and soul on the Word of God You can pray earnestly that God will fi II you with supernatu ral faith But when the actual event happens it is the moment of crisis when someth i ng beyond you takes hold of you and you reach into a dimension yet unknown to you God wants us to live in that world that we would focus our attention on it that we would understand it That we would say as the apostle I am seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus You see Jesus lived in this realm constantly He flowed with supernatural faith When there was protection needed the faith wa~ there When it was necessary to feed the loaves and the fishes to the multitudes the faith was there He saw a city that had foundations whose builder and maker was God Thats supernatural faith Faith to move mountains Faith beyond the comprehension of the average person Believe that such a world exists

32 JU L Y I AUG U S T 1995 modernREFORMATION

2 SEMINARS ON CASSETTE TAPE ~ featuring Bible teacher James Montgomery Boice

Developing a Christian Mind Learn how to think and act biblically

Discover how to live as a Christian in a confused hurting world

bull Enrich and improve your worship bull Deepen your faith bull Grow closer to God

Sometimes its hard not to be conformed to the thinking of this world Our culture says happiness is everything Truth is what you want it to be God is a myth for week minds But the Bible speaks a different message And when you learn how to think and act biblically not only will your thinking be transformed but youll know God better Youll-understand Gods perspective so youll be able to make decisions according to his will

~ C-DCM 4 tape series with notebook in an album $2700 C-DCM-N Extra notebooks $400

Standing on the Rock Biblical Authority in a Secular Age

An invigorating study for Christians who want to undershystand the power of Gods Word and live biblical lives

bull Gain confidence in Gods Word bull Learn sound principles for interpreting the Bible bull Clarify why we believe the Bible is Gods Word bull Explore the sufficiency of Gods Word in all areas When it comes to trusting God in his Word

Christians are pressed from all sides to disregard its power Those on the outside tell us its not reliabe Its not historical Its only mythology Some on the inside tell us its not enough we need the Bible plus

But when you take God at his Word and trust his promises-youll find the Bible to be everything it claims to be Knowing its teachings learning how to study it and being prepared to defend it will result in living a life that pleases God and is a light in a very dark world

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Words to Winners

of Souls

Apologetics to the Glory of God

John M Frame

Frame unveils the richness of a biblical apologetic in its many forms including proof (presenting a rational basis for faith) defense (answering obshyjections) and offense (exposshying the folly of unbelief)

He clarifies the relationshyships of reason proofs and evidences to faith biblical aushythority and the lordship of Christ Frame also offers a fresh look at probability argushyments and the problem of evil Particularly helpful are his extensive use of Scripture and his presentation of speshycific lines of argument inshycluding a model dialogue in the closing chapter

0-87552-243-2 paper $1499 279 pages

Institutes of Elenctic Theology

Vol 2 Francis Turretin

The arrival of the first comshyplete English translation of Turretins Institutes has been applauded by J I Packer Richard A Muller Paul D Feinberg John M Frame and many others In this volume Turretin treats Gods law the covenant of grace the person and state of Christ the mediashytorial office of Christ calling and faith justification and sanctification and good works

If ever a great theological work has been unjustly neshyglected it has been Francis Turretins masterful volumes Lets all knock off a month from our regular work and study Turretin

-James M Boice

0-87552-452-4 cloth $3995 748 pages

-

Lord and Christ Ernest C Reisinger

Can a person have Jesus as Savior and not as Lord Wshyhappens to the central doc-~ trines of Scripture when Christs lordship is viewed as optional How does the nonshylordship view impact practical matters such as evangelism preaching counsel growth in -grace and assurance Ernest C Reisinger discusses these and other crucial issues to show the implications of the lordship controversy for theology and life

Like a master diagnostishycian Reisinger subjects the whole controversy to an inshycriminating doctrinal examishynation

-Thomas K Ascol

0-87552-388-9 paper $899 198 pages

shy

Words to Winners of Souls

Horatius Bonar

This timeless classic offers heart-searching counsel and a gripping challenge to put aside all that interferes with the ministry of the gospel Drawing from Owen Baxter McCheyne Edwards and othshyers Bonar summons us to faith zeal and love for lost souls He warns of the tragedy of a barren ministry and gives special attention to the need for ministerial conshyfession of sin Though written over a century ago these words are as timely convictshying and inspiring today as when first delivered

0-87552-164-9 paper $399 72 pages

You can find these titles at your Iamp~local Christian bookstore PUBLISH I Nor caII1-800~631-0094 POBOX 817 PHI LLIPS BllRG bull NEW IERSEY Q8S6-50817

Words to Winners

of Souls

Apologetics to the Glory of God

John M Frame

Frame unveils the richness of a biblical apologetic in its many forms including proof (presenting a rational basis for faith) defense (answering obshyjections) and offense (exposshying the folly of unbelief)

He clarifies the relationshyships of reason proofs and evidences to faith biblical aushythority and the lordship of Christ Frame also offers a fresh look at probability argushyments and the problem of evil Particularly helpful are his extensive use of Scripture and his presentation of speshycific lines of argument inshycluding a model dialogue in the closing chapter

0-87552-243-2 paper $1499 279 pages

Institutes of Elenctic Theology

Vol 2 Francis Turretin

The arrival of the first comshyplete English translation of Turretins Institutes has been applauded by J I Packer Richard A Muller Paul D Feinberg John M Frame and many others In this volume Turretin treats Gods law the covenant of grace the person and state of Christ the mediashytorial office of Christ calling and faith justification and sanctification and good works

If ever a great theological work has been unjustly neshyglected it has been Francis Turretins masterful volumes Lets all knock off a month from our regular work and study Turretin

-James M Boice

0-87552-452-4 cloth $3995 748 pages

-

Lord and Christ Ernest C Reisinger

Can a person have Jesus as Savior and not as Lord Wshyhappens to the central doc-~ trines of Scripture when Christs lordship is viewed as optional How does the nonshylordship view impact practical matters such as evangelism preaching counsel growth in -grace and assurance Ernest C Reisinger discusses these and other crucial issues to show the implications of the lordship controversy for theology and life

Like a master diagnostishycian Reisinger subjects the whole controversy to an inshycriminating doctrinal examishynation

-Thomas K Ascol

0-87552-388-9 paper $899 198 pages

shy

Words to Winners of Souls

Horatius Bonar

This timeless classic offers heart-searching counsel and a gripping challenge to put aside all that interferes with the ministry of the gospel Drawing from Owen Baxter McCheyne Edwards and othshyers Bonar summons us to faith zeal and love for lost souls He warns of the tragedy of a barren ministry and gives special attention to the need for ministerial conshyfession of sin Though written over a century ago these words are as timely convictshying and inspiring today as when first delivered

0-87552-164-9 paper $399 72 pages

You can find these titles at your Iamp~local Christian bookstore PUBLISH I Nor caII1-800~631-0094 POBOX 817 PHI LLIPS BllRG bull NEW IERSEY Q8S6-50817