ReGrace
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†Keep in mind that we aren’t saying that simply leaving a church (especially if it’s truly a sect or is teaching false doctrine) is acting divisively. Nor is it divisive for a church to excommunicate someone based on unrepentant continued sin after many attempts have been made to urge them to repent (see Matthew 18). We aren’t speaking about such situations.
25
They Are Our Teachers
To reiterate the point of this book in a slightly different way, if the major influencers of our faith retain our respect, but not our full agreement, should we not treat our fellow sisters and brothers in Christ as being in the transformational process rather than as finished products?
Or to put it another way, if we can include these figures in the kingdom despite some of their questionable views, why not include each other?
Note also that it can be argued, quite cogently I’d say, that many aberrant viewpoints are due to the exigencies of times and circumstances in which one lives.
This can be said about all the figures in church history whom I have covered. It also includes ourselves. I’m confident that if Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Edwards, Spurgeon, and the rest were living in our time, they’d find many views that Christians hold today to be “shocking.”
On that point, I’d like to end this book by quoting the very people I’ve treated in this book on the importance of grace, humility, and the evils of divisiveness. In this way, they can serve as our teachers, even as they show us that God can use a person despite his or her “shocking beliefs.”
C. S. Lewis
There are two kinds of love: we love wise and kind and beautiful people because we need them, but we love (or try to love) stupid and disagreeable people because they need us. This second kind is the more divine because that is how God loves us: not because we are lovable but because He is love, not because He needs to receive but He delights to give.1
Jonathan Edwards
A man of a right spirit is not a man of narrow and private views, but is greatly interested and concerned for the good of the community, to which he belongs, and particularly of the city or village in which he resides, and for the true welfare of the society of which he is a member.2
Martin Luther
I believe that there is upon earth a small holy flock, a holy assembly of pure saints under one head, Christ. They are called together by the Holy Spirit in one faith, one mind and one understanding. They possess many gifts, but are one in love and without sect or division.3
John Calvin
Does this not sufficiently indicate that a difference of opinion over these nonessential matters should in no wise be the basis of schism among Christians? First and foremost, we should agree on all points. But since all men are somewhat beclouded with ignorance, either we must leave no church remaining, or we must condone delusion in those matters which can go unknown without harm to the sum of religion and without loss of salvation.4
Augustine
In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.5
John Wesley
Beware you are not a fiery, persecuting enthusiast. Do not imagine that God has called you (just contrary to the spirit of Him you style your Master) to destroy men’s lives, and not to save them. Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love.6
Charles Spurgeon
Satan always hates Christian fellowship; it is his policy to keep Christians apart. Anything that can divide saints from one another he delights in. He attaches far more importance to godly intercourse than we do. Since union is strength, he does his best to promote separation.7
D. L. Moody
I have never yet known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord’s people were divided.8
Billy Graham
[Jesus] prayed for unity among believers. God, who wills man’s unity in Christ, is a God of variety. So often we want everyone to be the same—to think and speak and believe as we do. Many Scripture passages could be called to witness that love is the real key to Christian unity. In the spirit of true humility, compassion, consideration, and unselfishness, we are to approach our problems, our work, and even our differences.9
Acknowledgments
To Rick Warren, for signing my death warrant by asking me to create the original blog series which formed the basis for this book. To James Swan of Beggars All: Reformation and Apologetics for checking every source with his razor-sharp eye for detail, for adding additional historical information, and for his helpful editorial work. To Tonya Ragan, Jared Stump, Jaime O’Donnell, William Hemsworth, and Isabella Bosch for assisting me with some of the sources. (If you find any flaws in the documentation, it’s my fault, not theirs!) To Thomas Schmidt for his helpful feedback on the manuscript. To the Baker team, for getting out on a limb (and sawing hard) in order to put this book into the world.
Notes
A Word to Scholars
This book wasn’t written to or for scholars. It was written for the masses. However, I have provided the following sources to show readers that the “shocking beliefs” I’ve listed in each chapter weren’t invented out of whole cloth.
Some of the sources I provide are firsthand materials. Others are secondhand sources taken from historians who drew from firsthand documents.
Some scholars may quibble with certain historians (like Will Durant). But Durant and the other historians I’ve cited have not been debunked in the specific points where I cite them. Therefore, if you have a quibble with a “shocking belief” that I’ve listed in this book, write me directly and show me exactly where and how my information is incorrect.
If you are right, the information will be corrected in a future reprint. If you cannot, however, please don’t blow bubbles by criticizing the work for using secondhand sources or citing historians whom you don’t respect. Be a little taller than that, would you?
You can find my email address on the contact page of my blog—frankviola.org.
That said (yes, I’ll repeat it one more time), the point of the book isn’t found in a specific “shocking belief” held by one of the great Christians of the past. The point is that each figure in church history held to flawed ideas, so let’s be more gracious in our theological dialogue today.
Chapter 3 We Know in Part
1. Frank Viola, Revise Us Again (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2010).
Chapter 4 Honoring Those with Whom You Disagree
1. John Whitehead, The Life of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., with the Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, M.A. (London: John E. Beardsley, 1793), 529.
2. Warren W. Wiersbe, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching and Preachers (Chicago: Moody, 1984), 255.
Chapter 5 It’s Not a Bloodsport
1. If you’d like to read the details on this “trail of blood,” the following books recount the tragic story: E. H. Broadbent, The Pilgrim Church (Grand Rapids: Gospel Folio Press, 1999); Kim Tan, Lost Heritage (Surrey, England: Highland Books, 1996); and Leonard Verduin, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964).
Chapter 6 The Shocking Beliefs of C. S. Lewis
1. Philip Ryken, “Lewis as the Patron Saint of American Evangelicalism,” in Judith Wolfe and B. N. Wolfe, eds., C. S. Lewis and the Church: Essays in Honour of Walter Hooper (New York: T&T Clark International, 2011), 174–85.
2. J. I. Packer, “Still Surprised by Lewis,” Christianity
Today, September 7, 1998, 55.
3. “Religion: Don v. Devil,” Time, September 8, 1947.
4. Packer, “Still Surprised by Lewis,” 60.
5. Peter Kreeft, Between Heaven and Hell (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1982). Interestingly, Aldous Huxley died on the same day also. Kreeft presents a fictional dialogue between Lewis, Kennedy, and Huxley in the afterlife. Strikingly, both Lewis and Kennedy were called “Jack” by their friends. But that’s neither here nor there.
6. Joel S. Woodruff, “The Generous Heart and Life of C. S. Lewis,” Knowing and Doing, September 2013; John Blake, “The C. S. Lewis You Never Knew,” CNN Belief (blog), December 1, 2013.
7. Blake, “C. S. Lewis You Never Knew”; Alister McGrath, C. S. Lewis, A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2013), 166.
8. Blake, “C. S. Lewis You Never Knew”; McGrath, C. S. Lewis, A Life, 163.
9. Joel S. Woodruff, “C. S. Lewis’s Humble and Thoughtful Gift of Letter Writing,” Knowing and Doing, Fall 2013.
10. Blake, “C. S. Lewis You Never Knew”; McGrath, C. S. Lewis, A Life, 67–69.
11. Blake, “C. S. Lewis You Never Knew.”
12. Blake, “C. S. Lewis You Never Knew.” Lewis’s wife (Joy Davidman) was an American poet and writer who was seventeen years younger than Lewis. Note that Lewis wrote much after Grief, and several biographers recount that Lewis felt he lost a debate to an Oxford professor, pre Joy’s death, and this is what provoked him to modify his approach.
13. C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2017), 144.
14. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, 145–46. Note that Lewis distanced himself from “the romish doctrine concerning Purgatory,” but he positively referred to the Roman Catholic convert John Henry Newman’s Dream of Gerontius as expressing the “right view.” Lewis appeared to believe there was a kind of golden age orthodox Christian view of purgatory, which became corrupted, and then was reclaimed by Cardinal Newman.
15. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, 145.
16. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Collier Books, 1960), 176–77. Lewis wrote,
In the first place the situation in the actual world is much more complicated than that. The world does not consist of 100 per cent. Christians and 100 per cent. Non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. (Lewis, Mere Christianity, 209–10)
He also said,
Of course it should be pointed out that, though all salvation is through Jesus, we need not conclude that He cannot save those who have not explicitly accepted Him in this life. (C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1970], 101–2)
17. Lewis explained this belief in a letter to Audrey Sutherland dated April 28, 1960. See Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1147–48.
See also C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York: Macmillan, 1946), 126–30; and C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 150–57. In the latter work, we encounter in heaven a Calormene (Muslim) who is surprised to be there. Aslan says to the Calormene, “Beloved, said the Glorious one, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all will find what they truly seek” (p. 156). It is important to note that Lewis was always tentative about such speculative matters. He was attracted to, though not quite persuaded by, his spiritual mentor George MacDonald’s notion that God will use even hell to turn people to Himself. But Lewis’s strong belief in free will led him to the conclusion that we get what we want, and some want hell. Finally, almost all of the souls in hell in The Great Divorce choose to remain where they are. According to Lewis, people continue to make decisions after death. The Last Battle seems to imply that this number doesn’t include everyone who has not heard the gospel, but only for those who were already making fundamental choices in life that were moving toward Christ.v
18. C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, An Anthology (New York: Macmillan, 1978), xxx–xxxi. Lewis was only seven years old when MacDonald died. Lewis said of him, “All that I know of George MacDonald I have learned either from his own books or from the biography which his son, Dr. Greenville MacDonald, published in 1924; nor have I ever, but once, talked of him to anyone who had met him” (Lewis, George MacDonald, xxi).
19. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 78.
20. C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2017), 128.
21. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 130. Lewis expands his thoughts on this topic on pages 130 and following.
22. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 22. On page 130, Lewis expands his thoughts on this remark.
23. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 128.
24. J. I. Packer in “Still Surprised by Lewis,” Christianity Today, September 7, 1998, 56.
25. Packer, “Still Surprised by Lewis,” 60.
Chapter 7 The Shocking Beliefs of Jonathan Edwards
1. Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 366.
2. Robert W. Jensen, America’s Theologian: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). Some historians haven’t been shy about opining that Edwards was America’s greatest intellectual and theologian, or words to that effect.
3. Jonathan Edwards, “Letter to the Reverend John Erskine, Northampton, July 5, 1750,” in Letters and Personal Writings, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (WJE) 16:355; WJE, vol. 1 (London: Ball, Arnold, and Co., 1840), clxiii. See also Jonathan Gibson, “Jonathan Edwards: A Missionary?” published on the themelios website.
4. Michael Bird, “If John Edwards Was Here Today!” Patheos, August 10, 2012; see also Gerald R McDermott, “Jonathan Edwards and American Indians: The Devil Sucks Their Blood,” New England Quarterly, December 1999; 72, 4; ProQuest Direct Complete p. 539. The article explains Edwards’s defense of the Native Americans along with his changing attitude toward them. It’s an example of a man coming out of a racial attitude and experiencing a kind of social redemption.
5. Edwards usually spoke quietly and without exaggerated gestures. “He never used loud volume or exaggerated gestures to make his points, for he relied on striking imagery and the logical argument of his sermons” (Christian History 4, no. 4 [1985]: 6).
6. For a detailed examination of Edwards and slavery, see Sherard Burns, “Trusting the Theology of a Slave Owner,” in John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., A God-Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 145–74; George Mardson, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 255–58; and Kenneth P. Minkema, “Jonathan Edwards’s Defense of Slavery,” Massachusetts Historical Review 4 (2002): 23–59.
7. Thabiti Anyabwile, “Jonathan Edwards, Slavery, and the Theology of African Americans,” paper presented at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, February 1, 2012.
8. Robert C. Fuller, Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 66. See also Glen R. Kreider, Jonathan Edwards’s Interpretation of Revelation 4:1–8:1 (New York: University Press of America, 2004), 157; and Christopher B. Holdsworth, “The Eschatology of Jonathan Edwards,” Reformation and Revival 5, no. 3 (Summer 1996).
9. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of President Edwards, vol. 4 (New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1852), 318.
10. Note that Edwards explains in the sermon that the imagery of the subject was intended for “awakening unconverted persons in th
is congregation.” Edwards wasn’t simply ranting about God’s hatred of sinners. The entire sermon was a form of evangelism. His goal was to provoke the sinner to trust in Christ and be saved. For a good overview, see John Gerstner, “Justifying a Scare Theology,” in Jonathan Edwards, Evangelist (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1995), 24–33.
11. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of President Edwards, vol. 3 (New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1858), 313.
12. It should be noted that one author nuances the point. He writes,
At no time did Edwards believe or preach that America would be either the focus or the locus of the coming millennium. Rather, he suggested that, at best, America may be where those intermittent revivals would occur that eventually would bring on the millennium, the latter being at least 250 years away. . . . Much of the confusion concerning Edwards’ beliefs came from one statement in his Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival (1742) where he declared that “this work of God’s Spirit [i.e., the revival, the Great Awakening], that is so extraordinarily and wonderful, is the dawning, or at least a prelude, of that glorious work of God, so often foretold in Scripture. He later said that this “glorious work of God . . . must be near.” (C. Samuel Storms, Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections [Wheaton: Crossway, 2007],186–88)