The Dog That Does Not Bark
Some of the most life-changing events in the history of the church have come about due to a stand being taken by a man at a critical juncture. In this year, 2017, we are commemorating the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on 31st October 1517, an event which lit the fires of the Protestant Reformation. Later the Reformer was summoned to the Diet at Worms where, on 18th April 1521, he declared: ‘My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against my conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me. Amen.’ The Edict of Worms, dated 8th May 1521, declared Luther an ‘outlaw’ together with his adherents. That is the kind of difference that one man can make!
Leadership in the Past
There are other examples in history of God using men to break the slumber of the church. We had Athanasius (c296-373) standing against the Arian heresy and almost single-handedly preserving the integrity of the Christian faith. We recall the heroic stand of Jan Hus (1373-1415) fighting against such great odds, and at the base of the fine statue of him in Prague today, we read ‘Great is the truth, and it prevails’. There is John Calvin (1509-1564) contending against the Libertines in Geneva and achieving for the church freedom from the state in ecclesiastical disciplinary matters, ‘the creator of the Protestant Church’ (B B Warfield). William Tyndale (1494-1536) was hounded to his death ‘simply because he wanted to reform the Church, to restore the gospel, and especially to give the people of England the Bible’. John Knox (1514–1572) was raised up to blow His Master’s trumpet and to rid the Church in Scotland of Roman superstition and idolatry.
George Whitefield (1714-1770), ‘the Revived Puritan’, burst in upon a dead church and a decadent London and saved England from a disaster akin to the French Revolution. C H Spurgeon (1834-1892) stood firm against the rising tide of unbelief, in an age of decline, and suffered scorn and ridicule against his person. J Gresham Machen (1881-1937), challenging the growing infidelity of Princeton Seminary and the Presbyterian Church in America, was suspended from the ministry and forbidden to defend himself. Dr D M Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) called the decadent Church of the mid-20th century back to a God-centred outlook. Time would fail us to tell of others. They were men of one mind – seeking to advance the glory of God and to maintain His truth. They dared to stand alone. They nailed their colours to the mast. They were men on fire and so they were instrumental in lighting others. ‘Your zeal hath provoked very many’ (2Cor 9.2).
In Scripture we find similar examples of bold faith. We see Elijah the Tishbite, coming from relative obscurity, heralding the Word of the God, ‘before whom I stand’, to confront Ahab and the nation that was steeped in idolatry. Baal worship must be cast out. The prophet ‘repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down’, and the fire of the Lord fell that day and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal were killed (I Kings 17-18). Time and again in the history of Israel, God raised up a prophet to arouse the people and call them back to obedience. Even after his people had been chastened by their years of captivity in Babylon and had returned to Jerusalem, God raises up Haggai and Zechariah to call them to ‘Consider your ways’ (Haggai 1.5) and the people ‘obeyed the voice of the Lord their God’.
In the Book of Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, Christ comes, through a revelation to his servant John, to trumpet his displeasure with the evils tolerated in some of the Seven Churches of Asia and to call members of the congregations to repentance.
The Urgent Need Today
It is generally acknowledged that Western civilisation will collapse without a Christian revival. We are in the midst of a rapid spiritual and moral decline. The change that has come about in the last quarter of a century is staggering. We have seen the dismantling of the Judaeo-Christian heritage that underpins our society in Britain and the West. Our liberal elite are ready to give toleration to Muslims, Hindus and other false religions. We have gone beyond mere toleration. Islam is protected against criticism, while Christianity is exposed with impunity to insult and ridicule. The BBC editorial policy bans criticism of the Koran, but not the Bible. We find local authorities removing Christian symbols from buildings or suggesting that schools should not celebrate Christian festivals, lest this give offence to members of other religions. Gideon Bibles have been removed from students’ rooms in Universities, for it is considered wrong to favour one faith above others. Our inherited Christian culture is being pushed to the side-lines. If there is not a change we face a holocaust. What do we do in a post-Christian secularized culture?
There is no doubt that Western civilisation needs to rise up against the forces that oppose it. The question is: Where is the body with the moral fibre to undertake that fight? It should be the role of the Christian church, which is rightly designated as the ‘church militant’. Without the leadership of the church the nation cannot recover from its present descent into cultural degeneration and the neo-paganism that is its inevitable accompaniment. But is the church in the West in any condition to engage in such a warfare? She is in a weakened state. It has been said: ‘The supreme duty of the Church is to see that she offends not her God and her Saviour’. It is obvious that as a church and as a nation we have offended God. He has turned His countenance away from us. What the church needs to recover above everything else is the divine favour.
How did the people of God gain the victory in former times? In Psalm 44 we are reminded that ‘They got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.’ (v3). The Psalmist goes on to describe their present state; ‘But thou hast cast us off and put us to shame; and goest not forth with our armies.’ (v9). In such circumstances as the visitation of chastisements and the hiding of God’s face, the way back must be by humbling ourselves, by confessing our sins and by repentance. The trouble is that we are presently in a kind of deadlock.
It is in this situation that the church desperately needs leadership. It is sadly true that the church, in a state of backsliding and under judgment, is often fast asleep. We need those like the ‘men of Issachar who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do’ (I Chron 12.32). We need men to stand up and be counted. The church needs to hear the voice of God and be aroused from its present slumber. Who is going to be such a voice to the church?
Fifty Years of Misguided Leadership 1967-2017
As we look back over the last fifty years of evangelicalism in the United Kingdom we are confronted with signs of misguided leadership that has contributed to the situation we are in today. We can look at examples in England and Scotland.
England
The Church of England
In April 1967 the first National Evangelical Anglican Congress met on the campus of Keele University, under the chairmanship of the Rev Dr John Stott. It marked a change in the attitude of evangelicals to the ecumenical movement. There was to be no more confrontation with non-evangelicals. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Michael Ramsey who had said that he expected to meet atheists in heaven, was invited to open the Keele Congress. John Stott hailed the Congress as ‘the coming of age of the current generation of evangelicals’. How mistaken in the light of subsequent developments!
One Anglican writer has said: ‘The Keele Conference turned out to be a two-headed monster. The intention of the founding fathers of Keele – that is, Jim Packer, Alec Motyer and others – was to campaign for the Church of England to return to its evangelical roots. But they handed the baton to younger evangelicals, and their aim was much less ambitious: to make sure that Evangelicalism was an accepted stream within the Church of England. Keele was wonderful: there were 1,000 people there, which in 1967 was a lot… But there were warning signs then that all was not well. There was an element of churcheyness beginning to creep in.’ (Rev Jonathan Fletcher, in an interview with Tim Thornborough, March 2008).
Non-conformist churches
Later that year, however, Dr Lloyd-Jones persuaded the congregation at Westminster Chapel to join the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC), first formed in 1922. Joining the FIEC automatically brought Westminster Chapel into membership of the British Evangelical Council (BEC), formed in 1953. The involvement of the Doctor and the congregation of Westminster Chapel raised the profile of the BEC. In October 1967 its annual conference, which had 40 in attendance in 1966, boasted a congregation of two thousand seven hundred people, with Dr Lloyd-Jones as one of the main speakers. Such an alliance was useful for a time but it was not going to lead to a church, Reformed in doctrine, worship and practice. The BEC certainly lost momentum, with less participation from the Doctor himself. Post 2000 a younger generation sought to bring the BEC ‘into the 21st century’ and re-named it with the title ‘Affinity’.
The Reformed Movement
One of the most encouraging developments in the 1960s was the spiritual hunger for the great Reformed truths that had been covered over for so long by ‘soul-destroying’ liberalism and a defective evangelicalism. At the forefront of satisfying this hunger were the publications of the Banner of Truth Trust. Many ministers were brought to a new understanding of the faith and this had an effect on congregations. In 1962 there was a move to have a conference for these ministers. The venue was the campus of Leicester University in July of that year. Three veterans of the faith who had welcomed and supported the new work of the Banner of Truth Trust, Rev Professor John Murray, Rev Kenneth A MacRae and Rev W J Grier, were the main speakers. All three were of a Reformed and confessional conviction.
Following the memorable 1962 Conference, discussion took place on a way forward for the churches. |To help the discussion on the nature of the church, various volumes were prepared: Historical Theology by William Cunningham, The Church of Christ by James Bannerman, as well as a composite volume, edited by Iain Murray, on The Reformation of the Church. These matters were at the forefront of further conferences held at Leicester in 1964 and 1965. The expectation was that there could be a move towards the goal of the 17th century Puritan ideal which was, as defined by Dr Packer, ‘to serve God in a Reformed church that would be instrumental in reforming the nation’, or , as the wording of the Solemn League and Covenant put it: ‘the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed churches.’
As it turned out no agreement could be reached as to the way forward. There were differences as to whether we should go forward on a minimal doctrinal statement or on a full-orbed confession, whether congregations should be independent or joined with others after the presbyterian fashion. Whatever may be said about the involvement of Dr J I Packer in Anglican politics, he had a high view of confessionalism and his parting of the ways with Dr Lloyd-Jones in 1970 meant a loss to England in that respect. The movement that had begun to recover the soteriology of the Reformed Faith was to stop short in the restoration of the ecclesiology. The expectation of having a new Reformed church order was frustrated. After a pause for another year, the Conference was resumed in 1967 with the emphasis on holiness of life and revival. It was a watershed in the Reformed recovery. Thankfully part of that vision was later recovered for England in the formation of the Presbyterian Church in England and Wales.
Scotland
The Church of Scotland
The resurgence of conservative evangelicalism within the Church of Scotland in the 1950s and 1960s led to the formation of the Crieff Fraternal in 1970. The Rev William Still (1911-1997) had exercised an influence on younger men, including the brothers James and George Philip and Eric Alexander. They formed a brotherhood which met three times a year at Crieff (Perthshire) for mutual fellowship and encouragement. It was reckoned that up to a sixth of the ministers in the Church of Scotland were involved in this at one time. The number of evangelical students coming forward to train for the ministry increased considerably, but their training was at the liberal Faculties of Divinity in the universities. However, what happened in the last quarter of the 20th century is one of the saddest episodes in the history of the Church in Scotland. The policy adopted by the evangelicals was similar to what happened in the Church of England. As long as they were allowed to continue working in their own congregations within the denomination they thought they would change things gradually church-wide by quiet infiltration. The whole concept was exposed by Dr Carl Trueman in an article posted on the internet (4/8/2006):
‘Church of Scotland evangelicals standing in the trajectory of Willie Still have done great service in maintaining faithful preaching within the Church, and in the Crieff Conference and the various gathering associated with Rutherford House, they have supervised the development of a great network of individuals and gatherings; but the tactic of going down this conference/congregational/informal connection path while allowing the church courts, committees and administration to be controlled virtually unchallenged, by liberals and neo-orthodox – on the grounds that it was a useful trade-off, if evangelicals could preach the truth unhindered within their own congregations – has proved utterly disastrous as a long-term strategy … The public silence of the older generation at critical moments in presbyteries and ministerial selection committees (there’s many a sad anecdote I could tell there) has proved far more damaging in undermining evangelicalism in the Church of Scotland than wonderful ventures like the Crieff Conference and Rutherford House have proved effective in building it up.
‘How many times, and in how many contexts, I wonder, did many a young minister hear the older generation of evangelicals telling him that “This is not the issue to fight on”, whether it be women’s ordination, doctrinal discipline or on the occasional frying of a young candidate at a presbytery interview on such an issue as opposition to homosexuality? As the ecclesiological and ecclesiastical silence of the older generation of Church of Scotland evangelicals (wonderful men though they were and are) sold the wide ecclesiastical pass with barely a whimper in the 70s and 80s, so I feel for former colleagues and students who now pay the price for the fact that the evangelical revival in the Church of Scotland concentrated on producing only congregational commanders and did not bring forth a single ecclesiastical leader of any stature or authority.’
It would have been good if the older generation of evangelicals in the Church of Scotland had heeded the words of Horatius Bonar in addressing the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in 1883: ‘Fellowship between faith and unbelief must sooner or later, be fatal to the former.’ As sure as Bonar’s words proved true in the last quarter of the 19th century, so they certainly came true in the last forty years in the Church of Scotland. The declension was painful to witness. The nadir for some was the sight of the Rev Dr Angus Morrison, reared in the strictest Presbyterian Church in Scotland, presiding over the General Assembly of 2015 and announcing the result of the vote that sealed the fate of many. The Assembly agreed by 309 votes to 182 to authorize congregations to depart from ‘the church’s historic and current position’ and call a minister in a same sex civil partnership. When Mr Morrison announced the tragic result of the vote he led the Assembly in reciting the Prayer of St Patrick: ‘Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me etc.’
The Free Church of Scotland
The Free Church of Scotland had an indication of troubles ahead by some differences within her ranks in the 1950s. A booklet, The Resurgence of Arminianism, by the Rev Kenneth A MacRae caused a stir and aroused opposition from some of the hierarchy on the Mound. Because the name of Kenneth MacRae was linked with the early Banner movement it seems as if this was one factor in the Reformed recovery not taking on in the Free Church of Scotland, as it did in churches in other parts of the UK. Instead there emerged from the 1960s onwards a type of minister who was more concerned to bring change into the Church than to recover our Reformed confessional heritage. Some gifted young preachers appeared and they were looked upon as the ‘saviours’ of the Free Church. The Church gained quite a reputation at home and abroad. Things appeared to be successful and there was a surge forward in church extension and mission in the 1970s and 1980s. But while Camps and Youth Conferences flourished, there was a departure from catechetical instruction and family religion. Children’s addresses became popular and young ones were withdrawn from the regular worship service for having a Sabbath School. The consequent haemorrhage from among covenant youth was quite significant.
Looking back over the 1970s and 1980s we can detect the presence of a similar element of pride that caused the decline in the 19th century Free Church. We failed to heed warning signs. Perhaps there was too much looking to men. John Livingstone speaking of the failure of the Church in his day said: ‘Our ministers were our glory, and I fear our idol, and the Lord hath stained the pride of our glory.’ The staining of our pride was seen in the 1990s and instead of dealing with the problem in a God-glorifying manner things were left to fester. On the question of leadership it was a matter of amazement to see younger ministers on the floor of the General Assembly, at meetings and in the press attacking more senior men. Those who called for more loyalty to creeds, confessions and ordination vows were even regarded as troublemakers. The then Editor of the Monthly Record spoke of such men in terms of, ‘Cast out the bondwoman and her son,’ (Monthly Record, October 1999, p236). Great rejoicing took place in January 2000 because the Free Church of Scotland had got rid of her ‘troublemakers’. A question now, some 20 years on, is: Who were the real troublers of Israel? (I Kings 18.17).
The Kind of Leadership Required
As the Lord has used the right leadership in the past to bring change in the church, so surely our earnest prayer must be that He will raise up men who will take a stand in the year 2017. How good it would be if such occurred in this year of the Martin Luther commemoration!
1. It must be men who practice what they preach
We have men who are hailed as ‘stars’ and international conference speakers whose own church life has been very mixed and confused. One such admitted recently to a gathering of ministers that he did not have a doctrine of the church. It is one thing to preach and write about what is regarded as scriptural, it is another thing to be putting it into practice. The fact is that truth is not fully believed unless it leads to practice. So much of what is taught and written is within the context of para church organisations and that does not help on the level of recovering a church that will be Reformed, in doctrine, worship and discipline, which is the crying need of the hour. What is the point of all the preaching and lecturing if we are not dealing with the matters that count. In this year of commemoration let us remember what Luther once said: ‘Where the battle rages is where the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.’
2. It must be men who are not in compromising situations
For too long we have been listening to men who purport to be leaders of ‘Reformed thinking’ but who remain in compromising situations. They have chosen convenience over confrontation. The defence of the truth demands confrontation. Too many of the so called leaders of today are influenced in some measure by the spirit of the age. In the published version of his address to the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in 1883, Horatius Bonar adds a note: ‘In what is called “public opinion” or the “spirit of the age” we have the utterance of unrenewed humanity. That utterance is not likely to be on the side of God; for it is written “the whole world lieth in wickedness”. Majorities have not often been trustworthy. The present is man’s day(I Cor 4.3); God’s day is coming; and when it comes it will undo many a human scheme, and disappoint many a fond hope, and reverse many a sanguine idea of modern enlightenment as to the self-regeneration of man and man’s earth,’ (Our Ministry, 1883, p18). If a man is in an alliance with deniers of the truth, what authority can he exercise? To the spiritually discerning he is as one of them. ‘In the day that thou stoodest on the other side … even thou wast as one of them,’ (Obad.v11). To quote Bonar again: ‘Truth is truth and error is error. There the case begins and ends. The blending of light and darkness can at the best only produce twilight, not noon … Truth never demands a vote. It refuses to go to the poll, or to acknowledge majorities,’ (Our Ministry, p97).
3. It must be men who are fully committed to the whole truth
It is the duty of the church and especially of her leaders to bear witness to the whole counsel of God. Many are satisfied to rest in a general evangelical creed for fear of being regarded as extreme. Scripture does not permit us to do that. The true faith is: ‘For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever. Amen,’ (Rom 11.36). The main purpose of creation and redemption is the glory of God. He will not give His glory to another. There is no place for a half-way position. A A Hodge put it clearly when he said: ‘The last issue must be between Atheism in its countless forms and Calvinism. The other systems will be crushed as the half-rotten ice between two great bergs,’ (Princetoniana by C A Salmond, Edinburgh, 1888, p100). A form of political correctness has come into the church. We have heard it said: How dare you criticize a brother knowing that he is one who has been purchased by the blood of Christ? Others have said: ‘This is not a hill to die on,’ or ‘Is it worth dividing over such an issue?’ One declared: ‘I think what you are doing is wrong, but it is not so significant that I think you are not within the same broad tent of Christian belief.’
4. It must be men who are willing to speak out
Carl Trueman asks, ‘What is the dog that doesn’t bark in your church?’ and goes on, ‘I am increasingly convinced that the measure of a theologian, or preacher, or church is to be found not so much in what is said as in what isn’t said,’ (Christianity, Liberalism and the New Evangelicalism, p27). In an article ‘The Importance of Not Being Nice’, Rev Neil Richards declared: ‘A desire to get away from a negative, confrontational image has sometimes led evangelicals to be comprehensive where they should be exclusive; irenic where they should be polemic, and diplomatic where they ought to be bold and unyielding. There are times when for the sake of the gospel and for the cause of truth Christians must be narrow and exclusive; fierce in their resistance to error and altogether earnest contenders for the faith once delivered to the saints,’ (Foundations, Journal of the BEC, 1989, p2).
It is interesting to speculate what the church would be like today if Luther had been prone to compromise. The pressure was heavy on him to tone down his teaching and soften his message. Sometimes division is fitting, even healthy, for the church. It is right for the true people of God to declare themselves. Publications with a cutting edge did much to stir up controversy in the 1950s and 1960s. Compromise is sometimes a worse evil than division. What an encouragement it would be to see men taking a stand. It is not often nowadays a man steps out of line. It was so recently with Rev Gavin Ashenden, a senior clergyman of the Church of England and Chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen who made a public stand against the reading of the Qur’an in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow on 7th January 2017. He resigned from his duties and left the Church of England. Douglas Murray, author and analyst, wrote on the Gatestone Institute website: ‘Very occasionally – even in contemporary Britain – some good news arrives. No single piece of news has been more invigorating than the discovery that a member of the Church of England has found a vertebra.’
5. It must be men who are on fire
Where is the righteous Christian indignation? Zeal is in truth that grace which God seems to delight to honour. Johannes Oecolampadius (1482-1531), Swiss Reformer, said, ‘How much more would a few good and fervent men effect in the ministry than a multitude of lukewarm ones?’ John Knox rallied the Protestants to battle with a sermon on Psalm 80.4-8 preached at Stirling on 8th November 1559. ‘Under the burning words of the preacher each man became heroic.’ Of a similar sermon Randolph wrote to Cecil, ‘The voice of one man is able in one hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears.’ As Samuel Chadwick said: ‘Men ablaze are invincible. The stronghold of Satan is proof against everything but fire.’
The Call to Battle
C H Spurgeon declared: ‘We want again Luthers, Calvins, Bunyans, Whitefields, men fit to mark eras, whose names breathe terror in our foeman’s ears. We have dire need of such. When will they come to us? They are the gifts of Jesus Christ to the Church, and will come in due time,’ (The Early Years, 1962, 1,v).
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, courageous leader Basilea Schlink rebuked the silence of Christians after Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass (9 Nov 1938) when the Nazis set the synagogues on fire and vandalized Jewish places of business, also killing and beating some Jewish victims as well. ‘We are personally to blame. We all have to admit that if we, the entire Christian community, had stood up as one man on the streets and voiced our disapproval, rung the church bells, and somewhat boycotted the actions of the SS, the Devil’s vassals would probably not have been at such liberty to pursue their evil schemes. But we lacked that ardour of love,’ (Israel My Chosen People: A German Confession before God and the Jews).
What we are called to do is summed up by Abraham Kuyper: ‘When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.’ There is so much discouragement in the evangelical church today. Bold leadership can give heart to a discouraged people. It may lead to a time of suffering but a storm is sometimes better than a dead calm. More men discovering a vertebra could be good news indeed in our troubled times.
