“..for instance in England, there was a vogue for the term, “post-Evangelical.” That’s absolutely ludicrous. If someone is an ex-Evangelical, in other words, they once were an Evangelical, but no longer are, then terrific. At least they’re honest enough to say so, I mean that’s sad, but they’re honest. To be post-Evangelical says nothing. What are they, positively? Are they liberal Christians, catholic Christians, orthodox Christians, neo-Orthodox, what are they? Post-Evangelical just says what they were, it says nothing about they are. All the post-y terms are useless…
“The way I defined (Evangelicalism), it’d be foolish to be past it, you should be back to it. There was a time when Billy Graham came back from the Soviet Union, and the liberal churchmen from the council of churches said that Billy Graham had, “set the clock back 50 years for the church,” and Billy answered, “I wish I had set the church back 2,000 years.” In other words, Evangelicals should always be going back as a close a system as we can, to Jesus.”
-Os Guinness
____________________________
When Os Guinness speaks, you don’t want to miss a single word.
Some people clamor for your ear, trying to insert themselves into the forefront of cultural and political discussions but with Guinness, there is none of that hurried move to the “hook.” There is a sense of urgency and importance to each gently-accented thought coming from the 68-year old social critic that demands your careful attention. With a thoughtfully nuanced perspective, rooted deeply in the truths of Christianity and a life well-lived, Guinness has helped to provide a center to the solar system of Christian intellectual and cultural discussion.
This foundational member of the Evangelical Manifesto was gracious enough to talk about what it truly means to be an Evangelical, the future of the church, and why styling oneself a “post-evangelical” is “absolutely ludicrous.”
I tape my interviews on audio, and not video, for a reason. When I talked to Guinness after Thanksgiving, there was sweat on my hands and more than a little oscillation to the vocal pitch of my questions. It’s not that Guinness is unkind, the soft-spoken thinker is one of the most gracious and patient individuals you’ll ever talk to, but the meeting of childhood idols, particularly incredibly intelligent and articulate ones, can be a little terrifying.
Read a short version of his bio first.
Along with Life: the Movie, Guinness’s critique of the 1960s counter-culture, The Dust of Death was one of the most influential books I read during high school. Many of the issues handled in the text were outside of the comfortable context of my own experience, but the clarity of Guinness was easily seen. Along with other work from men like Schaeffer, I was inspired by the example of these men for whom Christianity didn’t necessitate a destruction of their intellect. The freedom offered by the idea that all truth is God’s truth and, because of that, there is no subject that Christians should be afraid of discussing has guided the rest of my life. But with Guinness, I still remember copying out Chapter 9, “The Ultimate Trip,” and hauling it around in the back of my tired Bible as an articulate reminder that in society,
“A Third Way is to be found in a re-examination and rediscovery of the truth of historic Christianity– in a Reformation of its truth and in a Revival of its life, neither being valid or possible without the other, but both together opening the path to significant new premises that will reshape culture.”
The type of settled clarity and balanced perspective that Guinness possesses, is a trait many of my classmates and colleagues need, and in my own muddled way, maybe this interview will help with that deficiency.
Guinness talked for over an hour on that Thursday morning, so over the next week or so, I’ll let out sections of his words. Hopefully, it’ll encourage you and spark some intelligent discussion.
__________________________________________________________
When was the first time you heard the term “Evangelical”?
It is deeply written into the tradition of our family. My great great grandfather, who founded the Guinness Brewing Company, was an Evangelical and a friend of John Wesley, George Whitfield and was a strong supporter of William Wilberforce. So, the Evangelicalism that I know is not American Evangelicalism. People often think of Evangelicalism as the post-fundamentalism of the 1950s emergence under Billy Graham and Carl Henry.
For me, that’s absolutely ridiculous and extremely short-sighted. My family has been part of a much stronger, wider and deeper Evangelicalism for centuries.
Talk to me a little bit about this history of Evangelicalism, it comes out some in the Evangelical Manifesto, but it’s different than most people understand it, especially here in the U.S.
I started the Evangelical Manifesto because of a fortnight—a two week period— three years ago now, where I met twelve people all giving up Evangelicalism. In every single one of the cases I asked them what they were giving up, and it was political. It was the religious right, or it was cultural, like the televangelist, but for me, that’s ridiculous.
Evangelicalism is primarily theological and spiritual; people who define themselves and their lives and their faith by the good news of the announcement of the kingdom by Jesus of Nazareth. That is the historical and theological definition, if it was only this miserable cultural business, I wouldn’t be an Evangelical.
If you go back in history, when Francis of Assisi tried to live as Jesus lived, he was called, by the pope, an Evangelical. Well, you take the Reformation, the Protestant Reformation— which is one of the two greatest movements in Western History and gave birth to all sorts of things like democracy and capitalism— it was originally the Protestant Evangelical Reformation. Now, the Protestant is the negative part, they were protesting against, but Evangelical was the positive part, they were going back to Jesus and His good news. That’s Evangelical.
Part of the effort to reclaim Evangelicalism to its proper roots is this manifesto, but, for a term that has been so co-opted by different movements, what are some other ways Christians can reclaim the term in a proper sense?
Well let’s not cavort too fast, because defined the way I’ve defined it, there is nothing deeper.
So certainly, in public life I’d call myself a Christian, or a Follower of Jesus and I’d be strongly in support of C.S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity,” and be happy to recognize every sister or brother in the Catholic or Orthodox, with a capital O, tradition who recognizes Jesus as Lord, very happy too.
But, I feel like the Evangelical impulse is deeper than theirs. So, the Catholic impulse is obviously Catholicity, or universality of the church worldwide, across the centuries and continents. That’s terrific, but it doesn’t tell you what the original thing is—the good news of the announcement of the kingdom. Equally, Orthodoxy has a very important principle, but it isn’t nearly as deep as Evangelicalism.
So explain to me a bit of the difference between Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism..
Jesus never called people to be Orthodox, did He? He called people to follow His new way which was at the heart of the announcement of the kingdom. That’s why I think that Orthodoxy is terribly important. Peter and Paul fight for Orthodoxy in the New Testament itself when there’s a terrific problem early on, but that’s not what Jesus called us to.
Evangelicalism is more of the foundation and Orthodoxy is built on top of that.
Exactly, and that is why whenever there is corruption, deadness, formality, heresy, whatever in the church, there will always be the impulse to go back to Jesus which is the Evangelical impulse. That’s why I would insist that, understood historically, theologically, spiritually; it is deeper than the other impulses. So Evangelicals are embarrassed by the culture of Evangelicalism or the politics of Evangelicalism, but that’s just a call to reformation.
Talk to me a bit about the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” back in 1994, you signed on to that then, do you find more of a unity now than you did?
As I said earlier, any sister or brother who says Jesus Christ is Lord, I would treat as my sister or brother, and the difference between us, of baptism or whatever or more important things, would be matters for domestic discussion. The whole point of “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” was that, while we have important differences that need to be wrestled over, prayed over and so on, we were facing something together.
Europeans talk about a double jeopardy, with Islam on one side and secularism on another. We cannot afford to fight all domestic values and ignore the outside one. Here in Washington, I have close friends like Michael Novak who is a Catholic brother and I’m an Evangelical brother, but when we’re fighting certain issues like religious liberty, those issues are minimal, and when you get down over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee you can discuss those. That was the point of Evangelicals and Catholics together, although for two solid years, I got daily hate mail and emails from readers who disagreed with me.
For you, signing something like that is not a watering down of doctrinal differences…
Absolutely not. For example, the Williamsburg Charter was the setting out of the vision of a civil public square which is a political framework of rights, responsibilities and respect for people of all faiths. And I have gotten death threats, literally death threats. Why? For giving the rights of freedom of conscience to atheists, Muslims or whatever. That is not compromise. I am a strong critic of ecumenical, inter-faith dialogue as the solution to the world’s problems—it will lead nowhere. The differences are deep and irreducible, but we can create a political framework where we can be faithful to our faiths and know how to differ with other faiths respectfully.
It’s an interesting historical look at where we’ve come from; can you talk about some places where you might differ on more traditionally reformed teaching and the inclusion of believers in the Roman Catholic Church?
I come from a strongly reformed background. So issues like grace, justification, and the sovereignty of God are incredibly important to me and I won’t give them up for a moment. But those, I argue, are internal domestic debates to the church. So, for instance, if our family— my wife and my son— were having a furious debate in the kitchen and a neighbor comes to the door, we would drop the argument and welcome in the neighbor. Equally, that’s true in a lot of areas, there’s a time to discuss internal things and there’s a time to discuss external things. My wife and I will have a candor in the bedroom that’s different, than front of our son and definitely different than our neighbors and strangers. So, the issues like justification and grace, those are the debates we should be having with our Catholic brothers and sisters and I would take the reformed position very strongly. But that does not mean that I would deny that they are Christians, if they accept that Jesus Christ is Lord and so on.
With these types of declarations, (Manifesto/Manhattan etc.), people my age hear these pronouncements and wonder, “well, that’s nice, but what practically happens?”
I sign very few declarations. The reason is, because America is a country where we have an inflation of ideas, words, words, words. Everyone is talking and no one is listening. But there are significant declarations. The little Evangelical Manifesto got a bad reception from the Religious Right because of the words, “useful idiots,” mentioned there. It got a somewhat bad reception from the strong, strong reformed people because they don’t accept, for example, Roman Catholics as fellow Christians, which for me is tragic.
Where it got a very good reception was actually from Evangelicals around the rest of the world who said, “If American Evangelicals were known for that, instead of the religious right, we wouldn’t catch it in the neck, say in Jordan or Australia.” I got very interesting emails from people thanking me for that, because the world press sees only the political or the cultural.
In the past year, since the Evangelicalism Manifesto’s publication, do you think that there’s been a change in perception? It’s such a difficult thing, to change perception simply by saying, “well, that’s not what we mean.”
I think that the past year has seen a deepening disillusionment with the political. In other words, the Religious Right is either in severe decline or has gotten lost. But what has followed it is, in some ways, even worse. And the culture has gone crazy.
What has followed?
Well, I would date a severe milestone in the crisis of the Religious Right to the last election. It failed, but what followed it is kind of like a fire being scattered with the embers going all over the place. A sullen, angry populism that is really anti-Christian. And the emails circulating, say about Obama is the anti-Christ or placards saying that it is time to refresh the tree of liberty, or now this horrendous thing that say Psalm, whatever it is, “Pray for Obama” and you look it up and it’s an imprecatory Psalm calling for his death. Those are absolutely, reprehensibly vile.
Especially for those people coming out of what would be considered the Christian community.
Absolutely, it is sub-Christian at best and anti-Christian at worst.
So the collapse of the Religious Right has not led to the rise of a more responsible position, except for the minority, but to something which is horrendous. The trouble is, if this goes on, it will tarnish the church for a generation and that’s the tragedy.
I put it even deeper. If you look at Europe, Europe is the most secular continent in the world because of reactions to corrupt state/church powers in the past. America never had that problem because of the genius of the First Amendment until the rise of the Religious Right and the culture wars, and you can see that in the educated classes, a steadily rising equivalent of the European repudiation of religion climaxing in the new atheist. We have created the monster we dislike, and it’s our fault.
to be continued:
December 28th, 2009 | 4:06 pm | #1
Wow. Great interview Nathan. Can’t wait for the rest.
December 28th, 2009 | 4:11 pm | #2
Obviously I cannot have a dialogue with this person because he is not a blogger here, but I would take issue with his statement that the Evangelical impulse is deeper than than a Catholic person’s or an Orthodox Christian’s. I am an Orthodox Christian, and the good news of the kingdom informs everything I do; in fact, it is the foundation of my life.
December 28th, 2009 | 4:16 pm | #3
Alison, that’s a very fair and legitimate criticism. No purpose is served by making such sweeping generalizations. There are plenty of shallow Evangelicals who are not true to their “Evangelicalism” and follow “impulses” that have quite little to do with historic, creedal, catholic [small c] Christianity, even as there are plenty of similar folks like this to be found with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
December 28th, 2009 | 6:56 pm | #4
Re: Alison: I don’t think Guinness is degrading your Orthodoxy at all, he’s just saying that at the heart of true orthodoxy is true evangelicalism, it is prior to orthodoxy (at least how he defines it) and as such, has a deeper impulse than orthodoxy.
Rev. McCain: I think you’re missing the point. Shallow evangelicals/catholics/(insert distinction here) are not the point, it is that movement at it’s ideal, or what it is supposed to mean, that is being referred to. If we take the impulses of the wayward than we will always find room to attack.
just two cents
December 28th, 2009 | 7:48 pm | #5
Nathan, a discussion is hard to have because the person who made these statements is not here to explain them. I guess I do see Mr. Guinness as taking issue with Orthodoxy and Catholicism because he is saying that Evangelicalism has a deeper principle than Orthodoxy. I can’t speak for Catholicism because I am not close to many Catholics, but I can say that for me–and for many Orthodox Christians whom I know–the orginal thing is the good news of the kingdom of heaven. In addition, my closest friends are Evangelicals, and we do have theological differences, but we are on the same page in terms of the centrality of the gospel. Yes there are many cultural/shallow Orthodox Christians as Rev. McCain points out–perhaps more than in the Evangelical world–but there are many who are very serious about the good news.
I would also add that many times Orthodox Christians do not go about witnessing to others in the same way that Evangelicals do. Many do not speak openly about their faith, which I do not think is a good thing, but instead they try to model their faith by their actions. Perhaps we Orthodox could learn from the Evangelicals in terms of being more open about our faith.
Anyway I did want to respond to your comment. I appreciate your commenting in this box. I do not mean to be overly harsh, but sweeping statements, as Rev. McCain points are, can be problematic. And I do think that Mr. Guinness made some sweeping statements.
December 28th, 2009 | 8:02 pm | #6
Nathan, the comment in the article was born of an innate hubris that is sadly part of Evangelicalism, which I consistently find to be one of the more a-intellectual forms of Christianity there is. There is a profound arrogance inherent in the belief that until Billy Graham and company starting making altar calls in big stadiums, Christianity was around only in fits and starts. The expression in this article was an ill-chosen turn of phrase. It was ad hominem attack, not well thought through discourse. That’s the point.
December 28th, 2009 | 8:11 pm | #7
Rev. McCain, I’d humbly refer you to the opening graf of Guinness’s response where he said, “the Evangelicalism that I know is not American Evangelicalism. People often think of Evangelicalism as the post-fundamentalism of the 1950s emergence under Billy Graham and Carl Henry.
For me, that’s absolutely ridiculous and extremely short-sighted. My family has been part of a much stronger, wider and deeper Evangelicalism for centuries.”
I’m not sure where your previous comment falls in line with what Guinness is calling Evangelicalism. That’s all.
Allison, I appreciate your thoughtful response. I’d just encourage you to try and take some of the thoughts that will come out in this article, more than just some of these differences. I know Guinness isn’t trying to slight your own background at all.
I just think that, whether I completely agree with him or not, there’s a lot of interesting things brought up in the discussion.
December 28th, 2009 | 8:28 pm | #8
Nathan, you are still not responding, in my opinion, appropriately to the concern I’ve raised. The remark that there is some sort of “deeper/better” innate impulse in Evangelicalism, is ecclesiastical hubris on the highest order.
December 28th, 2009 | 10:17 pm | #9
Meant to say, “sweeping statements, as Rev. McCain points out, are problematic.” But I assume you all understand what I said despite the typo.
I will be interested to see what else Mr. Guinness has to say, and I will probably comment on his other points as well.
December 28th, 2009 | 10:44 pm | #10
Evangelicalism is not revivalism. It should be confused with revivalism. To employ that argument is a straw man.
I have a tough time accepting anything as “evangelical” which does not subscribe to the historical evangelical/historic reformation protestant creeds. Sola fide. Sola gracie. Sola scriptura. These demands are foreign to others such as Rome, and they make historic evangelicalism distinct.
It is unfortunate when this is forgotten.
This is also why ECT must be rejected out of hand.
December 29th, 2009 | 12:59 am | #11
Rev. McCain,
As I understand Mr. Guinness’s point, he is trying to make a distinction between Evangelicalism, evangelicalism, Catholicism, catholicism, Orthodoxy, and orthodoxy.
Most churches around the world consider themselves catholic- that is, they are members of the universal Christian church on Earth. Most also consider themselves orthodox- that is, they put an emphasis on ‘correct belief’. Lastly, they consider themselves evangelical; they preach the Good News of Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins.
But churches don’t consider themselves orthodox because of their correct beliefs about which was the best Beatle. It is their ‘correct beliefs’ about the gospel (Evangelion) that make them orthodox.
So I don’t think Guinness is equivocating between denominations when he says that evangelicalism is ‘deeper’ than catholicism. Indeed, with the amount of time he spends criticizing Evangelicals, one might very well get the impression that he doesn’t consider self-proclaimed Evangelicals very evangelical at all.
December 29th, 2009 | 2:29 am | #12
[...] Martin begins an interview with Os Guinness. Posted in Religion | No Comments » Leave a [...]
December 29th, 2009 | 5:43 am | #13
Thank you so much for sharing this much of the interview. I am keen to read more. One question; one comment:
Question – Collin, or anyone else, what does ECT refer to?
Comment – Alison, I wonder if what you take issue with is really something more along the lines of a semantic scenario — what if the Evangelicalism discussed was evangelicalism with a small “e” – hence; not a loose-knit-ish non-denominational grouping of like-minded believers – but more the heart throb found in the gospels of “take the good news of the King and the Kingdom to others.”
I hope I haven’t sounded crass or simplistic. I’m a busy stay-at-home (actually most days it’s more like stay-in-my-car between running kids around) mom who has only recently discovered First Things. Please humor my remarks, though I am curious about what ECT means.
Cheers.
December 29th, 2009 | 6:54 am | #14
re: Curious:
ECT= Evangelicals and Christians Together
and I think you’re exactly right about evangelicalism being understood in a true sense.
that’s my early, early thought
December 29th, 2009 | 8:53 am | #15
As a member of that group of Christians who were first called Evangelicals, aka, Lutherans, I do find it interesting that in my years of reading about “Evangelicalism” it remains my observation that for so-called Evangelicalism, self-definition remains quite elusive. I wonder why?
December 29th, 2009 | 9:11 am | #16
Curious,
ECT == Evangelicals and Catholics Together.
It amounts to a restatement of Roman theology by employing evangelical, thus loaded, terms. I find that approach deceptive.
Paul,
What is called “evangelicalism” is nothing. The term has become empty.
(I know most understand the following, but for clarity to those who may not see the implications…)
By hanging onto *the work of Christ alone* as the definition of “evangelical” one might even include the heresy of mormonism in the fold. But one must also go beyond the greater early creeds. It must be “the just shall live by faith” and, as my Baptist friends would say, “plus nothing, minus nothing.” This also requires that the Word hold authority over the Church, a premise which Rome rejects.
Now, why and how the term has lost meaning, that I have not assessed yet. But it seems in the West that relativism and tolerance have become part of our assumed interpretive framework, enough that division and distinction are avoided because they do not feel good instead of them being clarifying and instructive.
December 29th, 2009 | 9:32 am | #17
[...] on the Evangel blog, Nathan Martin has an interview with author and social critic Os Guinness: When was the first time you heard the term [...]
December 29th, 2009 | 10:06 am | #18
Catholics do believe “in the Kingdom” and Gospel. But perhaps overfamiliarity with something has taken off our evangelizing ‘marketting’ acumen. Or deeper, older application of the marketting has made it subliminal… we’re speaking our own language so to speak rather than crafting words and slogans to attract converts.
For example…the Catholic Mass, the liturgy, is chuck full of Bible quotes, allusions, images, and prayers as well as creed, doctrine, and morality lessons. But people can go decades before noticing that at every Mass we do indeed call Jesus “Our Lord” and Savior.
Catholics live habits of prayer and contemplation (from the Rosary to the Angelus) that baffle outsiders, but when looked at in detail are habitual means of bringing to our attention the main mysteries and episodes of the Gospel message.
Obviously we could do a better job at explaining this to outsiders. Obviously there are enormous cultural traditions interwoven with Catholic images, prayers, acts of piety etc. from Mexican Mananitas to Polish cuizine and Italian festivals. A confusing pattern for straight laced Scottish/English/Dutch/Nordic white Protestants used to more colorless fare.
As for doctrinal issues…. how can anyone accept the New Testament as divinely inspired while simultaneously assuming that the early Church had no teaching authority? It was the early Church (with its Bishops, priests, deacons, creeds, 7 sacraments, liturgies, moral doctrine and dogmas) that assembled and approved the canon of what was and what was NOT “divinely inspired books” in the first place.
Now, it’s entirely likely that the early Protestant reformers didn’t know this. Most likely they assumed that the New Testament was packaged and printed in Jerusalem by St.James’ Printing Press, bound and then passed around to all believers until those awful Catholics and Orthodox churches were put in place by Pagan Roman emperors and started chaining the bibles to the churches. But that’s fiction. Reality is the Church didn’t get around to approving the canon until the late 300′s.
So “Early” Christianity was far more Catholic than Protestant in all respects; Doctrine, dogma, liturgy, hierarchy, discipline, morals….saints, relics, sacraments…the whole nine yards. We who believe in the Incarnation can’t then discount history as though one can cut out the approved bible in 380 AD, jettison everything else, jump to 1570 and start from scratch. The “fullness of time” was 30AD and the Holy Spirit has never ceased working through Jesus’ Church.
This is what is so distressing about Protestantism…. do you not realize that if HISTORY can be so cavalierly jettisoned, so can YOUR history/experience/good example/insights? That whatever doctrine or understanding developed today by Evangelicals will not endure longer than their own opinions? Surely the Lord would not leave us with such confusion.
December 29th, 2009 | 11:55 am | #19
I’m reading the comments, and I think that Rev.McCain and Alison are getting worked up over what is essentially a negligible point. Guiness says that he believes that Evangelicalism has a deeper impulse than Catholicism or Orthodox Christianity primarily because he is an evangelical. Let me explain.
Most all Christians will say that a Christian’s impulse toward God is of a deeper nature than a Muslim’s impulse toward Allah. That is not a statement on the sincerity of the belief, because many Muslims are certainly sincere. It is a statement on the truth of the belief. With truth comes the ability to have a deeper impulse. If we say this about different religions, why can’t we do that on a much smaller scale with divisions in Christianity? He believes in the strength of the impulse because of the doctrinal truth of Evangelicalism. The strength of the truth allows of a greater impulse.
I think most all Christians who have thought about it have a similar opinion about the deeper impulse of their belief. If a Lutheran thought that Southern Baptists had a deeper impulse, a deeper connection, and a better grasp of truth than Lutherans, then why would that person remain a Lutheren?
The argument over the impulse is not an argument of sincerity, or even of salvation when it comes to Christians. It is an argument on doctinal fidelity to the truth, and that is something that Christians SHOULD talk about and sincerely seek. I’ve read things by J Gresham Machen saying the same type of things. It’s not new, it’s not arrogant, and it’s not a comparative measurement between a hypothetical evangelical and a hypothetical catholic. It would be a comparative statement between a perfect evangelical and a perfect catholic.
December 29th, 2009 | 12:12 pm | #20
I could not disagree more with Collin Brendemuehl’s remarks about Evangelicalism, and even Catholicism for that matter.
If Brendemuehl is not Reformed, then he has been deeply influenced by it. Based on his trumpeting of the historic “solas” and the Reformation creeds, it seems to me that what he really means if Reformed. Does this trumpeting include the early Anabaptist creeds that really don’t mention the solas? Probably not.
Besides you cannot reference such historic creeds without implicitly privileging Reformed over non-Reformed varieties of Evangelicalism. The usual creedal suspects are Heidelberg, the 39 Articles, and even Westminster (although not Reformation), all of which are Reformed in their soteriology.
December 29th, 2009 | 2:51 pm | #21
Until an ‘evangelical’ deals with the history of Christianity pre-”reform” and explains how the New Testament came to be assembled, by whom, and under whose authority…. there’s really not much point in debating other issues, since scripture and scripture “alone” is SUPPOSEDLY the touch stone of evangelical theology.
But praxis and their own lives bear witness that they don’t believe in “sola” scritura anymore than they believe in “sola” fide or “sola” gratia. Saying it and living it are two very different things.
If scripture ‘alone’ was a Christian’s guide, why the need for leaders at all? What sense would Jesus’ example, or the Acts of the Apostles, or the actions of Peter, James, Paul and John have since they were ‘leaders’ with teaching authority and not just authors. No where do we see Jesus or the apostles acting as though scripture alone and not Jesus, the apostles themselves and their assistants were leading the flock.
If faith ‘alone’ was guarantee of salvation, and not “works” this must mean a love-less slob of a sinner, actively hating God and his neighbor to his last is just as likely to be ‘saved’ as Mother Theresa or Billy Graham. For what is love if not an ACT of the will and thus “a work”?
Jesus’ own parable about the final judgment says nothing about faith and everything about doing good works *(presumably because of faith).
If sola gratia was the case, where would free will and moral responsibility, reward or punishment come in? God would truly be an arbitrary tyrant and not a loving, consistent Father. “Couldn’t help myself” would be a real theological state of affairs and not a lame excuse. But then, if grace alone and not human cooperation was the state of the situation, what sense would the Our Father prayer have? Why ask for something if it’s either already given? The contradictions abound.
And yet because these “solas” are NOT biblical or historical, but are really ‘traditions of men” we are to just start with them as a prioris and move on to criticise historical Christianity as somehow ‘unbiblical’ or unfaithful! Truly, a disturbing situation.
One cannot read the bible divorced from history. Jesus founded a Church, not a printing press.
December 29th, 2009 | 3:17 pm | #22
In response to some of the comments, I would say that I do believe in taking the good news of the Kingdom and bringing it to others. I may do it differently than asking someone outright if he has been “saved” as that was somewhat offensive to me when I was not a Christian, but I definitely let others know that I am a Christian first–and if they delve further, I tell them that I am Orthodox. Everyone I work with knows I am Orthodox, and I am pretty open with the other Christians where I work in terms of asking them for prayers and such. In addition, my family who is not religious at all sees my church-going activities, and my commitment to Christ, and I openly tell them what I read in the Bible and the books I am currently reading. And I do actively pray for their salvation, but I believe the rest is up to the Holy Spirit.
Obviously I believe in the truth and beauty of Orthodoxy, or else I would not be Orthodox. Nonetheless, I am careful to say what kind of evangelical impulse Protestants and Catholics I don’t actually know have because I don’t know what is truly in their hearts. Yes, it is very easy to get caught up in discussions about who is better, more right, etc. in terms of Christianity, but I work on focusing on my own salvation.
And I want to also touch on something that Rev. McCain brought up. I am very grateful that there is a rich intellectual tradition to Orthodoxy. Not everyone avails himself of this intellectual tradition, and being an intellectual won’t get you into heaven, but I find it wonderful to have this tradition from which to learn. It has truly deepened my faith.
December 29th, 2009 | 4:07 pm | #23
The proof that this is a great interview is that it has generated the discussion(s) in the comment thread.
The proof that Os Guinness hasn’t lost his game is that what he said offends the right sensibilities on all sides of the conversation.
December 29th, 2009 | 5:19 pm | #24
[...] By John Thomson Leave a Comment Categories: Uncategorized Over at Evangel Nathan martin has an interesting interview with Os Guiness. There are aspects of the discussion [...]
December 29th, 2009 | 5:42 pm | #25
I took Guinness to mean that the truest, deepest Catholic and Orthodox believers hold to the same deepest, truest principles of the Christian faith that many other believers do. He uses the term “Evangelical” to refer to those deepest beliefs, presumably because of their focus on the preaching and living out of euangelion, the good news, more than on making sure one’s doctrine is correct (orthodoxy) or focusing on the universality of the faith (catholicism). I would like to read a more detailed explanation from Guinness, to give him a chance to clarify, about just what he means by that term. I could be completely mis-reading him.
December 29th, 2009 | 5:50 pm | #26
Collin wrote: “I have a tough time accepting anything as “evangelical” which does not subscribe to the historical evangelical/historic reformation protestant creeds. Sola fide. Sola gracie. Sola scriptura. These demands are foreign to others such as Rome.”
A contested point: Catholicism, so far as I know, does believe that God’s action is sola gracie. All of salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith.
December 29th, 2009 | 7:03 pm | #27
Craig,
There is a difference between “We’re saved only if we have the grace of God” and “We’re saved only by the grace of God”.
The former means that God’s grace is a necessary prerequisite for salvation; the latter means that God’s grace by itself secures our salvation. In other words, synergism vs monergism.
Catholicism certainly teaches that God’s grace is necessary–Trent anathematized anyone who says otherwise. But his grace doesn’t secure our cooperation & faith & perseverance–so his grace, by itself, doesn’t bring about our salvation.
Of course, if we use that as a criterion for evangelicalism, then Arminianism also wouldn’t be evangelical.
December 29th, 2009 | 7:26 pm | #28
Thanks Jugulum for proving my point (made in response to Paul’s blog) about Reformed folks trying to co-opt the term evangelical all the time.
December 29th, 2009 | 9:05 pm | #29
I’m surprised that no one challenged Mr. Guinness on his last statement. He seems to be saying that religious conservatives are to blame for the secularism and hostility to the Church that one finds EVERYWHERE in academia — undergraduate, graduate, law, even medical schools. Isn’t that a bridge too far? The contempt for Christians, especially Catholics, shocked me in law school (and I wasn’t a Catholic then, but was already pro-life). Mr. Guinness will have to be far more specific on this charge. It reminds me of something that the author of CATCH 22 said late in life — that in fact, most of the military officers he knew during WWII were competent and honorable men. But that wasn’t going to sell in mid-century, midtown Manhattan, America. The president is a deeply troubling man; his views extreme on life issues; but Mr. Guinness is right — and obvious — in saying ad hominem attacks are unworthy of Christians. Certainly something for an act of reconciliation. But as for the culture war — I’m afraid he has misread history and contemporary life. In law school during the 90s, the leftist faculty did a pretty good job of shutting up evangelical and Catholic students — none of whom could back my reasoned support for the unborn. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe my Christian faith and political “conservatism” prompted a faculty lounge secularism that looked more and more like religious bigotry. Or for that matter, the intimidation of students I knew to be Catholic and evangelical.
December 30th, 2009 | 8:00 am | #30
[...] Prostitution: A Modest Proposal (24)Joe: The comment from RC is as powerful as the satire. RC jr? Where Have All the Evangelicals Gone? (29)Graham Combs: I’m surprised that no one challenged Mr. Guinness [...]
December 30th, 2009 | 12:25 pm | #31
Os Guinness has done more to spread the need to repent of what Mark Noll has called the “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” than the vast majority of Evangelical leaders of his generation. For this, I am thankful to God and to him.
I agree, I think, with much of what he says in this interview, especially with the over-emphasis on national politics (or should I say under-emphasis or non-existence of non-national political cultural engagement) characterized by “the Religious Right.” There was much ugliness, hubris, hypocrisy and foolishness in what was done.
But I don’t think any Christian generation was spared from such sin, and I think it’s grossly unfair and inaccurate to say:
First, I do not think he appreciates the extent to which contemporary media, with its general secular disdain for religious “fundamentalists” (i.e. devout folks), amplified and projected the excesses of the Religious Right across the globe. Would that the media have covered the good that the Religious Right did as much as the ill.
Second, one only needs to look at the early 20th century Christian progressive movement in national politics–which gave rise to women’s suffrage, the direct election of senators, the federal income tax, and Prohibition (remember the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union?)–to see that Guinness’s implication that the First Amendment somehow saved American from mixing church and state matters until the Religious Right messed things up in the culture wars. Such a reading is woefully inadequate and misses the fact that the mixing of politics and religion in America has happened more often than not. The point of the First Amendment wasn’t even to “separate” religious issues from state issues but to prevent the federal government from over-ruling the establishment of religion by states and localities; state churches, after all, already existed at the time of the Constitution’s passage and were not abrogated until states individually did so at their own discretion.
Lastly, I understand the sentiment behind not alienating people by a lack of sophistication, but the new atheists are doing more damage to the cause of atheism than most Christians could dream of doing in their lifetime. Just ask the leading literary critic in England and author of Reason, Faith, and Revolution, the eminent Terry Eagleton if you don’t believe the Orthodox (as in the ecclesial body, in case there is more confusion) juggernaut David Bentley Hart, author of Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies.
I find there is much to agree with, but I really don’t think Guinness is getting to what’s really going on in modernity’s rejection of the Gospel.
December 30th, 2009 | 12:53 pm | #32
“I find there is much to agree with, but I really don’t think Guinness is getting to what’s really going on in modernity’s rejection of the Gospel.” ~ Albert
Don’t leave us hanging, bro. What do you think is going on with that?
December 30th, 2009 | 1:41 pm | #33
There is a character to the solas that are accepted even outside of the “reformed” community. Both arminians and anabaptists accept the authority of the Word over the church. They accept the justification by faith witout any material contribution of works. And they accept grace in the non-Roman tradition. Though the “confessed” reformed community would say that they do it wrongly, they still do it, which Rome does not. They are still, generally, sourced in reformed history, even if as a later group, as is the case of Mennonites and Baptists.
That does not require a rejection of church history before that point. I would hold, contrary to many of my persuasion, that Rome is a church. But their doctrine of Grace is so convoluted and polluted that a proper salvation is difficult if not impossible by those standards. When grace is a manageable entity, when it can be withheld and dispensed at will, then it ceases to be gracious. It might even be bought and sold. Again.
December 30th, 2009 | 2:04 pm | #34
OK Collin, but you must admit that “Arminians” and Anabaptists don’t hold to sola scriptura in the same way as Reformed, primarily because they don’t hold to single or double predestination.
Once you make the move to some form of synergism, then sola scriptura must function in terms similar to the way Catholics and Orthodox understand authority.
Secondly, you won’t find much reference to justification in Anabaptist works from the 1500s. Instead, the emphasis is on regeneration and the new birth. Anabaptists came out largely because of ecclesiology not soteriology. Following Zwingli, they rejected sacraments and the authority of the institutional church.
Finally, even justification by faith alone takes on a different nuance once synergism is factored into the equation. One then postulates an initial justification and a final justification. Final justification is based on works because it is connected to the continued cooperation of the individual with the Spirit’s sanctifying activity. Just read Wesley here, but ironically, even Martin Bucer postulated a final justification.
Finally, the Catholic doctrine of grace is not all that convoluted in my view. It is centered upon regeneration where grace is simply the power of the Spirit at work through the bestowal of a habitus at baptism. The focus on regeneration is akin to the early Anabaptist focus. The difference is over ecclesiology and sacraments.
It is only with an overemphasis on justification as a forensic idea (thanks to Melanchthon) that grace gets redefined solely in terms of mercy and then primarily refers to the non-imputation of sins and the positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness. But this notion of grace must be squared with the notion of grace as the power of the Spirit.
December 30th, 2009 | 2:20 pm | #35
I also need to clarify your characterization of grace as a manageable entity. As far as I know, the Catholic church does not teach this at all. One does not manage the Spirit. However, the Catholic church does hold that Christ has promised to be present to his church always and this presence is primarily found in the sacraments, which do dispense grace. No priest “manages” the sacraments. Different Catholic theologians interpret this differently, but in light of Vatican II, the sacraments are viewed as encounters with the Spirit (the epiclesis or calling down upon of the Spirit in the liturgy).
We really must stop with these caricatures of one another or we will never have genuine dialogue.
December 30th, 2009 | 2:37 pm | #36
Dale,
I think your view if Rome is idealized. Here is the issue as I understand it: If the grace (of God) can be removed from a person by the removal of a sacrament, then that grace has become something other than “of God”.
December 30th, 2009 | 2:44 pm | #37
Collin,
The sacraments are the primary but not the exclusive dispensers of grace. If you read any of the medievals like Aquinas or Bonaventure, they all say that the grace of God can come to a person apart from the sacraments. In fact, this is precisely how it comes to an adult convert. Thomas even says that an adult convert does not have to be baptized in water; he only has to have the intention to be baptized. So, the thief on the cross did not have to be baptized in water to be “saved.”
You’re simply wanting to sever the workings of grace from the sacraments, which I think even Reformed folks would have a problem with.
I don’t agree with Catholicism on every point and I am not a Catholic, but I want to understand the Catholic perspective as best as I can. I don’t think that makes my take idealized. Surely charity demands that we seek to understand before we criticize.
December 30th, 2009 | 4:29 pm | #38
… but not the exclusive dispensers of grace.
I realize that. But it does not change the relationship that exists.
You’re simply wanting to sever the workings of grace from the sacraments
Not at all. I think that the connection being made between them is an improper connection.
December 30th, 2009 | 7:15 pm | #39
I don’t know what you mean Collin: “But it does not change the relationship that exists.” What relationship are you talking about? Between grace and the sacraments? Between the priest and grace?
Besides, just about every form of Christianity coming out of the Reformation held to a form of church discipline. The Reformed were the best at this practice in which the Table of the Lord was fenced off from the wayward person so that they were cut off from the source of grace. Even the Anabaptists who did not believe there was any grace at all in the sacraments, believed in the ban, which meant that a wayward person could be set outside the community. So, is this a way of manipulating the grace of God?
December 31st, 2009 | 11:57 am | #40
Who is the “us” on whose behalf you’re speaking?
If it’s just you, why the smug bemusement?
December 31st, 2009 | 12:12 pm | #41
Albert,
Perhaps I’m the only one, but I just wanted to get your thoughts on “what’s really going on in modernity’s rejection of the Gospel.” It seemed like an interesting question to explore. Please forgive me if my informal manner offended.
December 31st, 2009 | 3:32 pm | #42
Jeff, I apologize if I misinterpreted the tone of your comment as that of smugness. Perhaps I’m the one in need of forgiveness. You have mine.
With regard to modernity, the reason I didn’t elaborate is because it’s such a huge topic. I’ll try my best to give an outline but I promise it will be oversimplified. As I indicated in my previous comment, Dr. Guinness is great on many things; his analysis of contemporary Western society’s (general) rejection of the Gospel, that is, the Christian faith, being predicated on the ugly collective actions of the American Religious Right and the general association of evangelicals with embarrassing political projects and means to achieving those ends is not one of those things.
In brief, modernity can be characterized as the post-Christian “culture,” that is, the ideas, practices, artifacts and institutions embodying modern (as in postmodern or modernity, not the synonym for contemporary) ideas. It is a specifically post-Christian phenomenon in that it did and could only have arisen after medieval Christendom and it is essentially Christendom without the trinitarian God.
As such it maintains, on the surface, many beliefs that Christians share (as heresies often do) like the value of human life, belief in purpose and meaning, justice, etc. but all in not quite in the same way and often quite distorted because God is no longer in the equation. This makes it difficult for Christians to articulate the parts they believe to be good. The ideas, practices and institutions look the same, but the core has been taken out and this has implications for these ideas, practices and institutions. One of the questions for Christians in modernity is how to go about criticizing it without confusion.
It’s politico-economic form is liberal democratic capitalism, which cannot be characterized simply as “good” or “bad” for the aforementioned reasons. It arose, as always, from the good intentions of the “relief of the human estate,” that is, pain and suffering of the common man. This form of governance presupposes a Hobbesian/Lockean anthropology of rational individualism fundamentally anti-Trinitarian, a Cartesian form of epistemology that began with Man and excluded God and revelation, and Baconian empiricism which eventually fragmented knowledge into “facts” (real knowledge) and “values” (fake knowledge). All these things were originally done by at least nominally Christian men who did not reject God, but (wrongly) believed they were serving him rather than laying the groundwork for His de facto elimination.
The power of modernity is technology, both material and immaterial (technique, bureaucracy), by which the control of man over nature is attempted in greater and greater measure without regard for limits. Its life-blood is unrestrained Growth; its mythic narrative by which it legitimates itself is “enlightened” Progress.
It is characterized by the exaltation of speed, power, and emotion in popular culture; mobility, both social and spatial; rational abstraction; the privatization of the Gospel; thoughtless acceptance of all new technologies; human reductionism; depersonalization by statistic; cheap energy, cheap food, cheap entertainment; Bigger is Better; technocratic experts; moral and aesthetic emotivism; the obese and yet, somehow, simultaneously malnourished poor and bulemic rich living less than a mile away from each other with no personal interaction whatsoever; Taylorism; greed and usury, or what usury even is for that matter; above all, the implausibility of the Gospel.
Modern society rejects the Gospel because the Gospel is implausible for people who live in modernity. It is implausible for those who live in modernity because modernity itself–the ideas, practices, artifacts, institutions in which we live, move, and grow that are shaping us and what we can even imagine to be plausible–was formed in the displacement of the trinitarian God revealed to us in Christ.
There is still cultural “memory,” preserved by the Church, by which society is not collapsing, some “capital” left over from ages past, but it is being depleted and increasingly is reaching the stage of mere incomprehensible taboo, after which it will be discarded, and the Church is not doing very good of a job restoring itself at the bloody fountain of the Spirit and the Word and in the testimonies of the historic Church.
Perhaps the only hope for the Church in the West is a bad depression waking us up from our fooling around with our highly advanced bread and circuses. I am not spared in that criticism.
Well, that turned out to be more of a rant than I wanted, but there you have it, Jeff.
January 4th, 2010 | 12:56 pm | #43
[...] [Read Part One] [...]
January 6th, 2010 | 5:38 pm | #44
[...] second article is a bit more upbeat about evangelicalism. It is a brief interview with Os Guinness over at the Evangel blog at First Things. Within the first few questions Guinness humbled me: [...]
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