OldSpeak
Christians Under the Scripture: A Lecture by Dr. Francis Schaeffer (Part 2 of 3)
Dr. Schaeffer says that the totality of the reality of what-is necessitates the existence of the infinite Christian God, which he says is a revolutionary statement. Could you explain what he means by that?
J.W.W.: There are differences among Christians as to whether, by looking at the world around us and how it operates, it necessitates a belief in a good God. C. S. Lewis, for example, argued that it is very difficult in a world of extreme pain, evil and chaos to argue that there is a good God.
Schaeffer, however, argues that our entire existence and the surrounding world shout to us that God does exist. By looking at nature and how the universe operates with mathematical progression, it seems to indicate purpose and, therefore, that someone or something put all that is around us together by design.
Where does the notion of God come from? Most of us intuitively feel that something is there, but what is it? The important point Schaeffer is making is that the totality of the reality is God Himself, which is the starting point for true Christians.
However, it is here that many Christians diverge from that totality of the reality of that which is God. They take this awesome being that is God and make Him a really small thing. This is the God who hovers around to see if you drink a glass of wine. For many Christians, God is an angry spirit that is deeply concerned about tiny, meaningless things. But Schaeffer is saying it’s much bigger than that. There’s this huge entity out there that we call God. He is so large and so magnificent that, with just some investigation, one has to come to the conclusion that there is this awesome spirit that we call God — and He is good.
Unfortunately, a steady diet of Christian television seems to say that God is something that can be manipulated — much like the old mystics and pagans believed — except now it is done with such things as prayer cloths and oils that a televangelist will send you. Of course, most likely what these people really want is your address so they can send you a fundraising letter. However, because of such propaganda, many people actually believe that receiving a cloth and a tiny vial of oil from a televangelist will make them feel better and even heal them. That is illegitimate and unbiblical, but it operates on massive levels. What such people have done is take this big, beautiful God — who created the sun, the moon, the universe, the mountains, the trees and the oceans — and boxed Him up and made him the God who finds them parking spaces in the shopping malls. This is blasphemy.
When you talk about people boxing God up and making Him really small, do you see them doing the same thing with the way the Christian faith is practiced? Has it become so legalistic now that we have lost the sense of what Jesus Christ is all about?
J.W.W.: Legalism is a problem because it falsely limits what Christians can do and, thus, accomplish. The basic problem is that today’s evangelical establishment, which controls much of what is called Christian, really doesn’t place many demands on the average Christian, intellectually or otherwise. They have so narrowed the options that Christians have and, as a consequence, made Christianity an easy religion. Is it easier to read the latest fiction book on the apocalypse or Francis Schaeffer’s “The God Who Is There?” And then there are the magic formulae. If you speak in tongues or do the right things, God will make your marriage better. If you go to the right seminar or follow the 10 principles of Christian speakers who mirror popular positive thinkers like Tony Robbins, you’ll not only feel better about yourself, you’ll also be a success. This is a form of spiritual manipulation that is really not connected to true Christianity.
Back to pietism again. How did it develop? Would you say that it’s a reaction to the rationalism of modernism?
J.W.W.: Pietism, in my opinion, gained a stronghold in modern evangelicalism as a reaction to Darwinism. Darwinism had such an impact and became a guiding scientific principle. It debunked biblical creation and has been a mighty onslaught on traditional religious faith.
The church at first did not have any answers to Darwin and, as a result, retreated into a false spiritualism. The church, in effect, dichotomized reality and became the spiritual side of life — something outside of science, law and all those things that operate in the material world. That is Platonism. This was an easy response because 19th century Christians didn’t really have any answers to Darwinian thinking as a proposed scientific fact. The creation idea was demolished. It wasn’t until the early 1950s that a movement called creationism actually emerged, with scientists who said that evolution is mere theory and there is evidence of design.
Freudianism also had an impact, especially after World War I. Freud asserted that God is merely a figment of our human imagination. Freud’s ideas were very influential and quickly became a mainstay of popular culture. The church was again taken by surprise and retreated even further.
The social implication of the Christian retreat is hyper-spirituality. And even when Christians become lawyers, for example, they still retain a dichotomized view of reality which makes them socially impotent. That’s why it was valid for Dr. Schaeffer to ask, “Where are all the Christian lawyers? Where have you been?” First of all, there weren’t that many who saw Christianity as a totality. And many of the so-called Christian lawyers were Platonists. They were pietistic.
When I first became a Christian, I began attending meetings of Christian legal groups. The main topic was often, “What Is a Christian Lawyer?” After several meetings on the same topic, I quit going. I already knew the answer to the question. Moreover, I could see that the fabric of society was being ripped apart. So there was no time to debate such silly questions. The reason The Rutherford Institute came into being because the Christian lawyers at the time were steeped in pietism. They were endlessly debating the question, “Should we or should we not sue?” I went to law school to be a lawyer so that I would be able to sue. I knew the answer to that question as well.
This false pietism still predominates today. And it persists because we have forgotten the Lordship of Christ. Does the Bible apply to every area of life? And if it does, then why aren’t more Christians involved in every area of life? Why are there so many Bible colleges and not more general Christian colleges and universities that teach all subjects? We’ve forgotten that Harvard, Yale, Princeton and others were originally Christian schools. Then, during the great Christian retreat from reality, those schools became bastions of secular thinking.
A fundamental question Christians have to ask is, “Am I simply part of a subculture?” If that’s true, then we have a small God. But is this true? Is the great God of creation involved in all areas of life? Or is He just the God of a few subculture Christians huddled in church on Sunday?
The Christian subculture philosophy limits what Christians can accomplish. Churches can play a major role in reversing this truncated philosophy. Indeed, if the Christian colleges are not going to effectively educate a Christian on science, law and philosophy, then the churches need to. Churches, instead of having endless seminars on the apocalypse, should have seminars on legal, social and philosophical problems. They could easily do this because there are materials to use. These are all the subjects I discuss in my book “Grasping for the Wind” and the film series that accompanies it. Some of this can be accomplished in Sunday school.
Churches could revolutionize this country. Pastors could take the lead. If every Bible- believing church in this country would have seminars on law, philosophy and culture and actually teach their people relevant subject matter, they could revolutionize the culture.
Dr. Schaeffer mentions the concept of humanism. What is it?
J.W.W.: Humanism is a philosophy which posits that man can begin from himself without direct revelation and develop a system of coherent values that provide worth and dignity for human beings. True Christianity, of course, presupposes that God is the starting point. God gave us revelations in writing because He so coordinated the human psyche that we would read. It’s a question of starting points. The problem, however, is that many Christians act as if they’re humanists. They approach many areas of life without reliance on revelation. And that includes not only so-called liberals but also those who pretend to receive — outside the Bible — direct revelations from God. This type of activity is often a staple of Christian television, where the televangelist receives direct messages from God. In such instances, these types, in effect, become their own god. And this is little different from many of the so-called demonic practices they condemn.
Dr. Schaeffer also mentions the concept of form-freedom balance.
J.W.W.: Form-freedom balance concerns the structure of society and government and whether such provides for freedom. Before the Reformation, which stormed over northern Europe some 400 years ago, there really was no form-freedom balance. World history is replete with tyrants such as the ruthless Caesars. And later the European concept of the divine right of kings became the vogue. This doctrine allowed rulers to spontaneously create law. If you were to upset the king, it could mean your life.
The Reformation re-emphasized the biblical view of justice in terms of how people should be treated. If, for example, one follows the New Testament admonition to love one’s neighbor as oneself — and this also applies to the king — the king cannot be arbitrary. He, too, is held to a standard. Thus, the focus gradually shifted from authoritarianism in either government or the church toward the dignity, value and worth of people.
The shift, of course, did not happen overnight. It took many years to evolve. But it began with the Reformation principle of sola scriptura — that is, the Bible as the ultimate source, not a king or a pope. This meant that kings were not to be the arbiters of rights. It also meant that priests were not the only ones who could interpret or read the Bible — the average person could do so as well.
We forget that Christ was a classical liberal. For example, He held a revolutionary view of women. He treated them as equals. As the New Testament became readily accessible to the populace, it eventually gave birth to the way women are treated today. There are revolutionary principles in the New Testament. However, virtually no one other than establishment authorities knew about them until the Reformation. Martin Luther and other Reformation leaders broke down the previous barriers. This means that form (or structure) gave way to more freedom.
By the time of Samuel Rutherford, these Reformation principles were taking concrete form. You can see this in Rutherford’s book “Lex, Rex,” where he argues that everyone is under the authority of the Bible, even kings and priests. This is an attempt to strike a form-freedom balance. And within the form-freedom balance, as presented by the Reformation leaders, there are astounding principles. For example, if only priests could talk to God, they had a special relationship with God. But if everyone could talk to God, then everyone had this special relationship, and it allowed for freedom for the average person. This created a revolution in people’s minds.
One of the most important principles was a concept advocated by Martin Luther, and it revolutionized how we visualize form and freedom. That was the liberty of conscience. Everyone, argued Luther, had the right to read the Bible; everyone had the right to believe in God; everyone had liberty of conscience to believe as he or she saw fit. This was the genesis of the concept of individual freedom. It meant that the average person had as much right to speak and think as the king did. This was an attack on authoritarian structures ruling over people as if they were property, and it would eventually undermine the institution of slavery.
These Reformation principles, which were brought from Europe, flowed into the new world that became the United States. However, they were not put into action perfectly. Christianity, it must be remembered, has never been practiced perfectly. When its principles have been practiced partly or substantially, however, it has had a beneficial impact. The Puritans, for example, had a sense of these principles, but they over-emphasized form.
By the time of the American Revolution, these principles had filtered into the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence clearly argues for a form-freedom balance in that because God grants freedoms government cannot abrogate them. That is an extension of Reformation thinking. In other words, our founding documents did not spring from a vacuum. Their origin is from northern Europe and the Reformation. And in the American Constitution, we have a nearly perfect statement of the form-freedom concept.
The founding fathers in the United States understood this in varying degrees. John Witherspoon, for example, who lived from 1723 to 1794, understood it. He has always been very important to me. [His work as president of the College of New Jersey, which is now Princeton University], his work in regard to the Declaration of Independence and his work on the countless committees which were functioning at the time of the formation of the United States government, these things were not unrelated. What he stood for as president of the College of New Jersey and his work on the Declaration and then these other things had a total relationship. He knew and stood consciously in the stream coming from Samuel Rutherford, who lived from 1600 to 1661. That stream flowed from Samuel Rutherford’s “Lex, Rex.” Most people in this country no longer remember “Lex, Rex.” But people like Witherspoon and others who founded this country really understood “Lex, Rex” and what it represented — and understood it very well. Thomas Jefferson, of course, was a deist, as well as others. They might have known something more or less about Samuel Rutherford’s work. But one thing they certainly did know, and that was that they stood in the stream of Locke. Locke, of course, lived from 1632 to 1704. In examining Locke, what you find is that he had consciously secularized Samuel Rutherford’s “Lex, Rex”; that is, law is king. He knew what he had done. He reached back and took Samuel Rutherford’s “Lex, Rex” and secularized it. But all the intrinsic parts were there, even though it did not have that firm basis which Samuel Rutherford had as he wrote “Lex, Rex.”
The men who formed the United States in those days from the original 13 states knew very specifically and consciously what they were doing. Let me give you some phrases. Certain “inalienable rights.” They knew what they were doing. Inalienable rights. Where do inalienable rights come from? Not out of irrelativism, surely. Certain inalienable rights. “In God We Trust” soon marched along, along with the previous statement. There was a paid chaplain functioning for the United States Congress before the war was even finished. I wonder if you realize that. And the first Thanksgiving Day was called in order to say thank you to God for the winning of war. These men really knew what they were doing, and they consciously understood the basis of the government which they had established. Also, we must remember that the earlier provincial congresses and the various states — in every single one, they opened with prayer. From the beginning of the United States Congress after it was formed, it always opened with prayer.
These men understood the base upon which they were functioning, and they understood it very, very well indeed. They knew they were building upon the concept of a Supreme Being. And not a vague concept either, but one which could be called in some general way — even with a deist — to be rooted back into the Judeo-Christian memory. This is a concept not just of a far-off, distant God but of a creator who is the final reality. And without this concept, these men understood that when they were writing about certain inalienable rights, it would be absolute nonsense. Total nonsense, except the basis upon which they were consciously and very intelligently functioning.
Witherspoon’s sermon on that first Thanksgiving Day shows their perspective. As he said, “A republic once equally poised must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty.” That was the crux of his first Thanksgiving service immediately after the war was won. In an earlier speech, we find Witherspoon saying, “He is the best friend of American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting pure and undefiled religion.” This is Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
The First Amendment was only for a specific purpose — that there would be no established church for the united 13 colonies or states. That was its basic purpose. As a matter of fact, there were individual states at that time that had state churches. And even this was not considered to be in conflict with the purpose of the First Amendment. To have suggested a viable state separated from religion — which at times meant a general concept of Christianity — to suggest a viable state to these original men separated from religious influence would have utterly amazed them. They would have never thought about it, so deeply rooted were they in the concepts upon which they were building and the streams of Samuel Rutherford and John Locke, which were their foundation. The founding fathers would have been amazed at this concept.
William Blackstone and his input are all in the same direction. What we find is that for him there were two foundations for law — nature and revelation. And he spelled out what he meant by revelation when he spoke of “the divine law found only in the Holy Scripture.” That is what Blackstone wrote in his Commentaries. We must say that until the takeover of government and law in our country by the total other entity — the materialistic, humanistic one with the chance syndrome — not to have mastered Blackstone’s Commentaries would have meant you would not have graduated from law school. You just would have not graduated, so deeply was Blackstone rooted in American law until the relatively recent past. And now it’s all gone. Not partly gone. All gone.
We live in a secularized society and in a secularized sociological time of law. What is sociological law? Sociological law means you do not function on any real solid base or absolutes. Instead, you only deal upon that which a small group of people decide is for the sociological good of the people as a whole at that given moment. That’s sociological law. That isn’t my own definition. If you read some of the men in the Supreme Court — Oliver Wendell Holmes and so on — you find this concept was very much put forward. It’s a very conscious concept. It’s true, of course, that the rulings concerning Mormonism had an impact in the shift of American law. The laws that followed the Civil War and the southern states rejoining the Union had a certain impact upon the change of law. But this is not the basic reason for the change of law in this country. Rather, it is the takeover by the totally other philosophy which would never have given the form and freedom which we take for granted in the first place. It would never have given it. Now it has taken over our form of law. And the form and freedom which we have taken for granted is so shaky, isn’t it?
And there are so many problems. The form and freedom which we have had in northern Europe since the Reformation, this rested upon that base. And with the other totality, the other entity taking over, the base is now the consensus. The materialistic, relativistic, humanistic one. This form and freedom, which we have taken so for granted, suddenly we look up and we find it is shaken to the core. So why should we be surprised? These two totalities of which I have spoken mathematically bring forth certain results not only in personal lives but in government and law. We should have not at all been surprised at what has happened.
Did the American founders have a real vision for freedom, as based on Christianity?
J.W.W.: Many of those who drafted the founding documents were obviously influenced by Christianity. And many others secularized the Christian vision. John Locke, who was a strong influence on some of the founders, secularized Christian principles. But that’s not all bad. For example, a man who is an atheist and practices the principle of loving your neighbor as well as yourself is operating from a Christian base, although he may not know it.
The Declaration of Independence, which is really the founding document of the United States, not the Constitution, is very clearly a document infused with Christian theism. It states very clearly that the rights of people originate in God and these rights are inalienable and absolute. This is important to form-freedom balance. In other words, if there are certain absolute rights that the government cannot abrogate — such as the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence — there is form-freedom balance. The state does not have total authority. The individual does not have total authority. The individual is under some kind of a structure, but within that structure he or she has freedom — something, by the way, that we are losing today in America.
Thus, would it be fair to say that the freedoms Americans enjoy today came from a religious foundation?
J.W.W.: They came not merely from a religious foundation, but specifically from a Judeo-Christian base. Without this base, there is no form-freedom balance.
Therefore, the founding fathers saw no conflict between affirming Christian beliefs and holding intellectual freedom at the same time?
J.W.W.: No, they saw it as a way of obtaining freedom. In fact, Thomas Jefferson, who was not a Christian, said that the morals of Christ were the most sublime principles ever taught. While he was president of the United States, he translated the New Testament from the Greek. From that, Jefferson developed a set of principles derived from the teachings of Christ called the “Jefferson Bible.” From there, Jefferson argued for an aristocracy of virtue. What virtue was he talking about? A Christian virtue, of course. He believed that if one operated from the basic principles taught by Christ, one could have a very adequate form-freedom balance. But without this, there is no such thing because there is no concept of individual rights. It means that the worth and dignity of the individual is not respected.
You will not find such principles in other religions. And you will not find them in countries that are not influenced by the Judeo-Christian thought form. Thus, the individual will find himself under an authoritarian structure that will, at times, persecute him. This, for example, is what we have in countries such as China today. It is what once existed in the old Soviet Union. These are totally authoritarian governments that have no respect for the rights of people. However, if you could institute Christian principles into such governmental structures over a period of time, you would see a more improved form-freedom balance.
In China today, there is intense religious persecution by the government. This arises from a great fear of what Christianity has to say to authoritarian structures. Otherwise, why would the Chinese government put so much emphasis on persecuting Christians? There is also the troublesome waning of the form-freedom balance in the United States. Gradually, individual freedom is even being attacked in this country. And that will increase. But it also explains why the American government supports various authoritarian regimes, including the Chinese government. The United States financially supports the Chinese regime to commit terrorism against its own citizens.
True Christians — those willing to die for the faith — have always been a threat to authoritarian regimes. We must remember that the Christians in Rome were not persecuted because the state was opposed to them being Christians. The Roman government simply wanted to force the Christians to worship and pray not only to Christ but to Caesar as well. The early Christians refused to do that and, as a result, were considered rebels. Thus, it was a political offense. The Romans didn’t see this refusal as a religious offense, but a political offense against the state. The Christians were committing treason in their eyes. That’s why the Romans persecuted them — the Christians were political rebels. Unfortunately, you don’t see many Christian rebels today, especially in the West, and more so in the United States.
How successful were the Founding Fathers in implementing the form-freedom balance?
J.W.W.: They were successful in the beginning. However, as with everything else in a fallen world, the form-freedom balance has deteriorated. That’s why Thomas Jefferson said that we need a revolution every 20 years. He was not talking about violently overthrowing the government. He was speaking about reformulating the government structures to maintain a proper form-freedom balance.
Dr. Schaeffer mentions two competing worldviews. One is materialistic and the other is spiritual. What are the implications of us now moving into a place where laws are not based on a spiritual reality but on materialistic values?
J.W.W.: We are now a materialistic culture. Sadly, the Christians have basically fallen in line with the direction of the materialism. You can see this with the opulent churches and the expensive way many establishment Christians live. This is the antithesis of how Christ lived. Christ fed the poor. He reached out to the common person. He had little earthly material wealth. Again, Christ is juxtaposed to modern opulent Christendom. Modern Christianity, as such, has little involvement with and makes few demands on the culture. Thus, the Christian impact is very minimal. That is why the culture is sloughing off Christianity. The ramifications of this are a waning form-freedom balance. As a consequence, we are going to see more top-down laws, more top-down oppression from the major institutions of society. This can be clearly seen in the public schools which today, with the help of the courts, have eradicated the Christian faith from within the system. Add to this the fact that, in the schools, such things as zero tolerance policies have become draconian.
We are moving into a police state in America because we have discarded the old form-freedom balance in favor of authoritarian structures. Our culture has been sucked into the vacuum of Darwinism. And now we assume that people are just machines or animals.
This philosophy, in various guises, is taught in the public schools and universities. People generally act out what they’re taught in school. And once they’re taught a materialistic philosophy — one that eschews freedom in favor of form — perceived acts of rebellion will be punished very heavily, even if there is no intention of violating certain rules. For example, in some schools when a child comes out of the bathroom and his shirt is not tucked in, such mistakes are punished as if they were crimes. Thus, the end product of forsaking the form-freedom balance is total authoritarianism.
There is no need for a theocracy or anything close to it to maintain the form-freedom balance. The need is for Judeo-Christian principles to be consistently practiced in all walks of life or they are useless. For our president to say “God bless you” at the end of a speech does absolutely no good if it is merely seen as nothing more than a nice way to end things. If we really mean it when we say such things, then we will work for freedom, truth and justice. We will practice what we preach, so to speak. For example, schools cannot be totally secularized and expect freedom to flourish there. Once God is put in a box, man is put in a box. And once in a box, people cannot escape. They’re controlled. And that is what we’re seeing today.
Now I have a question. In these shifts that have come in law, where have the Christian lawyers been? I really ask you that. The shift has come gradually, but it has only come to its peak in the last 40 or 50 years. Where have the Christian lawyers been? Surely the Christian lawyers should have been the ones to have sounded the trumpet clear and loud, not just in bits and pieces but looking at the totality of what was occurring. Now, a nonlawyer like myself believes I have a right to feel let down by the Christian lawyers. When I wrote “How Should We Then Live?,” between 1974 and 1976, when I began at that time in that book to deal with the Lordship of Christ and the whole of life in dealing with law and government (as my previous books had dealt with the Lordship of Christ and the whole of life dealing with culture and with intellectual things), when I began working over that and I looked around, I found as far as I know — now I am not saying that it didn’t exist but I never did find it — I found no book and no articles explaining or even calling attention to the total shift and how far we were already down the road. I would say that John Whitehead’s new book, “The Second American Revolution,” does much to fill that gap. But when I started back there with “How Should We Then Live?,” I began to work from the side of secular philosophy, which was my field and which I understood very well. I began to work from the side looking at liberal theology and its relationship to the secular philosophy. [From looking at the arts,] I turned to look at the courts and especially the U.S. Supreme Court. I read Oliver Wendell Holmes. I read Vincent and others, and I was totally appalled because I was finding in what was written — first by what they said and then by the rulings of the courts — exactly what I had been struggling with in secular philosophy, existential philosophy and all these other things in the cultural realm. I turned from understanding it in these other fields to American law and to the rulings of the courts and especially the Supreme Court. And I found it exactly parallel.
In “How Should We Then Live?” I used Roe v. Wade, the abortion case, as the clearest illustration that I knew of arbitrary sociological law — arbitrary both medically and legally. But it was only the clearest illustration. Many other illustrations could have been given, but it was the clearest. And that is why I used it as my key point in “How Should We Then Live?” But in considering that it is as clear that the law has become that which is relativistic, just as let us say that in Joseph Fletcher’s situational ethics, he exhibits the general relativism of the ethics of our total culture. So as I look at Fletcher — he is an extreme example of the entire relativism that has come into our general ethics. I look at the Court, and I look at the abortion ruling, and I find a clear illustration of something that is the mentality of most of the Court — law has become situational law. But, of course, these things are the natural mathematical results of the materialistic energy humanist concept of reality.
When I talk of these things, they are not philosophical abstractions. When I speak of origins, these origins will determine where everything in my thinking turns out. If I begin with the origin of the infinite, personal God, the Judeo-Christian religion, then I find that there are natural results from that in personal life, but also in law and government. When I turn to the other side, I begin with the impersonal concept of the final what-is-ness being only impersonal material or energy shaped only by impersonal chance. Mathematically, it will also come to natural conclusions concerning personal values, situational values and situation and sociological law and sociological government. In all of this, the Christians in the legal profession had not rung the bell. And we are indeed way down the road toward now a totally humanistic culture, with law — and especially the courts — being the vehicle to force this on the population and its practice. We are a long, long way down the road.
For your comfort perhaps, neither have the Bible-believing theologians been very good at horn-blowing. It isn’t only the Christian lawyers. In 1893, Dr. Charles A. Briggs had been put out of the Presbyterian ministry because of his teaching liberal, rationalistic theology in Union Theological Seminary. I just say in passing that liberal theology is only humanism using theological terms instead of philosophical terms. Then, after that, there was a tremendous and great silence until about the 1920s and 1930s when it was too late and most of the old-line denominations had become dominated at the two power centers of the bureaucracy and of the seminaries. By then, when voices were raised, with rare exceptions it was too late. What I am saying is the Bible-believing theologians didn’t seem to understand much better than the Bible- believing lawyers that we were dealing with totals and not just bits and pieces. Thus, the theologians did no better in seeing the shift from one total worldview concerning reality to the other total worldview concerning reality. And I must say the Christian educators didn’t do very well, either.
Where have the Christian professionals and academics been? Where have the Christians been in general while this cultural shift was happening?
J.W.W.: Instead of seeing things in totals, as in the Lordship of Christ, the evangelical world has opted for a hyper-spiritual religion. Thus, their faith was not integrated into a cohesive Christian worldview.
The Lordship of Christ has to be taught to people in order for them to exercise it effectively. This should be repeatedly taught in the churches. It is not. Christians need to be encouraged to become involved in every area of life. Go out and do good works; get involved with AIDS clinics; get involved with your local government and school system. To be an effective Christian, one does not have to force one’s values on other people. Simply get involved. This is practicing the Lordship of Christ.
We forget that Christ teaches in Matthew 5:13 that Christians are to be the salt or preservative in society. This is a normative statement, not something that Christians should do. Christ said that true Christians are logically and naturally the ingredient that preserves society. Thus, if you are a true Christian, you will act as a preservative on society. This means that wherever one is involved in society, that person should have a positive, curative effect. To do this, you don’t have to have the Bible under your arm all the time. You don’t have to preach. Just practicing the principles of Christ will have an impact.
However, to be what Christ expects of Christians means they have to be involved in the workings of society, not act as if they are inferior subjects to the crown. This means running for office or whatever can be legitimately done. Practice the principles. The fact is that most Christians still see things in bits and pieces. They’ve taken the easy way out. They’ve been beguiled by the spirit of the age and have become materialistic. And when that happens, it stifles the true spirit. And this shows in the minimal impact that modern evangelicalism has on the society around it.
But while I may spread around the problem a bit, it does not help us today except to realize that if we are going to do better in the future than we have in the past, we must stop seeing things in bits and pieces. We must come to understand that it is one total opposed to the odious other total concerning total truth regarding total reality — not just religious reality but total reality. And to join the battle today with any intelligence, we must understand that what we are facing is not just a question of religious truth. It is not a stand only finally upon freedom, and not only upon my freedom. Eventually it is one question of truth against another concept of total reality, and these things stand in total antithesis. If we are going to do better in the future than we have in the past, this must be a deep comprehension not only in our minds but in our stomachs.
We live in a democracy/republic, which was born out of the Christian base and which is increasingly rare in the world today. The United Nations says that out of the 150 or some nations that exist today in the world, less than 25 have any real freedoms. What we take for granted is exceedingly rare in the world today. When we have this freedom, we must use it. We must use it while we have it. Now some of us may have questions about some of the things, for example, done by the Moral Majority and what is stood for and what is said. But I would say if you are going to have questions, get your information from some other place than the media that also has the same presuppositions that the rest of the culture has. Don’t expect objectivity from this in these questions. Why would they be objective? They aren’t telling lies. They are seeing it through a total perspective on the materialistic, rationalistic, humanistic, relativistic, socialized world-view. So think things through very carefully on judgment, and do not just take blindly the statements of a media that have exactly the same perspective that you find in law and the government and in much of education and all the rest. Otherwise, you are really not educated people. You are just sponges.
We must realize that if the Moral Majority does not suit some of you, then I would say we must at least say that they have to some real extent met the problem and used the freedom which we have in the political arena today to stand with some consistency against the other total entity. They really have. And what we must say is if you can do better, do it. But what we must not do is cut the ground from under each other when we enter the political arena, which is a part of true spirituality. We must get that very firmly fastened in our thinking.
This brings me to the evangelical leadership in this country. They haven’t been much help in these things either, I would say. They have also shown the marks of a Platonic Christianity all too often. Spirituality has not included the Lordship of Christ over the whole spectrum of life and much of the evangelical leadership. Spirituality is being shut up to a very narrow area. And also it seems that very often the main concern is not to rock the boat in regard to the individual’s personal projects. No. We can say with tears, as we say there is lots of room for blame, that the evangelical leadership has not been much help in this area.
Often it seems the evangelicals of our own day have forgotten the whole revivals and what the old revivals brought forth. The old revivals called for a personal salvation, true enough. However, they also resulted in social action. Think of Wesley. Think of Whitefield. There are many British secular historians who say that it was the revivals of John Wesley and George Whitefield and the social changes they brought which saved England from its own form of the French Revolution. And I must say I think history proves that judgment right. Think of Jasper and William Wilberforce. It makes you proud to be a Christian just to name the names if you know what they stood for against great and terrible odds, what results God brought forth from these people. I was very interested in reading a recent book by Jeremy Rifkin, the counterculture man. It is called “Entropy.” In it, Rifkin shows that he understands that these revivals really called for something not just in personal relationships (which he, of course, does not believe in) to God but in the social areas. He understands this better than many of our evangelical leaders have understood what the old revivals brought forth. In passing, I can also say that he quoted largely in his book from my book “Pollution and the Death of Man: A Christian View of Ecology.” It shows that he understands that there is a Christian view which has something to say about the great problems of ecology, as well as those social actions as brought forth by the old revivals.
Even closer to hand, who remembers Jonathan Blanchard, the founder of Wheaton College? He was one of the leaders who fought against slavery. Who remembers Charles Finney? He is usually thought of as the great evangelist. But who remembers that Finney did exactly the same thing at Overland College that Blanchard did at Wheaton? He called for real change in the social world. Both of them set down for the students, and for anyone who would hear, that when a law is wrong, it is wrong. And they called for civil disobedience. That’s Blanchard. And that’s Finney. These men really had a rich Christianity — a Christianity that they understood the Lordship of Christ extended across all of life. You cannot say Jesus is Savior without saying He is Lord. And He is not just Lord of the religious life but of the totality of life as well.
Let me come back to the weakness of much of the evangelical leadership in these areas. When “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” came out, it was very instructive to stress the Lordship of Christ over the whole area of life in regard to the legal issue, even the legal issue of human life. We found as we brought out “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” that it was not always wildly accepted. The seminars were marvelous. The people went away moved and committed. And without any question, the book, the film and the seminars had a definite part in stirring many Christians to do something about human life for the very first time. Now many of the evangelicals indeed have taken their place where before it was largely the Roman Catholics and the Mormons. We are thankful for the results of the book, the film and the seminars. These seminars, however, I would tell you, were not as well attended as the previous seminars of “How Should We Then Live?” Why? Because much of the evangelical leadership didn’t want the boat rocked. And not only did they not urge people to come but — in certain cases — they hindered their coming.
Part One • Part Two • Part Three
DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN OLDSPEAK ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE.
