Theology

A brief follow-up on the early Salvation Army as “a church”

/ James Pedlar / 6 Comments

Just a quick follow-up to my last post, “When did The Salvation Army become a church?”   I was arguing that the SA started to “function” as a church from a very early date – once its members stopped finding their spiritual home and nurture elsewhere.

Thanks to the kind staff at the Salvation Army International Heritage Centre, I’ve been reading through a scanned-image copy of the 1870 Doctrines and Rules of The Christian Mission.  

This document was endorsed by the first “General Conference” of The Christian Misison, which met in November 1870, and marked the transition of the movement into a Methodist-style polity.  This lasted until 1878 when the switch was made to a military-style government, although by then the role of Conference had already been minimized by Booth.  

To get back to the 1870 Doctrines and Rules: I find it interesting that under “Membership,” rule V.17 states:

Persons belonging to other churches seeking membership with us shall be admitted on presentation of their note of transfer, if such can be obtained.

The reference to transfer from “other churches” implies that the members of The Christian Mission, at that time, saw themselves as a “church,” or at least the equivalent of a church on the issue of church membership.

Although this document was later replaced by the 1875 and 1878 Deed Polls, it is an interesting window on a mission that was already dealing with movement / church tensions.

When did The Salvation Army become “a church”?

/ James Pedlar / 16 Comments

Of course, the question of when The Salvation Army became a church is a loaded question.  First of all, there are many who would debate whether or not The Salvation Army ever became a church.  Is today’s Salvation Army a church?  The key sticking point is, of course, the sacraments, and whether or not they are key “marks” of the church.  That requires a separate post, I think, and I’ll attempt that in the next couple weeks.

To put my own view in a nutshell, however, I would say that The Salvation Army is a peculiar hybrid of church and specialized movement. This will be part of the argument I put forward in my thesis.  On the one hand, it has always acted like a church in terms of the functions it performs for its members.  It is the spiritual home for Salvationists, the place where they are converted, the place where they are nurtured, where they fellowship and serve, mark significant moments in their life, and raise their children.  On the other hand, it has often maintained that it has a special vocation, to be something more than, or other than “a church.”  And for a long time, Salvationist leaders explicitly and publicly insisted that The Salvation Army was “not a church.”

William Booth insisted that their original design was not to set up another church or denomination, but to evangelize people, and then send them to established churches.   In an oft-quoted passage, he explains why this didn’t happen:

My first idea was simply to get the people saved, and then send them to the churches.  This proved at the outset impracticable.
1st. They would not go when sent. 
2nd. They were not wanted. 
And 3rd. We wanted some of them at least, ourselves to help us in the business of saving others.
We were thus  driven to providing for the converts ourselves (“How We Began,” in Boundless Salvation: The Shorter Writings of William Booth, 39)

So, from an early date, even before it was known as “The Salvation Army,” Booth’s movement was functioning as a “spiritual home” for its converts and workers.   This is what I mean when I saw the Army “acted like” a church from the early days.  It was functioning as a church.

How early did this start to happen?   Harold Hill, in his fascinating book Leadership in the Salvation Army: A Case Study in Clericalisation, suggests that 1867 was a “turning point” for the young movement, when it became established as a “distinct body.”   Drawing on Sandall’s official account, Hill notes a number of important things that happened in 1867, including the formal naming of the movement as the East London Christian Mission, the acquisition of headquarters, the hiring of workers, and the establishment of a system of processing converts.

But if 1867 was a turning point, Hill goes on to argue, it was the beginning of a decade-long transition towards something very much like a “denomination.”  1878, the year when Booth assumed full, autocratic control of the movement, and the year when its name was changed to “The Salvation Army”  marked the end of this transition.

Between 1868 and 1878, then, the process took place whereby an independent mission staffed by volunteers from a variety of church backgrounds evolved into a highly centralised, sect-like organisation, a people with a distinct and common identity, and its own full-time, employed leaders, analogous to clergy (Hill, Leadership in the Salvation Army, 49).

With a distinct identity as a Christian body, members who were not part of other churches, and a clergy-like leadership structure, the newly-named Salvation Army was certainly acting like a church, and therefore from the perspective of “function,” was a church (leaving aside those difficult theological questions which I’ll take up another day).

Yet, in the first Orders and Regulations, issued in the same year of 1878, William Booth wrote: “We are not and will not be made a Church.  There are plenty for anyone who wishes to join them, to vote and rest.”  Subsequent Salvation Army Generals continued to maintain this view through the mid-20th century.  It wasn’t until the 1970s that Clarence Wiseman publicly affirmed his conviction that the Salvation Army was “a church” while still affirming that it was “a permanent mission to the unconverted” and that it shared some features of a religious order.

So, while acknowledging that the question of when The Salvation Army became “a church” is a very complicated one, I would argue that, functionally speaking, it began to act like a church from as early as 1867, even if it refused to self-identify as a church.  Whether or not we should say that the early Salvation Army was a church from a normative, theological sense, will depend upon how we define “a church,” and specifically, whether we believe the observance of sacraments is essential to ecclesiality.

Jerry Walls on “What’s Wrong With Calvinism”

/ James Pedlar / 3 Comments

Jerry Walls, well known Wesleyan philosopher, formerly of Asbury Seminary, and now at Houston Baptist University, has put out a useful two-part video on “What’s Wrong with Calvinism.”

This isn’t a full-fledged positive account of the Wesleyan-Arminian position, but rather a philosophical critique of Calvinism.

The take-away point is Walls’s claim that the heart of the difference between Calvinists and Wesleyan-Arminians has to do with the character of God, not the issues of sovereignty and biblical authority as people sometimes assume.   I’ve made a similar point in a previous post here.

Thanks to Kevin Jackson for spreading the word about these videos.

These are well worth a listen.  Both parts together total about 35 minutes.

Updated – he’s added a third part (below) – 23 more minutes on why this debate matters

Here is part 1:

And part 2:

Part 3:

Gems from Wesley’s Journal

/ James Pedlar / 2 Comments

Some great quotes I came across while reading Wesley’s Journal this week – a mix of the profound, the witty, and the humourous.

On an elegant meeting house:

“I was shown Dr. Taylor’s new meeting house, perhaps the most elegant one in Europe.  It is eight-square, built of the finest brick, with sixteen sash-windows below, as many above, and eight skylights in the dome, which, indeed, are purely ornamental.  The inside is finished in the highest taste and is as clean as any nobleman’s saloon.  The communion table is fine mahogany; the very latches of the pew doors are polished brass.  How can it be thought that the old, coarse gospel should find admission here?’ “Wednesday, November 23, 1757.

Advice for travellers:

“The captain with whom we were to sail was in great haste to have our things on board; but I would send them while the wind was against us.  On Wednesday he sent message after message, so in the evening we went down to the ship, near Passage; but there was nothing ready, or near ready for sailing.  Hence I learned two or three rules very needful for those who sail between England and Ireland: (1) never pay till you set sail; (2) go not on board till the captain goes on board; (3) send not your baggage on board till you go yourself.”  Tuesday, August 1, 1758.

His love for a soft cushion:

“On Monday and Tuesday evening I preached abroad, near the Keelmen’s Hospital, to twice the people we should have had at the house.  What marvel the devil does not love field preaching?  Neither do I.  I love a commodious room, a soft cushion, a handsome pulpit.  But where is my zeal, if I do not trample all these under foot, in order to save one more soul?”  Saturday, June 23, 1759.

Preaching to the rich:

“It is well a few of the rich and noble are called.  Oh, that God would increase their number!  But I should rejoice (were it the will of God), if it were done by the ministry of others.  If I might choose, I should still (as I have done hitherto) preach the gospel to the poor.” Saturday November 13, 1759.

Preaching over a hog sty:

“We had a pretty large congregation; but the stench from the swine under the room was scarcely supportable. Was ever a preaching place over a hog sty before?  Surely they love the gospel who come to hear it in such a place.”  Friday, November 23, 1759.

A false messenger:

“One came to me, as she said, with a message from the Lord, to tell me, I was laying up treasures on earth, taking my ease, and minding only my eating and drinking.  I told her, God knew me better, and if He had sent her, He would have sent her with a more proper message.”  Wednesday, January 16, 1760.

A fool of a saint:

“I read the celebrated Life of St. Katherine, of Genoa.  My Lesley calls one “a devil of a saint”; I am sure this was a fool of a saint; that is, if it was not the folly of her historian, who has aggrandized her into a mere idiot.  Indeed, we seldom find a saint of God’s making, sainted by the bishop of Rome.”  December 3, 1761.

Book Review – Boundless Salvation: The Shorter Writings of William Booth

/ James Pedlar / 3 Comments

An important new resource has been produced for students of Salvation Army history, theology, and ministry: Boundless Salvation: The Shorter Writings of William Booth.  Edited by Andrew Eason of Booth University College and Roger Green of Gordon College, this book is a very significant publication from an academic perspective.  The fact that a  publisher like Peter Lang would publish a book of William Booth’s writings indicates that academic study of The Salvation Army has become a significant and legitimate scholarly enterprise.

The book is also the first publication of the newly founded Centre for Salvation Army Studies at Booth University College.  Hopefully it is an indication of more good things to come.

Since it is a hardcover book published by an academic press, it is a bit pricey.   Hopefully the book will do well and they will issue  a softcover edition down the road.  If you’re a serious student of William Booth and The Salvation Army, however, this would be a worthwhile investment, even at full price.

Eason and Green have grouped the writings under several categories:

  1. Origins and Early Days
  2. Salvation
  3. Holiness
  4. Female Ministry
  5. Missions and Missionaries
  6. Relationship to the Church

The book begins with a 12 page introduction which offers a brief overview of Booth’s life and ministry.   Each section also includes its own introduction, which summarizes Booth’s views and offers some background on the particular writings included.

What the book provides is access to important writings of Booth that were previously found either only in periodicals from the time (such as The Revivalist, The Christian Mission Magazine, etc.), or were previously included in other anthologies or collections without proper documentation or background information provided.

For example, Chapter 1, “Origins and Early Days,” includes the following three pieces:

  • “East of London Revival Effort” (originally found in The Revival (August 17, 1865)
  • “Our New Name” (originally found in The Salvationist 1 (January 1879)
  • “How We Began” (originally found in George Scott Railton’s Twenty One Years Salvation Army (London: The Salvation Army Book Depot, 1886).

Other writings included which I find particularly fascinating are “Salvation for Both Worlds,” a pivotal 1889 document that demonstrates the shift in Booth’s theology of redemption, and “The Millennium; or The Ultimate Triumph of Salvation Army Principles” (1890).

As someone who is currently writing a dissertation which deals with Booth and the early Army, this resource has come at a very opportune time.   It is great to have these pieces collected together, and to be able to benefit from the expert scholarship of Eason and Green.

The only thing the book lacks (from my perspective) is a complete table of contents, listing all the writings included.   The TOC only lists the main headings, as I’ve identified above.   I found it a bit inconvenient to have to search through each section to see what was included.  After a few times flipping through the book, I actually typed out my own TOC and stuck it inside the front cover, so I could easily reference the specific writings included.  I’ve pasted the expanded list of contents below, in case any of you are like me and you want the complete list.

However, that is a very minor criticism.  This is a very important resource for those studying The Salvation Army, and I hope many people will make use of the excellent work done by Eason and Green.

*************************

Boundless Salvation: The Shorter Writings of William Booth

Expanded Table of Contents

Acknowledgments – vii

Foreword – ix

Introduction – 1

Chapter 1. Origins and Early Days – 13

East of London Revival Effort (August 17, 1865) – 21

Our New Name (January 1879) – 25

How We Began (1886) – 28

Chapter 2. Salvation – 41

The Conversion of the World (October 1869) – 48

The Model Salvation Soldier (1885) – 49

Salvation for Both Worlds (1899) – 51

The Millennium; or, the Ultimate Triumph of Salvation Army Principles (1890) – 60

Chapter 3. Holiness – 72

Holiness: An Address at the Conference (1877) – 80

Holiness (1881) – 87

A Ladder to Holiness (n.d.) – 101

Chapter 4. Female Ministry – 106

Mrs. Booth as a Woman and a Wife (1910) – 111

On Salvation Women (1901) – 114

More about Women’s Rights (1901) – 118

Woman (1907-8) – 121

Chapter 5. Missions and Missionaries – 128

To the Officers and Soldiers of the Indian Salvation Army (1886) – 134

The Future of Missions and the Mission of the Future (1889) – 139

Chapter 6. Relationship to the Church – 165

Wesleyan Methodist Conference (1880) – 173

What is the Salvation Army? (1882) – 178

The General’s New Year Address to Officers (1883) – 185

Conclusion – 197

Resources for Further Study – 201

Methodist Influence on Isaac Hecker

/ James Pedlar / Leave a comment

One of the reasons I chose to study the Paulist Fathers alongside The Salvation Army in my dissertation is because the Paulist Founder, Isaac Hecker, had connections to the Methodist tradition.  Hecker’s Methodist grounding was tenuous, and nothing like William Booth’s ardent devotion to all things Wesleyan.  Booth is famously quoted as describing his early commitment to Methodism in the following terms: “To me there was one God, and John Wesley was his prophet.” (Booth-Tucker, Life of Catherine Booth, I: 52). Hecker had a fairly negative view of all the Protestant denominations, and spoke very negatively of his religious upbringing.  However, some have suggested that Methodism had more of an influence on Hecker than he himself might have wanted to acknowledge.

Issac Hecker was born in New York, the son of German immigrants, in 1819.  His parents married in the Dutch Reformed Church, but his mother Caroline soon joined the Methodist Church, and was a faithful member of Forsythe Street Church for the remainder of her life, even though most of her family members had no association with Methodism.  Of the four Hecker children, only one, Elizabeth, joined her mother’s church.  Caroline Hecker seems to have maintained a remarkably tolerant attitude in matters of religion, and was quite content to let her sons worship in other traditions.

Although not a great deal is known of Isaac Hecker’s involvement with the Methodists, it seems clear that he did have at least some exposure to Methodism as a child, and he had his first job working for a Methodist publishing house.  Vincent Holden, one of his biographers, claims Hecker “became acquainted with fundamental Methodist doctrine and with the Methodist form of worship.”  (The Yankee Paul, p. 7)

Indeed, it has been argued that some of the Methodist ethos remained with Hecker in subtle ways throughout his life.  The point is made by John Farina, both in his Introduction to Isaac T. Hecker, The Diary: Romantic Religion in Ante-Bellum America, as well as in chapter 2 of his book, An American Experience of God.

Farina highlights several features of Methodism that would have been formative to Hecker’s early religious instruction, and which remained prominent in his own thinking and experience throughout his life:

  • The ideal of Christian community
  • A doctrine of God’s special providence
  • The doctrine of Christian perfection
  • A focus on personal experience
  • An emphasis on free will and human agency

Anyone picking up Hecker’s own writings, or reading the story of his life, can see how these emphases remained an important part of his spirituality after he became a Catholic.

Hecker was surely exaggerating when he later claimed, “no positive religious instructions were imparted to me in my youth.” (The Paulist Vocation, 49).  By the time he had reached adolescence, however, he seems to have decided that Methodism was not sufficient for the spiritual desires he felt had been placed in his own heart.  He started off on a circuitous spiritual quest that led him through political action and Transcendentalism, before he came back to the Christian Church, and eventually entered the Roman Catholic church.

Hecker was an enthusiastic Catholic, and had some strong criticisms for the Protestant traditions. In a document submitted to his spiritual directors in Rome as part of his petition for permission to found the Paulists (1858), Hecker recalled that he considered the various protestant bodies but “none answered the demands of my reason or proved satisfactory to my conscience.” In The Paulist Vocation, 52.

More specifically, regarding Methodism, Hecker commented in 1887: “…in our time it had no stated intellectual basis.  It was founded totally on emotional “conversion,” with the notorious exclusion of the intellect.” See “Dr. Brownson and Catholicity,” The Catholic World 46 (November 1887): 231.

Farina suggests that his critique of the “intellectual basis” of Methodism (and other protestant traditions) was aimed not at the internal coherence of protestant doctrine, but more fundamental questions about the nature of religious faith, and the correspondence between inner religious experience and the external world (Farina, An American Experience of God, 29).

In spite of his criticisms of the Methodism he had known as a child, I think Farina is correct in suggesting that Methodist influence can be seen in Hecker’s own thought.  I hope that at some point in my future writing I will have a chance to take up this question and provide a thorough scholarly demonstration the Methodist influence on Hecker.

Can charisms change? Insights from the examples of William Booth and Isaac Hecker

/ James Pedlar / 4 Comments

My research on the charism of William Booth and Isaac Hecker is raising some interesting questions in relation to the relative permanence or provisionality of charisms.   Are charisms a permanent endowment given to a person, or can they change, or even come and go, depending on the specific situations faced by the church in various times and places?

The issue is particularly important as it relates the charisms of ordained ministry, because traditions with a “high” view of ordination often believe it bestows a permanent character on the ordained person.

The report on Ministry from the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (1973) provides an example of this kind of thinking:

In this sacramental act, the gift of God is bestowed upon the ministers, with the promise of divine grace for their work and for their sanctification; the ministry of Christ is presented to them as a model for their own; and the Spirit seals those whom he has chosen and consecrated. just as Christ has united the church inseparably with himself, and as God calls all the faithful to life-long discipleship so the gifts and calling of God to the ministers are irrevocable. For this reason, ordination is unrepeatable in both our Churches (#15).

On the other hand, Miroslav Volf, in his After our Likeness, while not discounting the possibility of lifelong charisms, suggests that charisms may come and go:

In contrast to calling, charismata in the theological sense of a combination of calling and endowment for a specific ministry in church and world are not “irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29). Various charismata can replace one another over time, something implied by the interactional model of their bestowal.  Over the history of the congregation and of its individual members, the charismata with which these members serve in the congregation can also change; certain charismata come to the fore at certain times, while others become unimportant (either for the congregation itself of for the bearers of these charismata). This does not mean that the divine calling and endowment for a certain ministry cannot be a lifelong affair; but it is not necessarily such.  In any case, there is no correlation between the permanence of a particular charism and its divine origin.  The Spirit of God is the Spirit of life, adn the Spirit’s gifts are accordingly as varied as is ecclesial life itself (233).

William Booth and Isaac Hecker are interesting case studies in relation to this question, because both experienced what could be called a “broadening” of their respective vocations.

For Booth, the broadening related to his theology of redemption.  This is the development traced in Roger Green’s War on Two Fronts, in which Booth’s understanding of redemption expanded to include efforts at social reform.   Whereas early in his ministry Booth was strictly a revivalist who engaged in some social ministry as a means to and end (the end being evangelism), by 1890 he had come to see efforts at social reform as part of the church’s mission.  Booth came to see salvation as social as well as personal, and therefore solidified and extended the mission of The Salvation Army to include organized efforts at social redemption.

Does this shift in missional thinking and practice signify a change in Booth’s personal charism, or did his charism remain the same, while he gained a broader understanding of its vocational direction?   The answer, of course, depends on how Booth’s charism prior to 1890 is understood.   Was his ministry to the poor and marginalized an essential aspect of his charism, or did he simply have the charism of an evangelist?  Is it possible to have a charism of “evangelist to the marginalized”?

I’m working these questions through right now, but I’m leaning toward suggesting that it wasn’t Booth’s charism that changed, but simply his understanding of where that gift ought to take him and the ways he ought to exercise it in his own context.   If salvation includes the social as well as the spiritual, then being an evangelist ought to include social action, since the good news of the gospel itself has social implications.

For Isaac Hecker, the change came in terms of the scope of his personal mission.   At the time of the founding of the Paulist Fathers (1858), Hecker was captivated by a strong belief that he should be a missionary to America.  He felt that his experience as a native-born American, his acquaintance with the culture, desires, and values of the American people, and his familiarity with a class of Americans who were already on a spiritual quest had placed him in a unique position to reach out to the American people as a Catholic evangelist.  This required, he believed, the founding of a religious society that was specifically adapted to the American culture, since the established religious orders were all of European origin, and thus unsuited to the task of reaching Americans.

Starting in the 1870s, however, Hecker began to broaden his vision, and now felt that the Paulists should not confine themselves to America, but should expand into Europe.  This was supported by his view of America’s providential place in the world – he felt that the American culture, and the experiences of the Catholic Church in America, would provide the solutions for the Church’s troubles in Europe.   He thought the Paulists should take what they had learned in America and come to the aid of the European Church.

Writing in 1875 along these lines, Hecker seems to suggest something like a “provisionality of charisms”:

One may be engaged in a good work, but of an inferior order, more on the circumference; but as it is a good work, and he sees no better, he should act where he is and be contented. Suppose, however, it is given to a soul the light to see a good of a much higher order, more essential, more efficacious, more general, more universal, including the former; and this light draws him from the former, all his interest as such in it has expired, and he lives in this higher and more universal light; can he do no otherwise than follow it? (The Paulist Vocation, Revised and Expanded Edition, p. 96)

As with Booth, I’m not entirely sure where to come down on this issue.  Hecker clearly believed his vocation, and that of the Paulists, had expanded – does this imply a change of charism?  Again, I’m leaning toward the idea that his personal charism did not change; rather his sense of vocation was expanded, based on his growing familiarity with the challenges facing the Church in Europe.

Why Arminian theology is neither Pelagian nor Semi-Pelagian

/ James Pedlar / 21 Comments

Critics sometimes charge that Arminian theology (including its Wesleyan articulation) is Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian.   The charge usually comes from those who are strict monergists, meaning that the believe salvation is effectually accomplished by God without the cooperation of the human person.   For the most strident monergists, any doctrine of salvation which is not monergistic ought to be labelled “Pelagian,” or “Semi-Pelagian,” or perhaps identified as the start of a slippery slope that leads to Pelagianism.  If you are looking for examples of writers to make this charge against Arminian theology, a good place to start is Roger Olson’s Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities. 

However, this charge can be easily dismissed by offering clear accounts of Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism.

Several times in Augustine’s Confessions we find Augustine praying: “Give me the grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will.” In this prayer, Augustine is admitting that he needs God’s grace in a radical way—not only to know what God commands, but also to do what God commands. He is saying that he cannot obey God in his own power; he needs divine assistance.

Pelagius disagreed with Augustine’s assertion that human beings were incapable of obeying God in their own strength. He thought this idea might lead people to avoid personal moral responsibility. So Pelagius taught that human beings have complete freedom of the will, meaning that we inherently possess the freedom to obey God in every situation. Therefore, he said, we do not need divine grace to overcome sin. For Pelagius, we are all inherently capable of pleasing God, and therefore we are all obligated to offer God perfect obedience.

In a nutshell, Pelagianism denies original sin, and claims that human nature has not been corrupted and humans are capable of choosing good and avoiding sin without any special divine aid.  In other words, human beings are capable of meriting salvation on their own without God’s grace.

Pelagius felt that Christians do receive grace from God, but the only kind of grace he felt that humans needed was the grace of illumination – knowing what God would have us to do. The only barrier to obedience would be our ignorance of God’s will. So the ten commandments, then, would be divine grace, offering us everything we need to live a life that is pleasing to God.

Augustine agreed that we need grace to illuminate our understanding, but disagreed that we have the inherent ability to obey. Sin has so infected and bound us that we are dependent upon grace for any good that we might do.

Salvation, then, in the Pelagian perspective comes through obedience; we are justified on the basis of our merits, which we gain through our obedience to God. Augustine taught that salvation comes through divine grace. Our only claim on salvation is the promise of grace through Christ. Even our good works are dependent upon grace, and therefore are not meritorious.  This is the basis for the classic doctrine of total depravity.

It is quite clear that Arminians are not Pelagian, because Arminans affirm the doctrines of original sin and total depravity.   Human salvation is completely dependent upon God’s grace, without which we would be helpless.  While Arminians do hold that God’s prevenient grace provides fallen humanity with a measure of freedom so that we can respond to God, this freedom is not an inherent human quality.  Rather, it is a gift of grace, without which we would be helpless.

Semi-Pelagianism is a mediating position between Augustine and Pelagius which was  proposed later.  In Semi-Pelagianism, the initial step towards salvation is made by the unaided human free will.  In other words, the human person is capable of deciding to turn to Christ in faith, without any divine assistance.   After that initial step is made, the Semi-Pelagian position proposes, divine grace is then poured out for the “increase of faith.” Semi-Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Orange in 529.

Again, any responsible account of Arminian soteriology will make it clear that Arminians are not Semi-Pelagian.  Arminians do not believe that human beings decide to exercise faith in Christ by an unaided act of the will.  On the contrary, they affirm that, without divine grace, the fallen human person is incapable of turning to God.  Prevenient grace frees the person so that such a response is possible.

What is distinctive about the Arminian position (as opposed to monergistic Reformed accounts) is that God’s grace is resistible, meaning that we can refuse his gracious offer of salvation.  However, that hardly means that our acceptance of that offer is some kind of Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian meritorious “work.”

The influence of “non-theological factors” on the rise of Montanism

/ James Pedlar / 12 Comments

“Non-theological factors” always play a role in the rise of reform movements in the church.  By “non-theological factors,” I mean social, economic, political, and cultural elements that are not directly derived from received interpretations of the truth of the Gospel.   Political, cultural, and economic factors can play a very significant role in shaping the direction a given movement takes, as well as the way the movement is received by the church.

Sometimes interpretations of popular movements which lean heavily on the importance of these non-theological factors can be dismissive of substantive Christian convictions.  However, this need not be the case.  We should expect that reform movements are influenced by social forces, and indeed that they should form their particular Christian convictions in dialogue with social forces at play in their time.

This is an important part of the church’s missionary engagement with the world.  There are no “purely” theological convictions, because theology is always worked out in the course of the church’s life in history, and it is bound to be affected by social, political, and cultural factors.  Therefore, we should not fall into the trap of assuming that non-theological factors determine of the rise and shape of reform movements, but we should examine the way that Christian convictions interact with non-theological factors in the history of particular movements, and evaluate the role of non-theological factors on the basis of this interaction.  It is the interaction of specifically Christian convictions with non-theological influences that produces the vitality and volatility of the reform and renewal movements.

Montanism, a popular second century movement which upheld a rigorous vision of Christian discipleship, and was marked by prophetic spiritual gifts, is an interesting case-in-point.

A number of non-theological factors played a role in the history of the Montanist movement. The movement took root in Phrygia in the late second century, where it would seem that the tradition of prophecy had continued to exist alongside the priestly office (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. V.17).   The continuing existence of a prophetic office made it difficult for the bishops and clergy of that region to deny the Montanist prophecies, in spite of the eccentricities and excesses of the Montanists.  W. H. C. Frend suggests that the Montanists were a threat to the clergy, and as such the rivalry between priest and prophet caused the Montanists to be resented, and contributed toward their rejection by the established church (Saints and Sinners in the Early Church, 69).  No doubt the prominent role played by women would have also created concern among clerics.

It seems that the Montanists raised no serious doctrinal challenge to the established church, but their somewhat strange and extreme positions and their threat to established leadership led the church to push them out of its fellowship. While it is difficult, on the basis of the evidence, to evaluate the established church’s decision, it does seem that the church might have benefited from the continuing vitality of Montanism, and its excesses might have been kept in check, had the Montanists been given a continuing place in the established church’s life.

After the movement was officially rejected by the clergy, it continued to flourish in the Phrygian countryside, but also spread to North Africa.  This move was aided by the fact that the movement found fertile soil for a rigorist morality in that context.  A significant political factor inNorth Africawas the persecution of Christians, which led to a spirit of defiance and apocalyptic hope among the Christians there, even before the spread of Montanism.  The persecutions inNorth Africaled to an anti-imperial protest ethic among the Christians, with martyrdom and confession being valued above all else.  In this political environment the strict Montanist discipline appealed to Christians like Tertullian, who had faced the prospect of dying for their faith.  The rigorist morality also reinforced the social distinctions between the Montanists and the rest of North African society, distinctions which again were made quite apparent during times of persecution.

Thus we can see that some non-theological factors influenced the Montanist movement in various ways.  The tension between prophetic and priestly roles in the Church caused difficulties with the clergy which influenced the rejection of Montanism.  The rural regions ofPhrygiaproved more fertile soil culturally for the rigorist morality of Montanism, and the persecutions inNorth Africaalso supported the rigorist and apocalyptic currents of the movement, leading Montanism to grow specifically in those regions.

However, it is also obvious that such non-theological factors alone cannot be credited with bringing about the rise or Montanism, or determining its character.  Ultimately the Christian convictions of the Montanists themselves were more significant in shaping the movement’s existence.

First of all, the conviction that the Spirit was speaking directly through the Montanist prophets led members of the movement to embrace a radical obedience and adherence to the discipline that was derived from their prophetic utterances.  So Tertullian ridicules the Catholic criticism of Montanist fasting by noting that Catholics will fast at the request of the Bishop, yet the Montanists fast at the direction of the Spirit (On Fasting, XIII).  Further, after the movement was rejected by the church, one can understand why many members continued to adhere loyally to their leaders, since they believed that the church had rejected the Spirit in rejecting the Montanists.  Likewise, the apocalyptic anticipation of living on the cusp of a new age would encourage radical adherence to the movement and generate a significant following.

Finally, we can note that a strong conviction concerning the holiness of the church shaped the Montanist relation to other Christians.  In On Modesty, Tertullian is enraged that the “Pontifex Maximus” has issued an edict indicating that the sins of adultery and fornication could be forgiven with proper repentance.

“But it is in the church that this (edict) is read, and in the church that it is pronounced; and (the church) is a virgin!  Far, far from Christ’s betrothed be such a proclamation!” (On Modesty I).

The pardoning of adulterers is parallel to the pardoning of idolaters in Tertullian’s mind.  The Church’s holiness is seen in the integrity of her discipline, and it is this conviction concerning the Church’s holiness that drives Tertullian’s adherence to Montanism.

I would argue that, while the non-theological factors certainly played a supporting role in Montanism’s rise, the leading role in shaping the movement came from the central theological convictions that its members embraced.  More specifically in North Africa, it was the encounter of these strong convictions about the divine origin of Montanist discipline and the integrity of the Church with the political condition of government persecution which produced the enthusiasm and vitality of the Montanist movement.

Leaving revivalism behind?

/ James Pedlar / 2 Comments

Christianity Today has posted a fascinating article by Gordon T. Smith, excerpted from his essay on “Conversion and Redemption” in the Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology.  The Handbook itself is a fantastic resource, though it is terribly expensive.  Thankfully the libraries I have access to have bought the electronic version.   Included in the Handbook are articles by my dissertation director, Ephraim Radner, on the church, and a chapter on spiritual gifts by Howard Snyder, who has been a mentor to me and many other Canadian Wesleyan theological students during his tenure as Chair of Wesley Studies at Tyndale Seminary.

Smith’s article argues that evangelical understandings of conversion are changing dramatically, and that a common feature that can be seen in the wide variety of changes in this regard is that, across the board, revivalism is being left behind:

It is not be an overstatement to say that evangelicals are experiencing a “sea change”—a paradigm shift—in their understanding of conversion and redemption, a shift that includes the way in which they think about the salvation of God, the nature and mission of the church, and the character of religious experience. Although there is no one word to capture where evangelicals are going in this regard, there is a word that captures what they are leaving behind: revivalism.

Smith offers a sketch of the ways that revivalism has impacted evangelicalism’s understanding of conversion: the focus on a dramatic one-time experience, often crystallized in the the saying of the “sinner’s prayer”; the emphasis on the afterlife; the practical distinction between “evangelism” and “disciple-making,” the emphasis on numeric growth, and so on.

He then traces how developments in evangelical thinking in a number of different fields have challenged the revivalistic assumptions which characterized much of 20th century evangelicalism.  New ideas in biblical studies, new approaches to religious experience, ecumenical influences, the changing face of global Christianity, and an increased interest in learning from Christian history have all combined to undermine the revivalist understanding of conversion.

Increasingly, there is appreciation that conversion is a complex experience by which a person is initiated into a common life with the people of God who together seek the in-breaking of the kingdom, both in this life and in the world to come. This experience is mediated by the church and thus necessarily includes baptism as a rite of initiation. The power or energy of this experience is one of immediate encounter with the risen Christ—rather than principles or laws—and this experience is choreographed by the Spirit rather than evangelistic techniques. Evangelicals are reappropriating the heritage of the Reformation with its emphasis on the means of grace, and thereby affirming the priority of the Spirit’s work in religious experience.

The excerpt ends with Smith pointing to the deeper issues that this sea-change will raise for evangelical thinking about the church.

The only question that remains, then, is whether evangelicals will trust these instincts and devote themselves to Christ-centered worship and kingdom-oriented mission. Will this be evident in deep trust that God will do God’s work in God’s time? To trust the work of God is to trust the Spirit and this necessarily means that the church trusts the Word—the Scriptures preached—as the essential means of grace and conversion.

This begs the question of what it means to be the church. The evangelical tradition is at a fork in the road and, given this sea change in the understanding of conversion and redemption, the most crucial issue at stake is what it means to be a congregation. Evangelicals will only be able to navigate these waters if they can formulate a dynamic theology of the church that reflects the Triune character of God, the means of grace—Spirit and Word—and a radical orientation in mission toward the kingdom of God.

The article is well worth a read.   I think it helpfully draws together and summarizes some of the important developments that are taking place in contemporary evangelical thinking.  While revivalism’s legacy includes many positive things, some aspects of revivalist thinking are deeply suspect, and a critical re-evaluation of its influence is most certainly needed.   This was, in part, what I was trying to do in my article “Five Ways to Improve SA Worship” –  I was highlighting the way in which Salvationist worship has been shaped by a kind of “routinized revivalism,” and arguing that there are aspects of this heritage that need to be jettisoned.  The same kind of thing is happening on a much larger scale, and in relation to a broad range of topics.  It is hard to say where any of this is going to end up, but I think this change in thinking about conversion certainly has potential to bear fruit in a genuine renewal of evangelical mission and theology.