Dr. R. Scott Clark: "Drawing the Line: Why Doctrine Matters"

http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/drawing-the-line-why-doctrine-matters/

Drawing the Line: Why Doctrine Matters

by R. Scott Clark

Imagine Mike. He’s an unusual mechanic. Where other mechanics find natural laws (such as gravity) unavoidable and even useful, he suspects them to be arbitrary, invoked in order to stifle his creativity. We can imagine how the story ends. Cars brought for repair are returned in worse shape than before. Mike goes out of business. Whatever Mike might think, the laws of physics are built into the nature of creation.

So it is with doctrine in the Christian faith and life. Throughout Christian history, folks have proposed to do without Christian doctrine, the good and necessary inferences drawn from the implicit or explicit teaching of Scripture. Like Mike, some Christians have suspected that doctrine is just an invention, a way to control people. Such a position is just as false as Mike the mechanic’s. Doctrine is inescapable because it is revealed in Scripture and necessary to Christian faith and life.

Doctrine is Biblical

Our English word doctrine is derived from a Latin word, doctrina, which means, “that which is taught.” In Christian usage, it refers to Christian teaching about Scripture, God, man, Christ, salvation, church, and the end of all things. It is fitting that the English word doctrine was first used in the 1382 Wycliffe Bible translation (from Latin to English), because in the old Latin Bible, the word doctrine occurs more than one hundred times. The King James Version (1611) used the word about half as often, and contemporary translations use it more sparingly. Nevertheless, the idea is present throughout Scripture.

One of the root ideas in the word doctrine is instruction. Moses received instruction from the Lord on the mountain (Ex. 24:12), which occurred after the Israelites had sworn a blood oath (v. 7) to do all that the Lord had spoken. That instruction included truths about who God is, what He had done for His people, and what He expected of them. That pattern is repeated throughout the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, Titus, a young pastor on the island of Crete, was exhorted to “hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught” so as to be able to “give instruction in sound doctrine” (Titus 1:9). There are several such passages in the New Testament, some of which we will survey below. Clearly, the teaching and preservation of divinely revealed doctrine is basic to the office of the minister and to the function of Christ’s church.

Doctrine is Evangelical

The universal church and her greatest teachers have always taught and confessed certain basic doctrines. The early church focused on the Bible’s doctrine of God and Christ. After considerable Bible study and debate, the church concluded that God’s Word teaches that God is one in essence and three in person, and that Jesus, God the Son incarnate, is one person with two natures (divine and human).

The medieval church preserved these basic doctrines but became quite confused about the Christian doctrine of salvation. This confusion contributed to widespread moral corruption in the church. The Reformation was largely a struggle to recover the certain biblical doctrine of justification (acceptance of sinners by God) by unmerited divine favor alone, through faith (resting in or trusting) alone, on the basis of Christ’s righteousness imputed alone. The Protestant churches wanted to ground the Christian life in the recovery of these great truths. The Roman communion wanted to ground the Christian life in a doctrine of justification that said God accepts those who are holy and righteous in themselves by grace and cooperation with grace. Under Protestant lights, the Roman doctrine denies Paul’s teaching that “if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works” (Rom. 11:6). The Roman doctrine is bad news for sinners because we can never cooperate sufficiently to become truly righteous before God.

Beginning about one hundred and fifty years after the Reformation, the Protestants faced another great doctrinal crisis. A great philosophical upheaval began to turn the Western intellectual world on its head. Instead of beginning with God and His Word, intellectuals increasingly began their thinking with human experience and reason apart from God’s self-revelation. That movement, known as the Enlightenment, laid siege to the reliability of Scripture as God’s Word and to the Christian faith and life.

The ecclesiastical version of this movement became known as liberalism. The liberals derided doctrine as impractical and dry speculation. “Deeds not creeds” was their slogan. Of course, they only pretended to deny doctrine. They were teaching the “doctrines” of the universal fatherhood of God, the universal brotherhood of man, and human goodness (denying the fall). Under the cover of denying doctrine, the liberals had made their own religion.

Doctrine is Unavoidable

Non-doctrinal Christianity is impossible. The teaching of non-doctrinal Christianity is doctrine. It is bad doctrine, but it is doctrine nonetheless. Some argue that “doctrine divides,” and, therefore, that we should avoid it. True, doctrine sometimes divides, but that is what the Lord intended. In Luke 12:51–53, our Lord expressly taught that He came not to bring “peace on earth” but rather to bring “division,” even among family members. We cannot hereby justify schismatic behavior in the church, which Scripture condemns repeatedly, but we cannot accept the notion that division is inherently evil.

The real question is not whether Christians will have doctrine but which doctrine or whose doctrine? Our Lord and Savior Himself advocated a host of doctrines. The Gospels are replete with His doctrinal teaching. He taught about the nature of God (John 4:24), humanity (Matt. 10:28), creation (Mark 10:6), sin (John 8:34), redemption (John 3), the church (Matt. 16), and the end of all things (Matt. 24). He taught doctrines about the history of salvation and how it should be understood (Luke 24). Anyone who advocates non-doctrinal Christianity must do so without Jesus.

Doctrine is Practical

The history of salvation and of the church is, in part, the history of the struggle between true and false doctrine and the moral consequences of error. Satan came teaching false doctrine about God, man, sin, and judgment. His doctrine led to death. Moreover, those who mocked Noah and those who called for Barabbas believed false doctrines, and they acted upon them.

In Scripture, there is no divorce between doctrine and practice. In Proverbs 8:10, instruction is a synonym for knowledge, and both come in the context of getting wisdom, that is, an understanding of how to live in God’s world according to the patterns He has established. Nothing is more practical than wisdom, and doctrine is built into wisdom. It is impossible to be wise, in the biblical sense, without doctrine.

The Apostle Paul warned the Roman congregation (Rom. 16:7) about those who divide the congregation, who seek their own gain, and who contradict Apostolic doctrine. The noun doctrine occurs in a similar context in Ephesians 4:12. Paul contrasts crafty, self-aggrandizing liars who are immature and who may cause believers to be tossed about “by every wind of doctrine,” that is, every passing fad, like a small boat in a big storm. Here, bad doctrine and moral corruption are intertwined.

True doctrine is never mere theory. This connection is explicit in 1 Timothy 1:8, where Paul lists a series of gross sins and categorizes them as “contrary to sound doctrine.” To deny biblical doctrine is immoral, and morality is based upon fundamental Christian teaching.

There is another consequence of denying Christian doctrine: chaos. Dorothy Sayers, in the 1940s, predicted this outcome in her book Creed or Chaos? Today, partly as a result of the misguided search for non-doctrinal Christianity, there is virtually no consensus as to what constitutes evangelical Christianity. The first step back from the abyss and toward order is to recover the biblical and Reformed conviction of the necessity of “good and necessary” consequences (WCF 1.6) drawn from the careful reading of Scripture.

Nevertheless, for all its virtues, good doctrine is not magic. It is possible for someone to profess right doctrine and yet remain an unbeliever. That is called hypocrisy. It is also possible for one to live well and yet confess bad doctrine. That is blessed inconsistency. Neither Scripture nor history commends either option. We should rather think that good doctrine is salutary— healthy and helpful in the same way that sunshine, clean air, and rain are salutary for living beings.

The biblical pattern confessed by the church is to live well by living in light of the truth, which is formulated in Christian doctrine. We do so, however, chastened by the knowledge of our past failures, that we have not always lived in accordance with what we teach, and by the certainty that we will fail again.

Our hypocrisy, however, is no ground for giving up on doctrine. Non-doctrinal Christianity is more than oxymoronic: it is a myth. Christians can no more escape doctrine than Mike the mechanic can escape the laws of physics.

---------------------------

Here endeth Dr. Clark's readable, wise and compelling article.  We'd add this postscript, to wit, if you don't want doctrine, you are an ass without the inspiration of Balaam's ass (Numbers 22-24):

Doctrinal Ignorance: Megachurch the New Liberalism & Anti-Intellectualism

http://www.christianpost.com/news/is-the-megachurch-the-new-liberalism-74152/

Is the Megachurch the New Liberalism?

By R. Albert Mohler, Jr. , Christian Post Guest Columnist

May 1, 2012|9:05 am

"I love being a doctrinal, historical,
and theological illiterate!"

The emergence of the megachurch as a model of metropolitan ministry is one of the defining marks of evangelical Christianity in the United States. Megachurches - huge congregations that attract thousands of worshipers - arrived on the scene in the 1970s and quickly became engines of ministry development and energy.

Over the last 40 years, the megachurch has made its presence known, often dominating the Christian landscape within the nation's metropolitan regions. The megachurch came into dominance at the same time that massive shopping malls became the landmarks of suburban consumer life. Sociologists can easily trace the rise of megachurches within the context of America's suburban explosion and the development of the technologies and transportation systems that made both the mall and the megachurch possible.

On the international scene, huge congregations can be found in many African nations and in nations such as Brazil, South Korea, and Australia. In London, where the megachurch can trace its roots back in the 19th century to massive urban congregations such as Charles Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle, a few modern megachurches can be found. For the most part, however, the suburban evangelical megachurch is an American phenomenon.

Theologically, most megachurches are conservative in orientation, at least in a general sense. In America, a large number of megachurches are associated with the charismatic movement and denominations such as the Assemblies of God. Many are independent, though often loosely associated with other churches. The largest number of megachurches within one denomination is found within the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest non-Catholic denomination.

The emergence of the megachurch was noted by sociologists and church researchers attempting to understand the massive shifts that were taking place in the last decades of the 20th century. Researchers such as Dean M. Kelley of the National Council of Churches traced the decline of the liberal denominations that once constituted the old Protestant "mainline." This decline was contrasted with remarkable growth among more conservative denominations and churches - a pattern traced in Kelley's 1973 landmark book, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing. Kelley argued that conservative churches were growing precisely because of their strict doctrine and moral teachings. The early megachurches were the leading edge of the growth among conservative churches, especially in metropolitan and suburban settings.

The megachurches were not without their critics. Theologian David Wells leveled a massive critique of the doctrinal minimalism, methodological pragmatism, and managerial culture of many megachurches. Os Guiness accused the megachurch movement of "flirting with modernity" to a degree that put the Christian identity of the massive congregations at risk.

On the other hand, there is evidence that the megachurches have also helped to anchor conservative Christianity within the social cauldron of the United States in recent decades. The evangelistic energies of most megachurches cannot be separated from a deep commitment to conversionist theology and conservative doctrinal affirmations. Within the Southern Baptist Convention, megachurches played an essential role in what became known as the Conservative Resurgence - the movement to return the Convention and its institutions to an affirmation of biblical inerrancy. The most intense years of this controversy (1979-1990) saw the Convention elect an unbroken stream of conservative megachurch pastors as SBC president. In the main, the megachurches provided the platform leadership for the movement, even as the churches themselves became symbols of denominational aspiration.

Sociologically, the megachurch model faces real challenges in the present and even greater challenges in the future. The vast suburban belts that fueled megachurch growth in the last few decades are no longer the population engines they once were. Furthermore, cultural changes, demographic realities, and technological innovations have led to the development of megachurch modifications such as churches with multiple locations and sermons by video transmission. From the beginning, the megachurches led in the embrace of new technologies, and these now include the full array of digital and social media.

What about theology? This question requires a look at the massive shifts in worldview now evident within American culture. Trends foreseen by researchers such as James Davison Hunter of the University of Virginia and others can now be seen in full flower. The larger culture has turned increasingly hostile to exclusivist truth claims such as the belief that faith in Christ is necessary for salvation. One megachurch pastor in Florida recently told me that the megachurches in his area were abandoning concern for biblical gender roles on a wholesale basis. As one pastor told him, you cannot grow a church and teach biblical complementarianism. Even greater pressure is now exerted by the sexual revolution in general, and, more particularly, the question of homosexuality.

The homosexuality question was preceded by the challenge of divorce. By and large, the story of evangelical Christianity in the United States since the advent of legal no-fault divorce has been near total capitulation. This is certainly true of the megachurches, but it is unfair to single them out in this failure. The reality is that the "Old First Church" and smaller congregational models were fully complicit - and for the same basic reason. Holding to strict biblical teachings on divorce is extremely costly. For the megachurches, the threat was being called judgmental, and the perceived danger of failing to reach the burgeoning numbers of divorced persons inhabiting metropolitan areas. For smaller churches the issue was the same, though usually more intimate. Divorced persons were more likely to have family members and friends within the congregation who were reluctant to confront the issue openly. Church discipline disappeared and personal autonomy reigned triumphant.

Is the same pattern now threatening on the issue of homosexuality? No congregation will escape this question, but the megachurches are, once again, on the leading edge. The challenge is hauntingly similar to that posed by divorce. Some churches are openly considering how they can minister most faithfully, even as the public and private challenge of homosexuality and alternative sexual lifestyles has radically transformed the cultural landscape. Other churches, both large and small, are renegotiating their stance on the issue without drawing attention to the changes.

A shot now reverberating around the evangelical world was fired by Atlanta megachurch pastor Andy Stanley in recent days. Preaching at North Point Community Church, in a sermon series known as "Christian," Stanley preached a message titled "When Gracie Met Truthy" on April 15, 2012. With reference to John 1:14, Stanley described the challenge of affirming grace and truth in full measure. He spoke of grace and truth as a tension, warning that "if you resolve it, you give up something important."

The message was insightful and winsome, and Andy Stanley is a master communicator. Early in the message he spoke of homosexuals in attendance, mentioning that some had shared with him that they had come to North Point because they were tired of messages in gay-affirming churches that did nothing but affirm homosexuality.

Then, in the most intense part of his message, Stanley told the congregation an account meant to illustrate his message. He told of a couple with a young daughter who divorced when the wife discovered that the husband was in a sexual relationship with another man. The woman then insisted that her former husband and his gay partner move to another congregation. They did move, but to another North Point location, where they volunteered together as part of a "host team." The woman later told Andy Stanley that her former husband and his partner were now involved as volunteers in the other congregational location.

The story took a strange turn when Stanley then explained that he had learned that the former husband's gay partner was still married. Stanley then explained that the partner was actually committing adultery, and that the adultery was incompatible with his service on a host team. Stanley told the two men that they could not serve on the host team so long as the one man was still married. He later told of the former wife's decision not to live in bitterness, and of her initiative to bring the whole new family structure to a Christmas service. This included the woman, her daughter, her former husband, his gay partner, and his daughter. Stanley celebrated this new "modern family" as an expression of forgiveness.

He concluded by telling of Christ's death for sinners and told the congregation that Jesus does not condemn them, even if they cannot or do not leave their life of sin.

Declaring the death of Christ as atonement for sin is orthodox Christianity and this declaration is essential to the Gospel of Christ. The problem was that Stanley never mentioned faith or repentance - which are equally essential to the Gospel. There is indeed no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but this defines those who have acted in repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21). As for those who are not in Christ, they stand condemned already (John 3:18).

The most puzzling and shocking part of the message was the illustration and the account of the homosexual couple, however. The inescapable impression left by the account was that the sin of concern was adultery, but not homosexuality. Stanley clearly and repeatedly stressed the sin of adultery, but then left the reality of the homosexual relationship between the two men unaddressed as sin. To the contrary, he seemed to normalize their relationship. They would be allowed to serve on the host team if both were divorced. The moral status of their relationship seemed to be questioned only in terms of adultery, with no moral judgment on their homosexuality.

Was this intended as a salvo of sorts? The story was so well told and the message so well constructed that there can be little doubt of its meaning. Does this signal the normalization of homosexuality at North Point Community Church? This hardly seems possible, but it appeared to be the implication of the message. Given the volatility of this issue, ambiguity will be replaced by clarity one way or the other, and likely sooner than later.

We can only hope that Andy Stanley and the church will clarify and affirm the biblical declaration of the sinfulness of homosexual behavior, even as he preaches the forgiveness of sin in any form through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His affirmation of grace and truth in full measure is exactly right, but grace and truth are not actually in tension. The only tension is our finite ability to act in full faithfulness. The knowledge of our sin is, in truth, a gift of grace. And grace is only grace because of the truth of what God has done for us in Christ.

And yet, even as we know this is true, we also know that the Christian church has often failed miserably in demonstrating grace to those who struggle with same-sex attractions and those who are involved in homosexual behaviors. We have treated them as a special class of sinners and we have assured ourselves of our moral superiority. The Gospel of Jesus Christ destroys that pretension and calls for us to reach out to all sinners with the message of the Gospel, declaring the forgiveness of sins in Christ and calling them to faith and repentance.

The Gospel is robbed of its power if any sinner or any sin is declared outside it's saving power. But the Gospel is also robbed of its power if sin - any sin - is minimized to any degree.

What does Andy Stanley now believe about homosexuality and the church's witness? We must pray that he will clarify the issues so graphically raised in his message, and that he will do so in a way the unambiguously affirms the Bible's clear teachings - and that he will do so precisely because he loves sinners enough to tell them the truth - all the truth - about both our sin and God's provision in Christ. Biblical faithfulness simply does not allow for the normalization of homosexuality. We desperately want all persons to feel welcome to hear the Gospel and, responding in faith and repentance, to join with us in mutual obedience to Christ. But we cannot allow anyone, ourselves included, to come to Christ - or to church - on our own terms.

The current cultural context creates barriers to the Gospel even as it offers temptations. One of those temptations is to use the argument that our message has to change in order to reach people. This was the impetus of theological liberalism's origin. Liberals such as Harry Emerson Fosdick claimed that the Christian message would have to change or the church would lose all intellectual credibility in the modern world. Fosdick ended up denying the Gospel and transforming the message of the Cross into psychology. Norman Vincent Peale came along and made this transformation even more appealing to a mass audience. Fosdick and Peale have no shortage of modern heirs.

Theological liberalism did not set out to destroy Christianity, but to save it from itself. Is the same temptation now evident? The Great Commission, we must remind ourselves, is not a command merely to reach people, but to make disciples. And disciples are only made when the church teaches all that Christ has commanded, as the Great Commission makes clear.

The megachurches are once again on the leading edge of these questions, but they are not alone. The urgency to reach people with the Gospel can, if the church is not faithful and watchful, tempt us to subvert the Gospel by redefining its terms. We are not honest if we do not admit that the current cultural context raises the cost of declaring the Gospel on its own terms.

Given their size and influence, the megachurches have an outsize responsibility. I am a member and a teaching pastor in a megachurch, and I am thankful for its faithfulness. I know a host of faithful megachurch pastors who are prepared to pay whatever cost may come for the sake of the Gospel. I know that my own denomination was regained for biblical fidelity under the leadership of brave megachurch pastors, who used their pulpits to defend the truth. We desperately need these churches as both theological anchors and missiological laboratories.

The times now demand our most careful and biblical thinking, and our clearest conviction matched to a missiological drive to reach the world with the Gospel. We must embrace the truth with the humility of a sinner saved only by grace, but we must embrace it fully.

Once again, the megachurches are on the leading edge. We must pray that they will lead into faithfulness, and not into a new liberalism.

Holy Heresy (Pt 1): Andy Underhill

Holy Heresy (Part 1)  by Andy Underhill

Heresy?  What is it?  Schism?  What is that?
Apostasy?  What is that? Declension? What is That?

At first blush, it seems like a strange statement to say that the true Church needs heresy. But history demonstrates the truth of this assertion. The great ante-Nicene African theologian, Tertullian, wrote, “We ought not to be astonished at the heresies (which abound) neither ought their existence to surprise us, for it was foretold that they should come to pass; nor the fact that they subvert the faith of some, for their final cause is, by affording a trial to faith, to give it also the opportunity of being ‘approved’.” 1 This statement is especially poignant when one stops to remember that Tertullian himself fell for Montanism is his later years. St. Paul warned that heresies must occur. He said, “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.”2

Perhaps at this point we should define heresy. In the earliest uses it meant primarily the work of schismatic or divisive teachers within in the Church. But by the writing of Peter’s second epistle, heresy had come to mean the false teachings of these schismatic or divisive teachers. This is the meaning which has persisted to the present day. Peter calls their teaching,”damnable heresies.” 3

But even in the Old Testament, God warned Israel that false

teachers would arise and that the whole point was to test Israel’s faithfulness to God’s covenant. Moses wrote, “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”4 This means that attractive leaders are not always led by God. New ideas from inspiring people may sound good, but we must judge them by whether or not they are consistent with God’s Word.

Throughout the history of the Church, heresies have forced us to formulate more clearly what we mean to say by the terminology we employ. In the first four centuries of the Church, the heresies of Marcion, Arius, Paul of Samosata, Nestorius, Eutyches, Sabellius and Pelagius drew forth from the early Fathers the great Creeds of Nicaea, Constantinople and the definition of Chalcedon. During the Reformation era, the Remostrants prompted the synod of Dort. This is perhaps one of the greatest services of heresy for the true Church: it forces us to think clearly. We are required by the exigencies of the situations to declare the whole counsel of God not in an “uncertain sound.” 5

For more, see:

http://andycontramundum.blogspot.com/2012/02/holy-heresy-part-1.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FDofecr+%28Contra+Mundum%29