Subversion in the Church

There have always been false prophets who have gained their livelihood from the church while they have chiseled away at its cornerstones. Some have done so for profit and have not been above resorting to deception, falsehood, and other unethical practices. Others have had better motives and have tried to justify their actions on the basis of superior knowledge, changing times, or concern for improving the lot of mankind. Whatever the reasons, the results are the same: true religion suffers and apostasy comes, followed by God’s judgment on his unfaithful church.

The Bible paints this picture of unfaithfulness in two general ways: the Old Testament describes past patterns and their consequences, and the New Testament tells of God’s future dealings with his Church.

The darkest side of the Old Testament is the prophets’ description of priests who were called to preach God’s truth and live out God’s commandments but did neither. Speaking of Jerusalem, Zephaniah said: “Her priests profane what is sacred, they do violence to the law” (3:4). Micah condemned priests who “teach for hire” and prophets who “divine for money” (3:11). Hosea says: “As robbers lie in wait for a man so the priests are banded together; they murder on the way to Shechem, yea, they commit villainy” (6:9). These priestly false prophets had an effective ministry—they lulled their parishioners to sleep and led them as sheep to the slaughter. True religion declined, as priests and people together departed from the faith. In a recurring pattern, the judgment of God fell; his wrath overtook his people. When renewal came, the process was reversed: the people turned to God, and he blessed them. Time and again there was defection followed by renewal. But at last the apostasy of Israel was irreversible. The branches of the olive tree were cut off and the wild branches—the Gentiles—were grafted in.

The Old Testament is the story of God’s pattern of dealing with his people Israel in the past. The New Testament lays down the pattern of God’s dealing with his Church. The similarities between Old Testament Israel and the Church since the New Testament are marked. Like Israel, the Church has followed a cyclical pattern. There have been times of decay followed by eras of blessing, advance, and manifest spiritual power. Repentance has led to renewal.

The Church today is in a period of decay. It is spotted through with humanists who deify man, with liberals who repudiate the basic teachings of the apostles, with syncretists who claim that Christianity is not the only true religion, with universalists who say that all men will be saved at the last. Yet the particular tragedy of our day is not that there are false teachers in the Church; there have always been such. The tragedy is that the false teachers live off money that has been given to propagate what these teachers do not believe. They are twice deceivers, first because they remain in the churches even though they do not believe what these churches have historically taught, and second because they take salaries under false pretenses and undermine what they are paid to promote. The second aspect of the tragedy is that good men in the churches do little to rid their churches of the subverters. Because they are unconcerned or unwilling to act or fearful of the possible consequences, they silently endure what they should be challenging and opposing.

For orthodox believers, the situation is fraught with difficulty. Should they remain in denominations in which the presence of false teachers is evident? Are not the churches their churches, begun and nourished in orthodoxy? Should true believers abandon to unbelief churches that have long been orthodox? Should not the righteous wait on God for deliverance and look expectantly for renewal under the Holy Spirit?

However God’s people answer these questions, one crucial decision still faces them. Theological orthodoxy, important to effective witness as it is, is not enough. Orthodoxy that does nothing more than give assent to propositional truth is dead. Those who are theologically orthodox must go far beyond mere assent to doctrine. For them the crucial decision is whether they will add action to belief, and thus authenticate their convictions. They must enter the fray and uphold the faith—using every available spiritual means to check the forces of destructive unbelief. This action requires repentance for sin, renewal of their own faith, and ceaseless prayer for the Holy Spirit’s renewal of the churches. There must be reformation and revival: reformation that turns men to true doctrine, and revival that leads to purity of life and power in witness.

Congressional Reform

The U. S. Congress is considering changing its procedures to bring them more in line with democratic ideals. Such changes are long overdue and warrant bipartisan support.

This month the House of Representatives began the task of putting together a reform package, the first in twenty-four years. Some progress seems guaranteed. Unfortunately, however, one of the first votes by the House on the issue was to reject a move that would have made it harder for committees to meet in secret.

For Christians At Play

One of the less pressing tasks facing theologians today is the development of a theology of games. Too many people think games are only for the very young or very old.

Some blame their lack of interest in games on the lure of television. Others have corrupted the word game to mean unimportant activities that substitute for meaningful action.

The latter deserves special rebuttal. Games are not a substitute for meaningful activity but the symbolic enactment or reenactment of it. In a game we can defeat our opponent without doing actual permanent harm to him. Thus from games we learn something about winning and losing in life.

Playing games can also bring together people who may have little in common. And in our day, every little bit helps in the face of growing estrangement.

The Apostle Paul’s use of competitive sports as pictures of the Christian life bears witness to the fact that the game impulse is a gift of God. So during these more leisurely summer days, let’s break out the backgammon set, dust off the Monopoly board, retrieve the Scrabble game from the attic, and experience anew the therapy of good gaming.

The Fairness Doctrine

A court test now seems assured on the so-called Fairness Doctrine, the controversial set of principles that the Federal Communications Commission has sought to impose upon owners of radio and television stations. In essence, this concept sees broadcasting outlets as necessarily ideological cafeterias. The reasoning goes that the total number of frequencies is limited, so each station must offer a variety of viewpoints if it wants to keep its government license to stay on the air. There are “only” 6,000 radio stations currently licensed in the United States.

A judicial review of the Fairness Doctrine apparently will come as a result of the FCC’s refusal this month to renew the licenses of WXUR and WXUR-FM in Media, near Philadelphia. These stations are owned by Faith Theological Seminary, where Dr. Carl McIntire serves as chairman of the board. After testimony filling 8,000 pages, an FCC examiner recommended that the licenses be renewed; nevertheless, the commission itself unanimously voted to kill the licenses.

Whatever technical reasons the FCC may have had for its decision, the net effect is to restrict dissent from the right. Meanwhile, more sophisticated (and often more destructive) dissent from the left gets increasingly wider exposure, slowed only by an occasional barrage from Vice President Spiro Agnew.

The FCC’s action against McIntire, in ironic contrast to the stated intent of the Fairness Doctrine, narrows the diversity of views available to the American public. Unless it is upset by the U. S. Supreme Court, the obvious immediate implication is that station owners will be more wary of airing the views of the political and theological right. McIntire’s beliefs are indeed obnoxious to many. Anyone familiar with McIntire knows that CHRISTIANITY TODAY is frequently subjected to his attack. Nevertheless, we believe that silencing him by government edict is a clear violation of his constitutional freedoms.

Marriage Covenant: Promises, Promises

One of the chief architects of the Lutheran Church in America’s new, definitive statement on sex, marriage, and the family (see News, page 32) admits, “We have a tiger by the tail.” Holding the tiger will get rough when pastors begin to answer questions about whether the church now officially says that sexual intercourse outside marriage may be permissible.

A sentence inserted in the final paper says the church neither “condones or approves premarital or extramarital sexual intercourse.” Yet drafters of the 2,200-word document say a “marital union” doesn’t necessarily require a legal contract to be valid.

A concept in the statement is helpful: “Christian faith affirms marriage as a covenant of fidelity—a dynamic, life-long commitment of one man and one woman in a personal and sexual union.” The paper goes on to say: “A marital union can be legally valid yet not be a covenant of fidelity, just as it can be a covenant of fidelity and not a legal contract.”

We agree with the first half of the sentence: too many “marriages” are paper husks; the legal document stands, but the dynamic, lifelong commitment atrophied long ago. But we would argue that a covenant of fidelity—defined by a drafter of the statement as a “personal promise of commitment”—must be accompanied by a legal contract for there to be a true marriage union that can be blessed by God and honored by men. For the Christian, the promise of marriage commitment should be publicly affirmed and contractually protected. In a marriage between Christians this happens simultaneously before the minister who marries them. He acts as a double agent: as a minister of Jesus Christ he joins together the man and the woman, and as a representative of the civil government he publicly sanctions the union.

Those who follow Christ will want to honor the laws of God and the land.

Giving The Devil A Hand

Fifty years ago traffic lights were born. Now they have multiplied and replenished the earth—at the apparent rate of five red for every green. What perversity is it, we ask, that makes a light turn red just as our car approaches and then stay red longer than it ever did before or will after. Perhaps a Washington columnist lit on the answer when he wrote, “I have a very bad feeling that the Devil himself has had a hand in all this.”

At times, though, we suspect that on the road “the Devil himself” has, not red, yellow, and green lights, but four wheels and a V-8 engine. Such creatures spew poisonous fumes into the air, barely outlive the payment book, and by some voodoo in the steering wheel transform the sweetest saint into a raving maniac. Like the one behind us, honking while we think deep thoughts about traffic signals and the frailty of man and the light turns green.

Inflation, The Sneak Thief

Inflation is still very much with us. One index after another tells us what we already know: prices continue to rise, then wages chase prices, and the spiral goes onward and upward just as it has been doing for more than a quarter of a century. Meanwhile retirees living on fixed incomes are increasingly worse off.

Labor-union leaders gleefully tell their members that they have just signed the best wage pacts in history. The employers tell their stockholders they have bought peace at a price, and the consumers—including the union workers and the stockholders—pay that price.

Months ago economist Kenneth Galbraith predicted that wage and price controls would be necessary. Not long ago David Rockefeller suggested that the administration use its influence to achieve restraints. Surely there are no easy solutions and no reason to believe that selfish, egotistic human nature will change. Everybody wants inflation to end—but at someone else’s expense. Nobody wants to pay the price himself. Thus it goes on and on.

Need we say that inflation is immoral? Need we say that it is a thief, however disguised its activities may be? Need we say that there is a pay day someday, even in economic matters, and that the laws of God cannot be flouted forever? Maybe someday is here.

Families: Love And Learn

Families lodge sibling skirmishes, accommodate penny-pinching parents, house scads of hand-me-downs, and garage the car everyone wants at once. And sometimes that’s about all there is to families. Divergent viewpoints generate estrangement; professions, school, and even church activities scatter family members before they find time to discover what they share and where they differ.

The “reuniting” of traditional family reunions—where great aunts and fifth cousins gather to gossip and scrutinize—is often slight. But, sensing potential there, the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge and Kiwanis International began sponsoring an annual Family Reunion Day in the United States and Canada. They suggest that family members spend a day together—August 9 this year—getting to know one another. A worthy goal, that. To know, as the song says, is to love. Christian families can build that knowledge on a solid foundation if they take time first to “think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children.”

A Model Of Faith

Jesus’ customary way of defining such concepts as faith was to point to specific examples. Certainly anyone who has tried his hand at definition can recognize the merit of this approach. Luke’s account in chapter seven of his Gospel of an incident in our Lord’s life is instructive. The beloved servant of a centurion was gravely ill. The officer knew of Jesus and his power to heal, and so he requested that Jesus heal his servant. Our Lord did so with the comment that “not even in Israel have I found such faith.”

Apparently there were two aspects of the centurion’s faith that were particularly impressive. First, even though he was a relatively good man, he was impressed not with his virtue, as so many people of Jesus’ time were, but rather with his unworthiness. A prime requisite of Christian faith is acknowledgment of one’s inability to merit God’s favor. Second, the centurion, from the analogy of the authorities over him and those under his authority, firmly believed that Jesus was able to heal his servant with a word if he willed. Christian faith requires confidence that God is indeed able to do what he has promised. Too often we reason ourselves out of confidence in God rather than reasoning, as the centurion did, that if mere sinful human beings can get things done, how much more God himself can do his will.

Of course there are other aspects of faith, as Luke endeavors to show by reporting next the raising of a widow’s son from the dead. Nothing is said about the faith or morals of the mother or boy, nor did she request the miracle. This is a dramatic reminder that the initiative in God’s blessing of us ultimately rests with him alone. Christian faith is the positive response to what God has done.

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