Teach your people...

Culled from Booth's address: HOW TO COMMAND A CORPS OF THE SALVATION ARMY.
BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF AN ADDRESS TO OFFICERS AT A COUNCIL OF WAR.

Found here.

Boundless Salvation?

My experience of Boundless was strictly limited – very definitely not infinite! I was able to attend just two sessions of Boundless Theology, the one day event at William Booth College that closed the Congress’ activities on the Monday. From a range of options I chose a first session on teaching patterns in local churches - corps and SA ministries. It wasn’t strictly theological, being largely a discussion of how the pedagogical theory of “learning styles” can be applied in ministry.

 

The second and final session I was able to attend was on the doctrine of hell, with Phil Garnham. It was theological; it was well structured; it was strongly and persuasively argued. The title was “Endless Punishment – Is salvation really boundless?” What follows is a brief synopsis, with some verbatim quotes. 

 

Catherine Booth

The session started with some thoughts on Catherine Booth. Although there is a “massive weight of scripture against female ministry” she showed that this was not the only strand in the Bible. It was a shame, given her ability to show a counter argument in such a way, that she did not live long enough to engage with the doctrine of hell. (The fact that William outlived her by 22 years and never rethought the position was not mentioned.)

 

The main streams of Christian thought on the matter were then sketched out: annihilationists/conditionalists, for whom there is a final death as opposed to endless punishment;  universalists (though this term was not used, as I recall), for whom there will be an ultimate reconciliation of all people in Christ;  and those who believe in an eternal hell. William Booth was a passionate advocate of this last, traditional doctrine of hell.

 

There followed a brief discussion of the biblical language used to describe the destination of people after death. One conclusion was that, with regard to Gehenna, “there is no irrefutable evidence that can lead to any certain understanding of the meaning of the word.”

 

This opens the possibility of the burning rubbish dump being something akin to purgatory (although that word was not used). For restorationists there will be a “purifying fire that will prepare us for the coming life with the God of love.”

 

Jacobus Arminius

Reference was made to the SA's Arminian roots. “We are against Calvinism - the terrible doctrine. Calvinism can't speak of the God of love in any meaningful sense. A dark doctrine indeed.” But then we were told of the “dark side of Arminian theology” – that salvation is “utterly bounded by the choices of human beings. We stress the love of God but we lose the boundlessness due to our sinful choices.”

 

A way out of these theological black holes and into a truly boundless view of salvation began with the assertion that there is “no clear cut scripture to say you must decide for Christ before you die.” 1 Peter 3:19 was cited as hinting at post mortem evangelism. And where our sinful nature makes choosing the right path seemingly impossible, “what is impossible with man is possible with God.” God's sovereignty and human free will can be seen together in the illustration of the chess grandmaster, whose defeat of a novice is utterly certain, even as the novice plays his best using his own free decisions along the way. So God will universally outwit human choices that at present seem to thwart his grace.

 

The argument’s conclusion was that the strongest biblical case is for ultimate reconciliation of all in Christ, after the ‘purifying flame’ for those who do not accept Christ in this life. This really is boundless salvation. God has no dark side. The whole world really will be redeemed!

 

It was affirmed (as an approving answer to a suggestion from the floor) that the doctrine of hell was developed by the mediaeval church to control the masses. It is not Biblical at all.

 

Finally, William Booth’s understanding of hell as a place of conscious torment was criticised, humorously, on the grounds that “he didn’t even work out that dead bodies don't have nerve endings.” 

 

Now, much could be said about all of this. In the theological tradition from which I come, conditional immortality, or annihilationism, is a more common option than universalism, as we recoil from the appalling weight and horror of the traditional teaching, but debates have also frequently touched on the kind of universalism discussed at Boundless Theology. I found it fascinating. Universalism of the Barthian type, which marries the Calvinistic notion of the efficacy of the atonement (all for whom Christ died will certainly be saved) with the Arminian notion of the extent of the atonement (Christ died for all) seems to be what is in view, although what place does this “purifying flame” have in the light of grace? Unless the flame is instantaneous (perhaps 'in the twinkling of an eye’ as some have put it), or is simply a symbol of a purifying with no element of pain or suffering at all, it seems to reintroduce God as celestial Torturer at some level, even if not an eternal one. The Cosmic Chess player wins – by burning his foes till they inevitably submit? Too many questions were raised for me by that thought.

 

With regard to the exegetical questions, I had that feeling, as so often in contemporary theological discussions, that what we were left with was the summing of a number of “the word COULD mean this” arguments. In each phase, the understanding of a text is picked from one end of a spectrum of possible semantic options, and then a number of such similar results is brought together to form a conclusion. A “possible reading” on top of a “possible reading” on top of a “possible reading”. But the “sum” often seems so out of kilter with all traditional understandings of scripture, so utterly modern, that we are left gasping. In this case, I was left wondering how on earth Paul could ever have described the Thessalonians’ experience of the gospel in this way:

 

1 Thessalonians 1:9b-10 They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

 

That sure sounds like more than a benign purifying flame to me!

 

But the glaring issue for me is even more basic than the truth value of what was taught. The debate can and should be had, of course. But the context of the debate is everything. My concern has to do with the nature of the Soldier’s and Officer’s covenant within the Salvation Army. The lecture was given at William Booth College. I believe that similar material and arguments are brought to the attention of cadets who are candidates for officership at the college. Clearly a range of "options” is taught, but there is no doubt that this kind of Universalism is in the air. The cadets who go on to officership (the vast majority) will stand in Central Hall, Westminster and affirm their belief in the following statement:

Statue of William Booth at the college
that bears his name

We believe in the immortality of the soul; in the resurrection of the body; in the general judgement at the end of the world; in the eternal happiness of the righteous; and in the endless punishment of the wicked.

 

What seems to me to be problematic is any implication that it might be possible to agree with the teaching of the lecture and still make such an affirmation. Whatever one makes of the session, and whatever one makes of the Eleventh Doctrine of the Salvation Army, to see them as compatible requires a degree of Orwellian doublethink (glorified now as postmodern deconstruction) that takes the breath away and leaves words, affirmations, vows and covenants with no real meaning or value at all. Someone who can believe the content of the Boundless Salvation? lecture and affirm Doctrine 11 seems to me to be in the position of a bridegroom who can vow “forsaking all others” while harbouring the express intention of sleeping around, starting with the bridesmaids. There is a catastrophic failure of integrity.

 

I know what it is to minister under the cloud of broken integrity. I left the ministry after a pressure built within me over a period of years that my words and thoughts and actions did not match up. I am not a Perfectionist (one reason why I am an adherent not a soldier), and I know that every preacher is a sinner, but I felt that I had reached the point where “the lie” was just too big and I could not in any way look to God to bless my ministry. I left the work I loved.

 

A significant proportion of SA cadets come from Corps where the Doctrines have never been stressed. Some have never read the whole Bible. Although a range of positions is taught at the college, I think it would be fair to say that the pervasive atmosphere is one of some hostility or at least mockery towards traditionalism and excited embrace of the new and radical. Cadets’ positions by the end of their time at college thus reflect a whole range of influences and “options”. A significant number are Universalists. (A thoughtful, and certainly not fundamentalist, friend from a recent Session put the proportion at perhaps a quarter “open” to this, with a handful fully convinced and keen to persuade others. The remaining 75% were a mix of Traditionalists and Annihilationists, with the proportions of those two groups hard to determine as in his Session it was Universalism which was more of a live issue.) As cadets prepare for commissioning, the issue of what to do with the Doctrines, and especially Doctrine 11, becomes pressing. How do the non-traditionalists, both Universalists and Annihilationists, deal with the moment of doctrinal affirmation in Central Hall?

I have heard discussion of a number of possible solutions. Some would sidestep by saying that the affirmation is not one of personal belief but of “this is what the Salvation Army as a body teaches.” But that is not what the preamble says. Some may only soundlessly mouth the words at commissioning, or shut their mouths for the final phrase. Perhaps still others say the words, but with reservations or downright disagreement. 

 

Sometimes people say that Universalism or Annihilationism were not live options at the time the Army was founded – that Booth’s very strong emphasis on Hell was not tested by contemporary alternatives. This is akin to the Catherine Booth argument in the seminar – ‘if she had lived long enough... if he had known of other views... they would not have insisted on this doctrine, and we can make our “affirmation” knowing that the trajectory of the Army was towards a more liberal view.’ But the premise is wrong – the other options were very much alive back then. The intended meaning of the Doctrine is not in any debate. In a paper on “How to use the Bible” the General wrote:

There are plenty of arguments designed to lessen the importance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, or to explain away its merit altogether, although the spirit of that sacrifice and the blessing it brings are the glory of the Bible. There is plenty of interpretation of the Bible which vainly attempts to explain away the punishment of the wicked, so clearly announced in its pages. Take away those things, and the Bible becomes not only ordinary, but an uninteresting book, to be neither feared nor cared for.

 

A frequent mantra is that “doctrine changes” or that “doctrines change”. But they don’t. People change – what they once believed, they no longer believe. Ditto, churches. Doctrinal statements remain, and people and churches of integrity who find that they have shifted theologically don’t claim to believe the same forms of words they used to affirm. Where the doctrines remain, unedited, in black and white, they should challenge the consciences of those who say they believe them, but think and teach otherwise.

 

To repeat, I am not saying that there is no cogency in the Universalist case as presented. Nor am I disputing the value of debate. Nor am I even defending the Doctrines of the Salvation Army as such – after all, I am not a soldier precisely because I cannot affirm some of them. But I am pleading for integrity in ministry – in teaching and at commissioning and in the ongoing preparation of soldiers and candidates.

 

When I was ordained, it was, I think, with integrity. I was a sinner, but there was no intrinsic lie built into the intentions of that day in and of itself. Over the years, of professionalisation and temptation, I lost that, and left. But it makes me tremble to think of building in a lie right at the very beginnings of ministry. For that is what it is: for every effort to deconstruct and mollify it, a person who affirms belief in Doctrine 11 while believing in Universal Salvation, or Annihilation for that matter, is telling a lie.

The Salvation Army is justifiably conscious of its own history as a church. There is much mention of the Founder, and his hymns are sung and his words are quoted frequently. But there is a certain hypocrisy in such fondness if the doctrine which was so central to his motivation to do all that he did is fudged in this way. What would Booth, who wrote “We have not developed and improved into Universalism, Unitarianism, or Nothingarianism, or any other form of infidelity, and we don’t expect to”, make of the Boundless lecture? What would WB make of WBC?

 

And more. There are many thousands who believe the Doctrines and who by their giving maintain WBC and support its ministry and the ministry of those who are trained there. Such people would be surprised by the assertion that there is no biblical support telling people that they must put things right with God in this life. They would be more surprised still by the idea that a Salvationist might teach a kind of purgatory, followed by universal salvation.  To accept support from such people and teach something utterly different is really a kind of theft. So long as one humble supporter believes the Doctrines as written, let our consciences bind us, or take us elsewhere.

 

The Salvation Army is dying in the UK. To quote a friend, who culled these figures: “in the 1960’s there were around 100,000 senior Soldiers in the UK Territory. By 1998 it had reached 48,000. Today it’s at 27,000.” There is a caveat: “the curve is getting less steep, and we weren’t as efficient in measuring stats in the 1960s. And in the UK soldiership isn't the best way to measure the size of the Army, as in many places attendance is on the rise, but people don’t commit to soldiership (or adherency) in the same way any more.” Even so, the situation is dire.

 

I personally believe that the only way ahead is to proclaim the old truths, graciously but uncompromisingly, and in contemporarily relevant forms; it is to stick to the gospel as preached by the founders with new fervour and prayerfulness. Others may think that a Universalist message is what is needed. In my opinion this has not helped the other denominations that have shrunk even further than we have as they have gone down the liberal route, and in any case, no one has the right to teach Universalism under the banner of the Salvation Army. But what is really clear is that we can’t go down both these paths at once and maintain any credibility. The Army and the UK need a clear and coherent message, preached with integrity.

Integrity in preaching is not a matter of doctrine only. The subject of Doctrine 11, as with other Doctrines, but particularity so, demands an integrity of the whole person. To “believe” Doctrine 11 glibly or flippantly is not really to believe it at all. Part of the recovery of doctrinal integrity in the Army will be the recovery of seriousness and earnestness. People of humanity, humour and warmth we may be, we must be, but people of flippancy or silliness about this doctrine we dare not be. To believe it is to tremble.  To believe it is to look on the world with concern and pity and compassion and love. To believe it is to take action. The doctrine is a call to arms - to preach and reach out and argue and persuade with all love and urgency. 

No challenge to cadets could be more worthy of the college that bears William Booth’s name than that.  

May God help us all. 

 

On this day... William Booth preached in Whitechapel

On this day in 1865, exactly 150 years ago, William Booth spoke in an open air meeting at the old Quaker burial ground on Mile End waste in Whitechapel, and realised this was to be his ministry from that day onwards. Salvationists see that day as the beginning of what became The Salvation Army. 

 

One of his most well known quotes signposts the only viable way ahead for the Salvation Army today:

 

The chief dangers that confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God and heaven without hell.

 

The Army is nothing unless it is a Christ-centred movement, empowered by the Spirit, preaching a gospel of real repentance and change, that touches on and confronts the real, public world and which keeps always in its mind a two-destination eternity of awful seriousness.

When Salvation Army soldiers and officers can joke about hell, Booth's farsightedness has really come home to roost.

The Awkwardness of God in a Postmodern Generation

We read Ex 4:18-26 this morning. I was very struck by the sheer awkwardness of the passage.
 

God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. This begins a whole sequence of active-passive-active statements about Pharaoh’s heart: God hardened it, it was hardened, Pharaoh hardened his heart. But this is where the sequence begins: I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
 
God tries to kill Moses. Having delivered him from threat of death as a baby, having preserved him through youth in Pharaoh’s court and middle age as a shepherd, having called him to be the Deliverer and argued him through two chapters into readiness to serve, the Lord now tries to kill him.
 
This passage confronts us with a very untame God. In an age where the church is desperately concerned to show that it is cool and in tune with all that is contemporary, Exodus 4 is a bombshell. Or an embarrassment. 

Of course, there have been plenty of discussions over the years about the various elements in the passage, the relationships between the verbal forms describing the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the reason why the Lord tried to kill Moses - there are explanations, there are theologisings. But it is so good to just drop all of that for a moment and feel the shock of the text itself and be confronted by the inexplicable and awkward God of the Bible.
 
Exodus 4 is not alone, of course. It just happens to be what we read together today. But chapter after chapter of the Bible reveals a God who cannot be accommodated easily into our postmodern non-framework. Postmodernism appears to be very accommodating, very free-flowing and laid back. In fact, it is very quick to spit out anything definite, and the God of the Biblical text leaves it gagging. It is hardly surprising that in such a time, the church is desperate to re-position itself away from proclamation of this awkward book, so as to find some position of comfort.

Yesterday I happened to reread Matthew Parris' 2003 article on gay bishops, via David Robertson's blog. For me the wonder of the piece is not particularly the content on that specific issue, but the grasp Parris has of the nature of revealed religion. He writes: 

““Inclusive”, “moderate” or “sensible” Christianity is inching its way up a philosophical cul-de-sac. The Church stands for revealed truth and divine inspiration or it stands for nothing. Belief grounded in everyday experience alone is not belief. The attempt, sustained since the Reformation, to establish the truth of Christianity on the rock of human observation of our own natures and of the world around us runs right against what the Bible teaches from the moment Moses beheld a burning bush in the Egyptian desert to the point when Jesus rises from the dead in His sepulchre. Stripped of the supernatural, the Church is on a losing wicket.”

This atheist understands better than many in the church what Christianity really is. And that applies as much in the SA as it does in any other church.

In all manifestations of the Church in the West, we are under pressure. The awkwardness of revealed religion, the sheer, confrontational nature of God, of his standards, of his historical work in Christ, and of his Future - all of this is in total collision with our present culture. We feel the pressure, and we squirm. We are embarrassed by God, so we reinvent him in our postmodern image. In the process we part company with the tradition of our church, with the great stream of Christian faith, and, most frighteningly, with the Real God himself.

We want to be user-friendly, we want to be winsome, we want to speak in a way that post-moderns understand. But in the process we pressure ourselves NOT to talk about God in the way Exodus 4 does. If we are forced to, we go swiftly into apologetic mode - and not in the classic sense of argument for the truth, but in the sense of apologising for what God is like. More often than not, we simply avoid passages that make us feel this way. And in the long term we end up avoiding real interaction with the Bible altogether. This process is visible in our conversation, our postings on social media, and especially in our meetings.

We want our meetings to be happy, upbeat and winsome. We are frightened of disturbing people, and probably don’t like being disturbed very much ourselves. Church, we think, should be about comfort, not disturbance.

We so need meetings, we need scripture readings, we need preaching, that confront us with the authentic, disturbing God of scripture. Our tendency to domesticate God by watering down, explaining away, smoothing rough edges with our theologising, our avoidance of difficulties - our tendency to tame the God of the Bible needs to be blown away by the power of Word and Spirit.  We need to hear a Word which leaves us solemn and shaken to the core.

Listening recently to some old recordings of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, I was struck by the manner in which he said the word ‘God’. Some of his language is dated, his manner is noticeably 1940s/50s, but the intense seriousness overall and sense of almost explosive power in that particular word is still arresting. Here is preaching that makes you sit up and take notice, that startles, that alarms, that confronts, that perturbs. Here is preaching that makes you feel uncomfortable before it makes you glad. Here is preaching that DOES deal with objections and counter arguments, but not by putting God in the dock, on trial for his awkwardnesses and worse, but by genuinely bringing us to the bar of eternal realities.

When did you last hear a sermon that shook you with the immediate presence and power of God in his word? When were you last confronted with the bigness, holiness, awkwardness, frighteningness of the Living God? When did a sermon last deal with moral issues in a way which boldly confronted the prevailing mind-set? When did preaching last convict you of sin and of your need? When was Jesus Christ crucified last put before your eyes as the only hope any of us have?
 
‘He who marries the spirit of this age will be a widower in the next.’ We can go further: as the Salvation Army parts company with the Bible and embraces the spirit of the age, so the church itself will die.

And as we return to prayer and preaching that sets forth a big view of our awesome, holy, powerful, gracious and loving God, so the church will live and grow.

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

If I can quote from William Booth's greatest contemporary, it is worth reading and pondering this excerpt from what is known as Charles Spurgeon's “Own Funeral Sermon”. He actually preached it a few years before his death, but Mrs Spurgeon herself felt that it was a most suitable eulogy. He had preached on “For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep.”—Acts 13:36. Amongst other things he said:

People talk nowadays about Zeitgeist, a German expression which need frighten nobody; and one of the papers says, “Spurgeon does not know whether there is such a thing.”

Well, whether he knows anything about Zeitgeist or not, he is not to serve this generation by yielding to any of its notions or ideas which are contrary to the Word of the Lord.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not only for one generation, it is for all generations. It is the faith which needed to be only “once for all delivered to the saints”; it was given stereotyped as it always is to be. It cannot change because it has been given of God, and is therefore perfect; to change it would be to make it imperfect. It cannot change because it has been given to answer for ever the same purpose, namely, to save sinners from going down to the pit, and to fit them for going to heaven.

That man serves his generation best who is not caught by every new current of opinion, but stands firmly by the truth of God, which is a solid, immovable rock.

But to serve our own generation in the sense of being a slave to it, its vassal, and its valet—let those who care to do so go into such bondage and slavery if they will.

Do you know what such a course involves? If any young man here shall begin to preach the doctrine and the thought of the age, within the next ten years, perhaps within the next ten months, he will have to eat his own words, and begin his work all over again. When he has got into the new style, and is beginning to serve the present world, he will within a short time have to contradict himself again, for this age, like every other, is “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

But if you begin with God’s Word, and pray God the Holy Ghost to reveal it to you till you really know it, then, if you are spared to teach for the next fifty years, your testimony at the close will not contradict your testimony at the beginning. You will ripen in experience; you will expand in your apprehension of the truth; you will become more clear in your utterance; but it will be the same truth all along.*

Is it not a grand thing to build up, from the beginning of life to the end of it, the same gospel? But to set up opinions to knock them down again, as though they were ninepins, is a poor business for any servant of Christ.

David did not, in that way serve his own generation; he was the master of his age, and not its slave. I would urge every Christian man to rise to his true dignity, and be a blessing to those amongst whom he lives, as David was. Christ “hath made us kings and priests unto God his Father”; it is not meet that we should cringe before the spirit of the age, or lick the dust whereon “advanced thinkers” have chosen to tread.

Beloved, see to this; and learn the distinction between serving your own generation and being a slave to it.


 * It is salutary to compare this with the currently popular saying, widely though doubtfully attributed to Thomas Merton, “If the you of five years ago doesn’t consider the you of today a heretic, you are not growing spiritually.”    


The full text of the Spurgeon sermon can be found at
 http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2243.htm

On this day... George Muller and the Scriptural Knowledge Institution

On this day in 1834, George Muller, one of the greatest and most eccentric Christians of the 19th century, founded The Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad. He was a godly man who was also somehow very real, flesh and blood. His commitment to a distinctive approach to funding his work was in striking contrast to William Booth, with whom in other ways he had much in common. For a phenomenal biographical sketch, see John Piper's article here.

A brief thought from the Founder...

“We believe in the old-fashioned salvation. We have not developed and improved into Universalism, Unitarianism, or Nothingarianism, or any other form of infidelity, and we don’t expect to. Ours is just the same salvation taught in the Bible, proclaimed by prophets and apostles, preached by Luther and Wesley and Whitfield, sealed by the blood of martyrs – the very same salvation which was purchased by the sufferings and agony and Blood of the Son of God.”


William Booth, The Founder Speaks Again: A Selection of the Writings of William Booth ed. Cyril J. Barnes (London: Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, 1960), 45 – 6.

Anyone for Total Depravity?

The Doctrines of the Salvation Army were the Founders' attempt at expressing their core beliefs in such a way as to summarise the Army's message, invite Christians who shared their vision of the gospel to identify with the movement, and to ward off those whose vision was significantly different at what they saw as key points. They are still, unaltered, the doctrinal standard of TSA, to which all soldiers and officers must subscribe. It is because of one or two such differences with the doctrines that I have stopped at being an Adherent rather than becoming a Soldier, but I would not be an Adherent if I didn't recognise in the Doctrines a fair summary of authentic Christianity, a preachable faith which has led many to love Christ as he really is. 

Some of my wife's students (cadets at William Booth College) were looking at the doctrine of Total Depravity last term, and I got into some significant conversations and personal study on the topic. Some I wrote up on another blog; I have plundered and edited some of that material in what follows. This doctrine is absolutely foundational for Christians - accepted as catholic (universal and orthodox) doctrine ever since Pelagius' controversy. And it has far-reaching consequences - as my daughter said to me recently regarding a theology course she is taking, she has come to realise that, after the doctrine of God, the doctrine of sin is all-important. 

The Salvation Army's statement on sin, which includes direct reference to Total Depravity, runs like this:

We believe that our first parents were created in a state of innocency, but by their disobedience they lost their purity and happiness, and that in consequence of their fall all men have become sinners, totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God.

The Doctrine itself 

The doctrine of Total Depravity does not say that we are all as bad we could possibly be, but that there is an all-pervasive quality to our sin which mars every aspect of our nature, making us totally bankrupt and incompetent when it comes to dealing with God. 

It is not only our worst moments, our open, blatant, high-handed sins, that are expressions of our sinfulness. Even our best, our highest efforts, our attempts at reform or even at religion, are spoiled and rendered valueless by our sin. As Isaiah put it, our righteousness is like filthy rags. 

The doctrine of total depravity says that sin has affected everything, and that includes our consciousness of sin. It says that we can't see how bad we are. It says that, as we face the oncoming disaster referred to in the phrase "justly exposed to the wrath of God" we are, by our fallen nature, unaware of our peril. We are asleep in a burning house, and it is a drugged sleep. Or to use a more biblical image, we are "dead in our sins"; a dead person doesn't even know they're dead.  

The repercussions of the doctrine

1) This Christian doctrine anchors our idea of grace within the Christian faith. 

It is against the backdrop of this deep view of sin that the Christian gospel says three things, or one thing with three elements:

• Where we are unable and bankrupt, God is able and active. His grace is extended to us - what we cannot do, he will do - he treats us in a way we have not deserved and cannot deserve. Our only hope lies not in what we do but in his grace and kindness - we can only throw ourselves on his mercy. This insight in itself marks out Christianity amongst the world's religions.

• God's grace comes to us specifically through the person of Jesus Christ. His obedient life, his submissive death, his resurrection - these are the events in which God's grace is worked out for us. Grace reaches us in life, in time and space because grace has reached down into time and space - ours is a historical faith.

• God's grace in the once-and-for-all work of Christ can only be grasped because of the gracious work of the Spirit, whose awakening power is needed if we are even to perceive our need of Jesus. Like the dry bones in the valley, we need God's breath upon us so that we come alive to our spiritual need, and his spiritual provision.  

We have to grasp the depth of the badness in order to see the greatness of God's goodness. Imagine that two people are rescued from a house fire.  One insists, "Oh, it was no big deal - I could have got out of there on my own" but the other says, "Man - I was totally stuck! I was utterly lost; no way could I have saved myself!" Which one will appreciate and praise the rescuing fire crew the most? 

The fact is that we are asleep in the fire. A drugged sleep, no less. The doctrine of total depravity says that sin has affected everything, and that includes our consciousness of sin - it is only the fireman breaking graciously into the room that alerts us to the seriousness of the danger! 

Our understanding of grace is anchored at its top end, as it were, by the unspeakable marvel of God's love in Jesus Christ. But it is anchored at the bottom end by our view of the sinfulness of human nature. A serious view of sin leads to a big view of Christ and a breathtaking insight into the love of God.

 

2) This Christian doctrine is unique among world religions

The doctrine of Total Depravity sets Christianity apart from all other religions. In fact, it is starting from this point that it becomes clear that Christianity is not, in the normal sense, a "religion" at all! While religion urges us to do this and do that in order to reach up to God, on the presupposition that what we can do will be enough, or at least make some significant difference, the Christian message is that our sin so weighs us down, so blocks us out from God, that there is nothing we can do by way of ritual action, social good or internal spiritual exercise that can possibly deal with the gravity of our problem and even start to bring us into the presence of our Creator. And for good measure it tells us that we are blinded to the degree of our sinfulness and have no natural awareness of the depth of our problem! This is the most pessimistic world-view of any faith.

If grace is a religious rarity, historical grace to the totally unable is unique. While religion always ends up saying "DO", God in Christ says "DONE". And it says this to those who don't even yet know their need. To the dead it says, "Live!"

3) This Christian doctrine stands over against our contemporary, human-centred culture.

We live in a self absorbed, self-pampering, self-congratulating age. Christian pessimism about human nature is utterly at odds with our generation's crazy optimism. (It is crazy because the evidence that ought to explode it flows in with every day's news!) 

Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of versions of spirituality currently available on the supermarket shelves of faith which adopt contemporary thinking rather than Christian doctrine as their template. Just to take one sentence from a popular "spiritual" website:

At the core of each life is true, eternal goodness—and the key to a successful life is opening up that true self so that we can compassionately connect with God’s world.

Although this is totally incompatible with the SA doctrine and that of other Christian churches, such thinking is really pretty common in Christian circles today. It stems partly from a confusion about the nature of God's love; for a generation for whom romantic and sexual categories have become all-pervasive and exclusive when speaking of love, it becomes natural to say that "God was so in love with us that he came to earth so as to be with us". But it is horribly unbiblical and destructive of the gospel. Our doctrinal statement ought to be all the exclusion required. After all, the idea that we are all fundamentally good is in itself a demonstration of the blindness that sin has brought about; to bring this idea into the church is, to say the least, not a very good idea.

Nowhere is this clash with contemporary culture more acute over the last twenty years or so than in the great debate regarding sexual ethics.

The idea of a "fallen world" is hardly dominant in contemporary thought about human medical, psychological or sexual issues. The general assumption is that what is, is what is meant to be - or at least, given that nothing is "meant to be", as if it had a mind behind it, nothing can be said to have ceased to be what it was meant to be. As a result, we are not permitted to critique any aspect of innate human desire or behaviour on the basis of a concept of fallenness. And this dominant attitude in the world is now frequently found in the church.

The result of this is that the phrase "God made me this way" is used as a catch-all defence regarding all manner of moral issues. The doctrine of Total Depravity just won't let us do that, and yet, through ignorance or rejection of the doctrine, people are driving a coach and horses through classical Christian morality with the phrase. 

The doctrine of Total Depravity says that our world has entered into rebellion and madness; it has slipped away from the ideal. In the place of order and harmony and regularity is disorder and twistedness and loss of equilibrium. In such a world, my desires cannot be trusted. I cannot simply say, "God made me this way" when it would also be true to say, "Sin made me this way."

I have read a very sensitive blog which makes this very point. The writer is qualified to speak to one of the chief presenting issues today in a way which I am not. His comments remind us that, on some contemporary moral questions, it is the very heart of the Christian faith that is at stake. Not for nothing is the doctrine of sin under attack within the church. See here. 

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If I look for moral or spiritual compass bearings inside myself, I do not merely run the risk of being misled - I am sure to be misled! I need a word from outside, a word from God the Father that speaks to me where I am, tells me who I am, tells me what is right and tells me what is wrong. Above all, I need a word from outside that tells me of the Saviour who came from outside, and yet came as one of us, to bear our sin, attacking our depravity at root, and then, victorious, poured out the Holy Spirit. It is this Spirit who opens our eyes to who we are in sin and to the glory and sufficiency of Christ, and who transforms us from day to day into his likeness. 

I hope you are all up for Total Depravity. There is no hope without it.