Category Archives: Evangelicalism

The Gnosticizing of Evangelicalism

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As the Nag Hammadi Library of gnostic writings began to be made available to scholars in both editions and translations, the Dutch scholar, W. C. Van Unnik, surveyed a handful of these writings and compared them to the New Testament texts. He noted, “Nobody who is to any extent at home with the currents and undercurrents of our spiritual life today is likely to assent to this description of Gnosticism. Such widely separated movements as theosophy and anthroposophy have been instanced—and with every justification—as modern forms of Gnosticism. Time and again one comes across similar ways of interpreting Christianity—for example, among the Rosicrucians who, just like the ancient Gnostics, give out their interpretation as the real ‘truth’ of Christianity.” (W. C. van Unnik, Newly Discovered Gnostic Writings: A Preliminary Survey of the Nag-Hammadi Find, Studies in Biblical Theology 30 [Naperville, IL: Allenson, 1960], 89.)

I am, however, not so sure Christianity has not, after all, suffered from a gnosticizing influence throughout its centuries. And I am becoming more and more convinced that American evangelicalism—in almost all of its denominational (and non-denominational) forms—has suffered both bruises and lacerations at the hands of this phantom philosophy. After several years of living and breathing the air of American evangelicalism, experiencing firsthand both the smog and the fresh ocean breezes, having drunk from both the pure spring waters and the cracked cisterns of our tradition, having eaten the bread made from both the ground wheat and crushed tares of our living and departed saints, I have become increasingly concerned about the influence of essentially gnostic ideas on Christian truth.

I have developed an unscientific sense that gnosticization of Christianity is a constant threat. It is not, as was once believed, a challenge of the second and third centuries that was overcome by the institutionalization of the church, the formation of the canon of Scripture, and a concretizing of a common creed. Rather, all of these things necessitate human interpretation, which opens the door to countless presuppositions and preunderstandings. I have come to believe that the delicate balance—nay, the excruciatingly painful tension—that marks the orthodox doctrine of the incarnation as well as its implications for an incarnational theology and worldview, is simply too difficult for most humans to sustain without being pulled or pushed to one pole or the other. That Jesus Christ is both God and man, that the Bible is both divine and human, that salvation is both physical and spiritual, that the kingdom is both heavenly and earthly—the balance of such statements are far too easy to disrupt when humans begin to interpret and apply them in the twisted chaos of both the psychological and cosmic realities of this present world. Worldviews constantly collide with the Christian conundrum and confront the incarnational irreconcilables with demands for modification, reinterpretation, and reform. Thus, I believe the gnosticizing of Christianity seen in the early centuries of the church is a phenomenon that we can detect throughout church history. And it is a challenge that threatens to distort and destroy evangelical theology today.

When I say that evangelicalism is suffering from gnosticization, I do not mean that some specific form of Gnosticism or a Gnostic system—ancient or modern—is directly exercising influence on the thinking of modern Christians. Rather, evangelicals have long ridiculed many of the extreme expressions of classic Gnosticism—the distinction between the unknown Father and the unknowing creator god; the numerous emanations from the Father, the fall of Sophia, the creation of evil matter, the complex revisions of orthodox Christian truth, and so forth. These errors are easy to avoid, and evangelicals have remained essentially orthodox in their avoidance of Gnostic heresy. Furthermore, I do not mean that evangelicals have become Gnostics. I do not believe the gnosticization of evangelicalism means that evangelicalism has ceased to be fundamentally and authentically Christian. The effect of gnosticizing has not caused evangelicalism to fall into heresy. It has, rather, maintained a classically catholic and orthodox identity.

What I actually mean by this assertion is that, like some sectors of the ancient church in the second century, evangelicalism has reinterpreted Christian truth—or adopted others’ reinterpretations—that diverge from a classic incarnational theology. That is, contemporary evangelicalism has fallen into the pattern of trying to relieve the incarnational tension and has, to a large degree, opted for the same kind of spiritualizing, other-worldly, non-material philosophical direction as the ancient Gnostics.

What does this look like? Many evangelicals fail to maintain a doctrine of Scripture that takes seriously both its fully human and fully divine qualities. We have created a view of humanity more in line with a body-spirit dualism in which the “true me” is entrapped in a body, regarding God’s physical creation as a mere “shell” that needs to be shed. We have spiritualized the ordinances, stripping them of their sacramental power and relegating them to mere symbols and memorials of spiritual truths. We have severed the spiritual church from the physical church, the universal from the local body of Christ, and have made membership in one (the spiritual) possible without membership in the other (the physical). We have put up with a dichotomizing between the spiritual, personal experience of salvation by an invisible faith and the material, physical manifestation of faith through acts of love, manifested in a radical division between justification and sanctification. We have tolerated extreme expressions of the Spirit working directly with individuals outside the physical, institutional community of Christ, allowing many radical departures from classic Christian orthodoxy by means of special “movements” of the Spirit or new revelations. We have opted for a spiritualized and personalized eschatology that de-emphasizes the redemption of this physical creation through history, and even premillennialists have suggested that God’s plan for this world includes its absolute destruction rather than transformation and resurrection.

Sadly, this already long list could continue.

What is the solution to the gnosticizing of evangelicalism? I believe the only lasting solution is a rigorous christocentric theology that continually checks and corrects biblical interpretation, dogmatic systems, and practical applications against the standard of an authentically incarnational christology.

What If Our "Center" Is Really the Fringe?

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In the nineteenth century America was beset with a major theological crisis in its churches and seminary. “Liberals” began questioning—then abandoning—the Christ-centered orthodox creeds and authoritative Scriptures in exchange for a man-centered religion of morality and cultural relevance. “Evangelicalism” originally sprang up as a defense of the “fundamentals” of the Christian faith. However, since its initial identity as the guardian of classic Protestant orthodoxy, evangelicalism has changed and developed over the decades.

So, in the twentieth century the “center” of evangelicalism began to materialize into a more solid core of beliefs and values. These included an emphasis on Scripture as the center, source, and norm of the faith, sometimes to the complete exclusion of other sources of theological understanding and reflection. And as happened in the liberalism of the previous century, the creeds, theological traditions, and historical continuity became less important . . . until in many branches of evangelical tradition they became irrelevant distractions or even signs of heterodox or heretical thinking. As long as a belief or practice conformed to Scripture, it was accepted—even if it was countered by all of church history and theological traditions. Other values also took the center stage of evangelicalism—practical theology, expository teaching and preaching, a revivalist view of the gospel, an unrelenting emphasis on free will and personal choice in conversion, and a militant conservative social and political perspective. In many sectors of evangelicalism, if somebody were to challenge these priorities, they would be labeled non-evangelicals, liberals, or even false teachers.

Yet as strange as it may sound, the “center” of some branches of evangelicalism seems to have become the “fringe” of classic orthodox Christianity. In short, many evangelical churches are appearing increasingly more “evangelical,” but increasingly less “Christian.”

You see, the center of Christianity has always been Jesus Christ. It is not the Bible. It is not expository preaching. It is not the a personal response to the gospel message. Rather, it is God the Son who became man, lived a life of perfect righteousness, revealed the Father and the Spirit, died for our sins, rose from the dead, and will come again. Through Christ we believe the Bible as the inspired and inerrant Word of God that points us to Him. Through Christ we encounter the Triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Through Christ we have salvation and forgiveness of sins by grace through faith alone. Through Christ we are empowered to live a regenerated life by His Spirit. Through Christ we are incorporated into the church and receive instruction and inspiration to carry out its mission. Through Christ we have a proper view of the depravity and neediness of fallen humanity as well as the ideal model and ultimate pattern of redeemed humanity. And through Christ we can anticipate the new world to come when this fallen cosmos will be redeemed by His power and glory.

Don’t misunderstand me. I love the inerrant Word of God, powerful expository preaching, a clear presentation of the gospel of grace through faith, and all the things that mark me as a proud evangelical. But to the degree that evangelicalism has put the Bible at the center of the Christian worldview, it has removed Jesus Christ from the center. To the degree that it has focused on a personal, voluntary, and free-will response to a bare-bones gospel presentation, evangelicalism has reduced the profound person and work of Jesus Christ to mere propositions to be preached. To the degree that evangelicals have modeled their methods and structures after cultural forms with biblical proof-texts, they have failed to measure them against the one model of all things human and perfect: Jesus Christ.

So, I ask these important questions, only because it’s time we ask it. What if evangelicalism has unwittingly drifted not into error per se, but into an errant emphasis on things that were always meant to orbit around Jesus Christ and point to Him? What if twenty-first century evangelicals have replaced the Christ-centered community of faith and faithfulness with a subtle me-centered individualistic philosophy? What if the means of expressing the faith has become the faith itself? What if evangelicals have gone the way of nineteenth century liberalism and consciously drifted from a continuity with the Great Tradition of the church that has always placed Jesus Christ at the center of all things Christian? What if we’ve gone so far astray that everything I’m saying in this essay actually sounds liberal to its readers?

In short, what if the “center” of much evangelicalism has actually become the “fringe” of authentic, historical Christianity?

Scoring Culture

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On my way to work today, I listened to a number of tracks from movie scores by John Williams, arguably the greatest film score composer alive today. After the third or fourth “main theme,” I realized why I don’t listen to this all the time. While Williams writes legendary film scores, the genre just doesn’t satisfy my musical sensibilities. See, I was trained in music performance and composition and grew up playing Mozart and Beethoven piano sonatas. Because of this, I feel like most film scores are to classical music what movie adaptations are to the books on which they are based—violent and vulgar parodies.

As I drove, ruminating on this analogy with the Jurassic Park theme assaulting my senses, I realized that the analogy also enlightens my perspective on much popular evangelicalism today.

My thesis is this: many forms of twenty-first century American evangelicalism are to classic Christianity what films scores are to classical music—violent and vulgar parodies. Movie scores are “incidental,” describing musically and thematically the ever-changing images projected on a screen. Similarly, contemporary evangelicalism reflects the ever-changing cultural values and pursuits in their superficial doctrinal and practical “norms.” To enhance the cinematic action, movie scores incorporate an eclectic variety of musical instruments, tempos, styles, and themes to fit the film without any unifying theory, structure, or progression. In the same way, many evangelicals assemble a mishmash of media and methods to appeal to the masses without an over-arching theology or structure.

I admit that my perspective has been skewed by my intense exposure to ancient Christianity. And my historical awareness of the dangers of conforming Christian practice to the prevailing cultural philosophies, values, and norms has made me leery of constant changes in evangelicalism under the guise of “incarnational ministry.” Adopting from and adapting to the cultural chaos is not the same as incarnational ministry. The fact is, God became fully human, but Jesus never really “fit in.” Paul became all things to all people, but he was beaten by Jews and beheaded by Gentiles. The ancient Christian apologists and theologians drew from philosophical concepts and rhetoric to explain the faith to a pagan culture, but that same culture rejected and killed them. Only when the Christians began to coddle up to secular authorities did they reap positive—if not genuine—responses from both the powerful and the powerless. The result was a corrupt mega-church rich in worldly goods but in desperate need of spiritual reformation.

I fear that evangelicalism today is heading in the same direction as liberal theology of yesteryear. Like the Schleiermachers and Bultmanns of centuries past, seeker-sensitive churches drive their pegs into the shifting sands of the popular cultural landscape with their emphasis on felt needs. Trying to be everything to everyone, they often become nothing to nobody. Church growth gurus plug business strategies, corporate structures, and bottom-line philosophies that increase numbers and revenue but devalue narrow-way discipleship. Trendy thirty-something congregations appeal to the glitz and glamour of entertainment-oriented eye candy or create a cozy, comfortable coffee-house environment, but often fail to drive home the essential truths of the Christian faith—the glory of the Triune God, the gracious incarnation of the Son, the new life that comes through His death and resurrection.

To avoid the liberal slide, evangelicals today need to reevaluate their relationship to popular culture. Many evangelical leaders today are infactuated with popularity, respectability, luxury, comfort, fame, and fortune. Evangelicals need to seriously rethink the essence of the Christian faith, then conform its forms and structures to match the central message. The way we represent Christianity must in some way reflect the heart of the Christian faith. Only by a careful and intentional reflection on history, theology, Scripture, and culture can we hope to arrive at genuine expressions of Christianity. Leaping from the latest marketing strategy or communications fad just doesn’t cut it.

In short, I believe evangelicalism should stop writing their music to conform to the reeling images of popular culture and return to the symphonic theory of the classics.

Evangelical Modalism

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If I polled members of most evangelical churches in America today, I’m afraid I would discover that most are basically modalists in their understanding of the Trinity.

Modalism is the heresy that confuses the persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity states that there is one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit—equal in divine essence and power but distinct in person. However, heretics throughout church history have veered off this way into one of two ditches. The first is tri-theism, which separates the three persons and basically confesses three gods, three essences, and three separate persons (and usually one of the gods is greater than the others). The second is modalism, which confuses the three persons and confesses one god and one person with three different names, depending on what role he happens to be filling.

It has become more and more evident to me that evangelicals—while avoiding tri-theism—have inadvertently run headlong into the ditch of modalism. They have done so primarily by three means: modalistic pictures, modalistic prayers, and modalistic praise.

Modalistic Pictures

If you were asked to explain the Trinity to a five-year-old, how would you go about doing it? Most evangelicals would probably resort to some sort of illustration they learned in Sunday school, read in a book, or heard from the pulpit. Two pictures prevail: “The Trinity is like water: solid, liquid, and gas” (that’s modalism). “The Trinity is like a person with different names: I’m a son to my father, a father to my son, and a husband to my wife” (that’s modalism, too). Both of these well-intentioned illustrations communicate a modalistic—not Trinitarian—doctrine of God.

Two facts emerge from two thousand years of attempting to illustrate the Trinity: 1) no picture can adequately illustrate the unillustratable God; and 2) every picture results in communicating a non-Trinitarian heresy. (For a longer discussion about the dangers of illustrating the Trinity, see my essay, “The Unillustratable God.”)

I believe the evangelical knack for illustrating spiritual truths has unwittingly misled many evangelicals into a false understanding of the Trinity. This has to stop, even if it means resorting to bare creedal Trinitarian language to define (not illustrate) the Trinity.

Modalistic Prayers

Besides modalistic pictures, evangelicals spread a confused view of God by means of modalistic prayers.

Some time back I visited a somewhat progressive evangelical church led by a pastor who I know is not a modalist and could probably state the doctrine of the Trinity as clearly and concisely as anyone could hope. However, several times during the Sunday morning service he engaged in what amounted to a modalistic prayer, confusing the Father and Son.

His various prayers went something like this: “Our great heavenly Father, we love you, we praise you, we thank you for dying on the cross for our sins, etc. . . . Lord Jesus, we give you all the glory and honor, Father, etc. . . . In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

Over and over again this pastor kept mixing up the persons of the Trinity, attributing works of the Son to the Father and vice versa. It irritated me so much that I actually felt like walking out. All the while I couldn’t help but wonder how the people in the congregation were understanding the doctrine of God based on those prayers. Contrary to the gist of that pastor’s prayer, the Father did not die on the cross for our sins (an ancient modalistic heresy called “patripassianism,” or “the suffering of the Father”). Jesus is not the Father. Although the Father is God and the Son is God, the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. Father, Son, and Spirit—though united in deity—are distinct in their persons.

Now, I know all of us slip up once in a while when we pray and end up accidentally mixing up the Father and Son and Spirit. That doesn’t make us modalists. But it does cause us to confuse those who are listening—especially if they already have a shaky understanding of what we mean by “Trinity.” One easy way to solve this problem is to actually follow Christ’s teaching on prayer—direct all prayer to God the Father in Jesus’s name and by the power of the Spirit. Address the Father, thank Him for sending His Son, praise Him for giving you the Spirit. By keeping your prayers addressed to God the Father, not only will you be following the overwhelming majority of biblical examples, but you will also avoid communicating a modalistic misunderstanding of the Trinity to those listening.

I believe the evangelical penchant for spontaneous prayer sometimes leads to a confusion of Father, Son, and Spirit, which in turn communicates a modalistic concept of the Trinity. This has to stop, even if it means writing out and reading our prayers to avoid errors.

Modalistic Praise

Along with modalistic pictures and modalistic prayers, evangelicals unwittingly engage in modalistic praise. This comes in the form of popular worship songs and hymns that convey an inaccurate concept of Father, Son, and Spirit.

One worship song that particularly troubles me is “You Alone.” The problematic chorus states: “You alone are Father / and You alone are good. / You alone are Savior / and You alone are God.” But that’s just not true. A Trinitarian Christian cannot confess that God the Father (the first person of the Trinity) is alone good, Savior, and God. These are appellations that Father, Son, and Spirit share. These lyrics could be fixed in one of two ways: 1) change “Father” to a different word, such as “holy,” which would render the address to the Triune God in unity. Or 2) somehow remove the word “alone,” because this suggests that a single person—the Father—is alone God, and for those who also believe in the deity of Christ, this would suggest that the Son and the Father are the same person with different names.

Postmodern praise songs aren’t the only ones producing modalistic melodies, however. The ancient Irish hymn, “By Thou My Vision”—which is one of my favorites—precariously approaches the borders of modalism. The second verse says, “Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word; / I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord; / Thou my great Father, I Thy true son, / Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.” In the ancient church, the names “Wisdom” and “Word” often referred to the Spirit and the Son, and in any case the “Word” (logos) is a name exclusively used in the Bible to refer to the Son in distinction to the Father (John 1:1–3, 14). Yet in the third line “Wisdom” and “Word” are both called “Father.” Then, in the last line, the normal function of the Holy Spirit—who indwells believers—is assigned to the Father. This is confusing.

I believe the evangelical approach to worship music—which sometimes emphasizes the emotional experience over doctrinal discernment—occasionally leads to a confused and confusing doctrine of God. This has to stop, even if it means changing worship songs and rewriting ancient hymns.

Conclusion

A modalistic concept of God that confuses the Father, Son, and Spirit is far too common among evangelicals today. Through sloppy pictures, prayers, and praise, the misunderstanding continues to be confessed over and over again in churches large and small. Because most believers learn their theology from preaching, prayers, and worship—that is, learning by observing and participating—we must all reevaluate our presentations and conform them to the biblical and orthodox doctrine of God.

V.T. on T.V.?

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I’ll admit that I’m not an expert on the complexities of children’s television. If it’s like most human institutions, I’m sure it’s a swirling vortex of numerous interests—cultural, religious, political, and above all, economic. And I’m fairly certain that network executives are far more interested in turning a profit than in advancing their personal ideologies. But, acknowledging that I’m passing judgment on this complex world of television from the outside and probably over-simplifying it, allow me to comment on the sudden appearance of VeggieTales on NBC Saturday morning cartoons.

Although some have complained that VeggieTales had to water down its message to make it big, in my opinion this is really just a case of watered-down water. VeggieTales has never struck me as a distinctively Christian program. They never brought children face to face with the incarnate Son of God who died and rose again. They quoted a few Scriptures, told some Bible stories (mostly Old Testament), and pushed a Judeo-Christian ethic, but that alone could never introduce us to the Savior, without whom all the rest is powerless.

We have to remember that VeggieTales was always meant to appeal to a broader audience than evangelical Christians. Not only did evangelicals gobble it up like cotton candy, but so did Mormons and Catholics and everyone in between. Why? Because the morality was universal, the stories entertaining, the animation above average, the music outstanding, and the theology unobtrusive. It was, on all counts, safe viewing. You could allow kids to watch it without supervision. And you still can.

VeggieTales works best if you have believing parents helping them see that Christ is the center of the Christian life, not some moral dos or don’ts. However, this is probably done very rarely—even in Christian homes. And now the “Christian” message broadcast all over the world through VeggieTales T.V. is portraying Christianity as a set of moral choices without the heart of the Christian life—Jesus Christ. It’s all rather unfortunate, I think. But again, not much has changed between pre-NBC version of VeggieTales to the T.V. version. I don’t see how somebody could sustain a charge that VeggieTales “sold out” . . . they never had but crumbs to offer.

Like it or not, V.T. has come to T.V. Personally, as a father with three kids, I welcome the safe Saturday morning programming. However, I’m not counting on the T.V. version of V.T. for communicating to my children their spiritual need to know the person of Christ, the payment of His death, and the power of His resurrection.

In fact, I never have.