Critique of the Critic
Some background.
Some insight.
In my opinion at least, there is much in the doctrinal library and practice of the Revival Fellowship that needs some serious reformation. I think we need to make sure that the truth is never found lying wounded, bloodied or dead at the feet of consensus.
Truth should not be held to ransom by our particular version of the gospel. (A gospel version that is different to the gospel most of evangelical, protestant Christianity maintains).
Truth is too important to kill it in the streets for the sake of peace. (Thank you, R.C. Sproul)
Isolationism, a diminished vision and dwindling relevance are some of the consequences we here in the Revival Fellowship suffer for "peace" because we only pursue internal consensus - conveniently relabelled by us as purity of doctrine. A consensus rooted in our desire to maintain what we see as the sanctity of our unique take on the gospel.
Certainly we are not encouraged to ask insightful and probing questions and dig deep into the Word - unless we are asking questions and digging for truth-diamonds in a way that fits in with and reinforces what is already believed.
Yet it should be obvious that everyone can agree and everyone can be wrong. Consensus can pave a peaceful road to hell. Peace and consensus are not necessarily the way to do bible study or to evaluate a position or find the truth.
The seismic shift that has occurred in the last decade has moved the ground under our feet. The Rock on which we stand as Jesus' disciples is now more than ever a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.
What we believe is, as far as the world is concerned, no longer good news but really bad news. We need to be equipped to meet the challenges that we will increasingly face from a hostile world that sees what we believe as dangerous.
When adding content to Revival Thinkers, I'll be bold enough to question our Revival Fellowship doctrine and practice. I'll also be adding resources that I hope will assist us to be better armed for the battle. The questions I've asked (and the answers I've provided...) have been asked and answered with Paul's advice in mind:
"But examine all things; hold fast to what is good." 1Thess 5:21
Controversies over central and essential doctrines cannot be avoided without betraying the gospel. As Paul warned the Galatians, a church unwilling to face controversy over doctrines of central importance will soon be preaching "another gospel." The church has had to face controversies over doctrines as central and essential as the full deity and humanity of Christ, the nature of the Trinity, justification by faith alone, and the truthfulness of Scripture. Had those controversies been avoided, the gospel and the authority of Scripture would have been forfeited. These controversies were over doctrines of "first-level" importance—those doctrines without which the Christian faith cannot exist.
A Little History
I have been part of the Revival Fellowship since 1976. Over the span of years I have been a simple church member, a ‘house meeting leader’, and a Pastor. I have travelled a little for the work's sake, having been to each of China and Nepal twice to encourage (and assist where practical) the saints in those two different cultures. After my first visit to Papua New Guinea in 1993 I kept in touch and until my late wife’s illness came to demand close care, I travelled to PNG a number of times, not as a Revival Fellowship tourist but to do some quite practical and necessary things to assist with the work there. I’m not boasting – I’m merely painting a picture of someone who’s not a novice and I hope you will appreciate that I have a pretty clear insight into the Revival Fellowship’s culture and practice. I have decades of acquaintance with (and I’ve preached) the gospel according to the Revival Fellowship, so I’m confident in my understanding of our singular take on God’s word.[1]
Almost 40 years ago I was thrust into caring for others in the church. I had no idea what my job was, I had no idea of its significance, the privilege I had been granted and the responsibility attached to it. I must say (to my shame) that I was incredibly uninformed, and I tackled the job with all the enthusiasm of a young man who knows no better. I didn’t realise how ignorant I was. A few years later, as a young Pastor, I had become overconfident, even arrogant, clearly not heeding Paul’s sober admonition in Titus 1:7 and Peter’s character assessment for overseers in 1Peter 5:2 both of which echo Jesus’ words in Matthew 20:25-28.
Of course, at the time I thought I was ok, but the facts are plain to me now: I didn’t stop to think long enough or hard enough about how my words and deeds might be affecting the lives of others. I was given extraordinarily little help – but I did not seek it out either. I wonder now, with some sorrow, how much better people in the church may have fared if I knew what I was doing back then (or even 10 years ago). I do not know today a fraction of what I need to know and back then I knew little of what I know today.
The problem, as I see it now, was this – I spoke with authority on matters I did not understand, and I gave well-meaning, sub-standard advice and direction based on ‘gut feeling’, the ‘leading of the Spirit’ and the input of those who I mistakenly considered as wiser than me as a result of their greater experience. So, the issue was not that the church's people questioned me or asked me to explain or defend my views – it was that they believed me! Worse, I was often mistaken. Mistaken because I uncritically accepted and zealously parroted the church’s account of how things are. I spoke when I should have been listening or, when I should have simply and humbly admitted that I didn’t know.
I was a young man with no training, little knowledge, and the arrogance to think that I could just ‘wing it’ and the Holy Spirit would fill in the blanks. No one took much notice or offered to mentor a keen, young pastor who was not yet anywhere near the place he ought to be. I once held the idea that this was a deliberate ploy to weed out the weak. I have since concluded it was simple indifference on the part of those who should have taken an interest. Pastoring became, in the end, a ridiculously hard slog.
No one with the authority that comes with a proven ministry came alongside me as my mentor, or to promote accountability or provide correction, tips, hints or (now here’s a radical idea) any training or instruction. It was ‘sink or swim’. I thought I was swimming (in an ungainly style to be sure, but I was swimming). In reality, I was drowning and the people I was meant to be helping to stay above water (or in the lifeboat) were going under along with me, gasping for air, noses just above the surface thinking ‘So this is the Christian life – really?’.
In the end, I sank. Slowly and relentlessly. Somewhat like Jonah, I ended up in a very deep and dark place. It started with a slow deflation of the Spirit-filled lifeboat. The craft (me!) became formless, soft, and unable to stay above the waves. I refer to those days as The Dark Years. It is with much shame that I think about those days. Dim days, when the Saviour of my soul was pushed aside and shunned as I recoiled from the light shining on my meagre life. My deliverance from that darkness and depression was the result of a simple prayer, a cry from the heart – the most effective prayer that I have ever prayed (and almost the shortest) – Lord do what you must, I’m dying and I can’t save myself. It was, I discovered, a dangerous thing to pray. That’s a whole other tale. A story not for telling here in detail, but one that describes a near death experience and a lengthy stay in hospital which set the scene for spiritual recovery and a personal reformation.
Growing Up
For the majority of my formative years in the Revival Fellowship (let’s say the first 20!) I just accepted uncritically and unquestioningly what I was taught by my Pastors and ‘the brethren’. As did the majority of my contemporaries and those who had come before me. Each Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday for decades, teaching was presented, ostensibly based on the scriptures read from the Bible, and I (like the majority) assumed that the teaching must be biblical.
Looking back at those years now I have mixed feelings. I am thankful for a basic grounding in scripture and for being introduced to some of the foundational tenets of the Christian faith but I now realise that what I was taught was always coloured and skewed by a simplistic approach to bible study, theology and doctrine. There was a time in the not-so-distant past when the church dictated what the saints were to read (if they were to read anything apart from the KJV bible) with dire warnings of compromise, ‘the slippery slope’, ‘the thin edge of the wedge’. ‘false doctrine’, ‘another gospel’ and nefarious wolves in sheep’s clothing.
The church did, however, allow and encourage the saints to read such mighty tomes as Great Pyramid - Proof of God and the white-supremacist-flavoured Tracing our White Ancestors published in 1962 (my copy at least) by that well known organisation America’s Promise Radio Lord’s Covenant Church, Inc. There are other books that made the reading list. One of them attempted to portray to the reader that the Jew was the enemy of the white race and of Christianity. The book covered the authors’ conjectures in a veil of conspiracy theories. Its title? Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I bought my copy in Melbourne at the church’s annual convention. I still have it here somewhere. Protocols purports to document a global conspiracy by Jewish leaders to take over the world.
The Revival Fellowship was a place for ‘simple people with a simple gospel’ as the saying went. Simple meant among other things, not reading too much, not questioning too much (or at all, preferably) not studying the Word in any depth, towing the church’s line, and doing what you were told. Doing what you’re told included what you could read, what you wore, how you gave your testimony, who you befriended and how much time you spent in fellowship (and with whom). The other point of order always at the forefront of church life was praying in the Spirit which in the Revival Fellowship meant exclusively speaking (praying) in tongues. See In the Spirit for my views on that idea.
Reformation?
My experience has been that in Revival Fellowship circles, to question speaking in tongues and its place in the church and in the life and salvation of a Christian is to be, by definition, a heretic. Mea Culpa, I’m a heretic. I don’t hesitate at all to add that I am also a redeemed sinner, a restored backslider and a particularly good example of what it means to be human. My thinking, my reasoning – in fact all my faculties – are just as affected by the Fall as any other person. Therefore, just as with everyone else, there is no hope of me fully knowing or completely understanding any part of God’s revelation to us humans.
Nevertheless, I’m forging on, taking the time to have a deeper look at various Revival Fellowship doctrines and the positions the Revival Fellowship adopt on Scripture’s teaching. Some of the material here you will find challenging if you are steeped in and loyal to the Revival Fellowship narrative. As you read, please bear in mind that I write as an insider and not as an external critic.
Of course there is a place for the doctrines and beliefs of our Revival Fellowship ‘church fathers’, but that place must be established by each generation of believers by reference to the Word of God. The Reformed minister Jodocus van Lodenstein wrote in 1674 ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda (the church reformed, always reforming). I doubt he meant it as a marketing or motivational slogan to put on a t-shirt. What he was saying, I think, was that every generation has a responsibility for their own intellectual and spiritual integrity and they should evaluate and test the creeds, doctrines, beliefs and worldview assumptions handed down to them against the inspired and authoritative Word of God. It is always time to test and perhaps improve those creeds, doctrines, beliefs and worldview assumptions and make them our own by making sure we ...examine all things; hold fast to what is good.
What is handed to us ‘on a plate’ by those who came before can guide and teach, but it should never be allowed to master us by means of naïve acceptance. We have but one Lord in the church and his name is Jesus. If He is our Lord then it must be His Word, always, that rules our hearts and governs both beliefs and behaviour.
On Whose Authority?
In my writings, on this site and elsewhere, I’m going to use Scripture as my authority. Scripture means the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments of our Protestant Bibles. (I use the New English Translation (NET) mostly – but not exclusively). I’m also proceeding with this analysis on the basis that 2Timothy 3:16-17 is true.
Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…
I’m not saying that my interpretation or view of a scripture is always right, much less perfect or complete. What I am saying is that if all of us take the view that Paul’s words to Timothy are true then we can at least start a dialogue.
Scripture is whole, sufficient and complete
I have also assumed the sufficiency, accuracy, and completeness of Scripture. I am of the opinion that what is in the Scripture is in there by God’s design and the Holy Spirit was the agent by which the authors of the original monographs were inspired. My view (a view which is reasonably orthodox in the wider Christian community) is that the biblical writers were not channeling the Holy Spirit nor dictating from voices in their heads nor were they puppets writing under the direct control of the Holy Spirit. Rather, they were in tune with the Spirit and the Spirit ensured that each of the authors, complete with their own unique circumstances, personalities, background, education and culture, wrote what the Spirit intended.
The Holy Spirit is Scripture's Source
The Holy Spirit is the source, the coordinator, the author of whatever the various Bible writers recorded and passed on – all of it – from Genesis to Revelation. When I refer to Paul or Jude writing or saying something it is simply an uncomplicated way to reference a particular author. However, this shorthand reference to an author contains a vital assumption which I accept unreservedly: The Holy Spirit is the ultimate author of all Scripture. He is the author behind the authors. So, when I type Paul wrote (and similar phrases) this really means Paul, writing what he was inspired to write by the Holy Spirit. Similarly, if I note that Jude said (and similar phrases) I really mean Jude, writing what he was inspired to write by the Holy Spirit.
What we have in Scripture is God-breathed. Co-ordinated and cemented together by the Holy Spirit. I believe if the human authors did not write something about an event, circumstance, theological point or teaching then they were not meant to do so. What is not in the Scriptures is not meant to be there. What is in the Scriptures is inspired and is meant to be there. That does not mean we will understand everything that is in Scripture just because the Holy Spirit put it there. Nor does it mean that we are precluded from making legitimate inferences from the biblical record. However, it does prevent us from making wholesale arguments from silence or ignorance. It’s also important to understand that we are not permitted to make the Bible say something it does not say. We are dealing falsely if we make unwarranted assumptions based on Scripture’s silence or when we assume facts or, however well intended we may be, put words in The Word where there are none. [2]
Endnotes
- The Revival Fellowship’s culture and practice are not monolithic. While unity is claimed on speaking in tongues and other aspects of the gospel as the Revival Fellowship imagines it, there is some divergence across the fellowship in the understanding and adherence to the Revival Fellowship’s metanarrative. Much of a particular city’s or country’s fellowship’s culture is often reflective of the senior (perhaps only) Pastor.
- It is a good thing, I think, to maintain the attitude of Ivan Panin who, when working on his magnum opus – the numerics-based English New Testament – took to heart the words of Isaiah 66:2 …But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.