Truth Magazine

By Mike Willis

The June 25th issue of the Midtown Church of Christ Bulletin (1701 Oakhurst-Scenic Dr., Fort Worth, Texas) related the results of a survey which was taken in one of their ladies’ classes. Here is a quotation from that article:

There were about 40 ladies present in the class room. The subject for the day was “Blessed Assurance.” The class began with a survey. The single question on the survey was, “If you died today, do you think you would go to Heaven?” The results were surprising, baffling and disappointing.

About 60% of the ladies answered that they did not think they would go to Heaven should they die that day! About 20% said they would! And the remaining 20% said they could not be sure.

I am afraid that whether we like to admit it or not, this survey reflects the thinking of a goodly portion of us. We are hesitant to affirm with confidence that we are saved. Sometimes, we even portray to others a definite uncertainty about whether or not we are saved. Hence, we lack the “blessed assurance” of knowing that should Jesus come today or should we die this night that we would definitely be saved.

Some have latched on to this certain problem among us and have given a false confidence based on the false doctrine of the imputation of the perfect obedience of Christ to the believer’s life. According to this theory, the Lord clothes the believer in the robes of the perfect obedience of Christ so that rather than the child of God being viewed as one who is constantly going in and out of a right relationship with God because of the sins which he commits, the Lord sees only the perfect obedience of Christ. The perfect obedience of Christ, according to this theory, is imputed to the believer to cover his sins of ignorance and the weaknesses of the flesh. This is, indeed, a comforting idea but it is not a biblical one. There are no passages which teach that the perfect obedience of Christ is imputed to anybody!

Yet, we must testify that those who have written about the perfect obedience of Christ being imputed to the believer have zeroed in on a definite problem among us-the uncertainty of salvation which many among us feel. The Bible does have somewhat to say on the fact that we can be saved and we can know that we are saved. Christians ought not to breathe doubt regarding their spiritual relationship to God. If any person has confidence that he is saved, it should be the Christian. So, let us consider how a man can know that he is saved and have the blessed assurance of salvation when he dies.

Assurance Rests On God’s Promises

Man’s assurance of salvation rests upon God’s promises. God has promised to extend His grace to save the man who responds to the gospel of Jesus Christ and meets the conditions laid down in that gospel. For example, God has promised to save the believer in Christ; Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16). The believer in Christ can know that he is saved because of the reliability of the promises of God. God, by His very nature, is a God who cannot lie (Tit. 1:2; Heb. 6:18).

Man is robbed of any genuine assurance of salvation whenever he is told that he can know that he is saved on any other basis than a reliance upon the promises of God. For example, the man who believes that he is saved as a result of some kind of experience has no genuine assurance of salvation. Regarding this, Campbell wrote,

Ask such what they know concerning the pardon of their sins, and they generally refer to that idea, feeling, or impression, as proof that they were pardoned. From this, in retrospection, often spring all their confidence and their present joys. Their knowledge of remission is their recollection of such an idea, feeling, or impression. According to its vividness, or faintness, are their present comforts and hopes. If, at any time, their recollections should fail, or the original idea or impression become less vivid, doubts and fears arise; clouds overspread their heaven, gloomy feelings, and religious chills and fevers, disturb their tranquility. But, if the impression, that at a certain time they were truly converted, increase by new experiences, called by them the witness of the Spirit, the first idea, feeling, or impression, augmented by more recent ideas, feelings, and impressions of a similar character, produces a glow intense and a joy unutterable. Still, however, the fons et principium, the fountain and origin of all their hopes and joys, is an impression that they were at a certain time pardoned; and mark what follows, that they were at that time pardoned is an inference drawn from what passed in their minds. Their feelings were the premises, and their pardon is the conclusion (The Millennial Harbinger. Vol. I, p. 498).

This man’s assurance of salvation is only with him so long as his experiences are renewed and remembered. Should he ever forget his experiences, his assurance of salvation would be gone. Assurance does not rest upon human experiences but upon the promises of God.

Others among us rest their assurance of salvation and assure others of salvation on the basis of some hypothetical case imagined by someone. For example, we are told that we can be sure that we are saved because if a man were driving down the road 60 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone and had a wreck and was killed that he would be saved. Who knows what his condition would be? Hypothetical cases such as these prove nothing. Similar hypothetical cases offer just as much comfort and solace for the unbaptized and unbelievers as this one does for the believer. What is presented as a means of giving a man assurance robs one of the real confidence that one can have of his salvation. It persuades a man that he can be saved while yet in his sins, contrary to everything that God has promised us. Hence, the man who is yet in his sins is told, by such a case as this, not to worry about his salvation because God will overlook his weaknesses of the flesh. Brethren, if you think that this doctrine does not encourage a man to continue in his sins, consider the effect it has produced on those who are preaching it. How long has it been since you read a word from Leroy Garrett, Carl Ketcherside, Edward Fudge, Arnold Hardin, R. L. Kilpatrick, etc. which was directed to encourage those involved in the sins of worship with instrumental music, church supported recreation, sponsoring church arrangements, premillennialism, etc. to leave their sins in order to be saved? You have not read it because they have not written it. The effect of resting salvation upon hypothetical cases is that it keeps a man from relying upon the promises of God to find out what he must do to be saved.

A Bible Example of Uncertainty and Assurance

The parable of the talents displays an example of the men with blessed assurance of acceptability before God and one with uncertainty regarding his acceptability before God. Let us consider this as a means of determining how we can have the assurance that we are pleasing to God at any moment in time.

The five-talent and two-talent men are our examples of men who had an assurance that they were pleasing to God. The Lord had given to His servants several talents based on the individual ability of each with the instructions to use the talents to increase what God had given to him. When the Lord returned, each of these men came before the Lord with confidence and said, “Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents (and two talents, respectively-mw): behold, I have gained beside them five talents more” (Mt. 25:20). Of course, the Lord pronounced the blessing over these two faithful servants.

The one-talent man is our example of a man uncertain about his condition before his Lord. When he came before the Lord, he said, “Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou has not strawed: and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine” (Mt. 25:25). Notice this man’s mental anguish: “I was afraid.” Here is the man who is unsure about his spiritual relationship to God. In Luke’s parallel account, the Lord said, “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.” This indicates that the Lord was not the kind of God which the servant said that He was, but that He was going to use his concept of Him to judge him. If God was the kind of God as he imagined, the servant should have been all that much more concerned with working to please Him. Hence, this man was rejected by God because he had not done what God said.

Conclusion

The conclusion of this is apparent.. A man can have the blessed assurance that he is in a saved relationship with God only so long as that man is busy obeying the commandments of God. Our response to the Lord’s commandments is the condition (not grgunds) for our receiving God’s grace. Only so long as I have met the conditions can I rest assured that I shall receive God’s grace-namely salvation. My assurance of salvation exists because God has promised salvation to those who meet His conditions and He cannot lie. Therefore, having met the conditions, I know I am saved.

There is no ambiguity in what conditions man must meet to receive God’s grace. Sin from which man must abstain, is clearly spelled out for us and revealed in the Bible. The commandments which man must obey in order to receive God’s grace are clearly revealed in God’s word. Why, therefore, should a man be uncertain about his salvation? Is he uncertain because God has not clearly told us what to do to be saved? Is man unsure of salvation because he does not know what sin is? Is man uncertain about salvation because he is worried about God not showing us grace? The answer to none of these questions can be affirmative.

Man is uncertain about salvation because he is not busy obeying the commandments of God. This was the man uncertain about his salvation in the parable of the talents. The man who is studying God’s word, praying regularly, worshiping properly, manifesting the fruits of the Spirit in his life, etc. is not worried about whether or not he will be saved. Those who I have found to be worried about their salvation are those who do not pray, do not study their Bibles, are not concerned about the lost of the world, and otherwise manifest a lack of spirituality. Those who are working to give such people the assurance of salvation are not doing them any favors. These people need to become convicted of their sins so that they will repent and be obedient to the Lord. Then, as they respond to His commandments, they can have the assurance of salvation.

Truth Magazine XXII: 44, pp. 707-709
November 9, 1978

By Steve Wolfgang

The frustration of wrestling with and writing this article has been intense. Although I agreed when asked as a staff member to submit an article on this topic, I knew from the beginning that it would be impossible to include everything which should be said within the allotted space limitations. There has simply been so much written within the last five years along regarding this subject that one could not begin to discuss it fully in yet one more book let along a short article. I have therefore found it necessary to simply provide a thumb-nail sketch of the major outlines of the recent controversy, and by the use of footnotes(1) document other sources to which one may turn if one wishes to explore this controversy further. One who wishes only to have an introduction to the subject may simply read through the body of the article and ignore the footnotes; others may wish to pursue this study further, in which case I have attempted to provide references to the bulk of the most recent material. I do not labor under the delusion that everyone should be interested in such matters or that everyone wants to (or should want to) spend much time reading “evangelical” literature. To be quite honest, I do not read every chapter of every book nor every article in every paper which crosses my desk (though I try to keep up fairly well, since I serve on the staff, with what is written in Truth Magazine). I simply know of no better (in fact, I know of no other) way to approach a subject about which so much has been written so recently without surveying the literature on the subject.

First, a definition of terms is in order. What is meant by “modernism” and by “neo-evangelical”? There have been numerous definitions proposed for each term and perhaps the best way to approach these terms is through a historical survey. The term “modernism” has many definitions outside the realm of religion(2) but within religious circles referred technically to a movement within Catholicism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.(3) Historians have quibbled about the exact features of the movement as it expanded, but gradually it came to refer to a general attitude toward the world and the Bible itself, whether held by Catholics, Protestants, atheists, humanists, or others. “Modernists”(4) or “liberals” generally came to be identified as those whose view of the Bible and its relationship to the twentieth-century world allowed for “errors” (as they defined them) in the Scriptures. These included not only errors of “fact” pertaining to geography, history, mathematics, scientific knowledge, etc., but to what these individuals perceived as an outdated and fundamentally mistaken view of human nature and the whole philosophy of human existence. This view point usually included favorable reception of the “higher criticism” of the Bible, and acceptance of biological evolutionary theories in one form or another (sometimes adapted as “theistic” evolution), a less than rigid view of morality, and often a “social gospel” type orientation in religious activities and structures. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a group of individuals who came to be known as “Fundamentalists” became quite vocal in their opposition to the “modernists”; perhaps the most widely publicized encounter between the two groups occurred in the Scopes Trial at Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925, basically involving the evolution issue but with references to other questions as well.(5) Both before and after this most visible representation of the conflict, innumerable smaller and less publicized battles occurred, and many denominations (along with their headquarters, seminaries, mission boards, and para-church organizations) ruptured, resulting in the formation of many new churches, seminaries, mission boards, etc. Despite a smattering of~educated leaders (the best known of which was probably J. Gresham Machen, who left Princeton Theological Seminary and, with a handful of others retreated to Philadelphia to found Westminister Theological Seminary), Fundamentalists were often caricatured as ignorant, uncultured, anti-intellectual bigots (not altogether without basis in fact).

By the 1940’s however, a new generation of young people raised in Fundamentalist churches began to emerge, particularly in the wake of World War 11, unsatisfied with what they considered to be the narrow emphasis of the “Fundamentalists” but unwilling to accept most of the more liberal or critical views espoused by “Modernists.” Generally accepting the label “Evangelicals” or “Neoevangelicals,” and led by a corps of bright young students and professors with graduate degrees from some of the better or more prestigious universities in this country and abroad, significant numbers of “laymen” coalesced around various institutions which came to represent the “evangelical” cause.(6) Carl F. H. Henry’s critique, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, appeared in 1947, the same year in which Fuller Theological Seminary was founded. Fuller had on its faculty in the early years men whose names came to be synonymous for “evangelicalism:” Henry Harold Lindsell, Everett F. Harrison, Gleason L. Archer, Edward John Carnell, Geoffrey W. Bormiley, George Eldon Ladd, and others.(7) Two years following, the Evangelical Theological Society was formed to provide a forum for expression of a more conservative viewpoint than often found in major seminaries. That same year, 1949, also saw the beginning of the Billy Graham evangelistic crusades, which came to represent on a popular level a general expression of conservative evangelicalism. By 1956, the fortnightly periodical Christianity Today(8) was founded to provide an alternative forum for the expression of views unacceptable in more liberal publications such as The Christian Century (founded and edited at first, interestingly enough, by a former member of the Disciples of Christ, Charles Clayton Morrison). James DeForest Murch, a prominent individual among the “independant” Christian Churches (the North American Christian Convention, and their seminary, Cincinnati Bible [now Christian] Seminary), also maintained high visibility among the evangelical movement.(9)

By the 1960’s several books(10) could describe a rather strong and well-defined movement with a basically conservative theology centered around belief in the miraculous (usually, but not always emphasizing items such as the virgin birth of Christ, the historical nature of His ministry and miracles, and especially of His resurrection), and usually a heavy emphasis on the premillennial concept of fulfilled (or, more correctly, unfulfilled) prophecy. Time Magazine could observe in 1969 that these loosely affiliated but fast growing religious bodies (which they listed as including, interestingly enough, Churches of Christ in addition to the Southern Baptist Convention, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and other bodies ranging from Pentecostal/holiness/Wesleyan type groups to more sophisticate “mainline” denominations) constituted “a significant majority among 67 U.S. Protestants.”(11)

But there were cracks beginning to develop in the evangelical facade. By the early 1970’s, while evangelical authors such as Bernard Ramm and Donald Bloesch could write regarding a somewhat more solidified and sophisticated evangelical “theology,”(12) they (along with other prominent evangelicals) were felt by some others in the movement to have acquiesced to a modernism at certain points. In 1976, both of the first two editors of Christianity Today (Henry and Lindsell) were writing both in that periodical and in published works about “cracks in the evangelical foundations” and the evangelicals’ “search for identity” at the “brink of crisis.”(13) Henry concerned himself to a large extent with a yet newer generation of evangelicals, having grown up in the post-World War II evangelical churches, or having been converted in innumerable evangelical campaigns conducted by Graham, Bill Bright, and others in cities and on campuses. This generation partook of the revolutionary spirit characteristic of the 1960’s, and bemoaned what they considered to be a lack of social conscience among evangelicals.(14)Many evangelicals, such as Henry, agreed that there was some truth to the charge, but cautioned the younger generation against merely clothing modified Marxist political ideology in the language of evangelical religion. However, more to the point of this article, it is interesting to notice that Henry also looked askance at his fellow editor Lindsell’s efforts to ferret out those with modernistic tendencies among various evangelicals.(15)

Perhaps of all the works mentioned in this article, Truth Magazine readers may be most familiar with Lindsell’s book, The Battle For the Bible, published in 1976.(16) In it, Lindsell identifies and attempts to document various instances of a shift in the direction of modernism among post-World War 11 evangelicals. Devoting chapters to the Southern Baptist Convention and the Missouri Synod Lutherans and their recent split (along with the much publicized defection of many of the faculty of their St. Louis seminary, Concordia, to form a “Seminary in Exile” [Semines]), he then considers the shift in doctrinal requirements at Fuller Seminary. Fuller (where Lindsell taught for more than a decade) was begun as the “flagship” of evangelical seminaries, and at first required that a doctrinal statement be signed every year by each faculty member avowing belief in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. This is no longer required, and over the past fifteen years inner controversies over such a statement have caused several faculty members to leave Fuller.

Truth Magazine readers interested in evaluating the details and documentation of these charges will have to read the book for themselves. It would be impossible to cover them in an article of this length. (I am sure Truth Magazine Bookstore would be delighted to supply you with copies of this or any other book I have referred to in this article!) It is worthy of notice however, that a Fuller professor, Jack Rogers, immediately edited a collection of essays(17) aimed at responding to Lindsell, written by some stellar members of the evangelical community (including some, like Clark Pinnock, and Bernard Ramm, whose writings are fairly well-known among many preachers in the Lord’s church, particularly among younger preachers). In my opinion, this book simply proves, better than Lindsell could document, the degree to which evangelical thinking has shifted on the question of inspiration and inerrancy.

The most recent addition to the burgeoning list of books on the subject is James Bar’s work on Fundamentalism. ” Barr, a British liberal theologian (by no means an evangelical), actually has misdefined his work since most of it deals not with historic fundamentalism but more recent writings of the “neo-evangelicals.” Some of the quotations he chooses to illustrate his points are taken from “evangelical” works and will be eye-opening, I believe, to anyone who has not read what some evangelical writers have been saying in the last decade or so.

It would be worthwhile to explore the relationship of the evangelical movement (and the books, commentaries, magazines, etc. which it has spawned) to the Churches of Christ; its influence has been very great in many places, I am convinced. I hope to be able in the near future to explore in greater detail some of the issues in the Fundamentalist-Modernist and “evangelical-liberal” controversies, reviewing the attendant literature. Personally, I believe much of the grace-fellowship controversy over doctrines such as imputed righteousness (a doctrine central to Reformation theology and thus to the evangelicals, who style themselves the true spiritual heirs of the Reformation) has received impetus from a good many preachers in the Lord’s church (particularly younger men) becoming overly familiar with and impressed and influenced by the reading of such material. In the same way, I think it could be demonstrated that much of the premillennial controversy in the church from 1915-1935 came about as the result of the brethren’s exposure to the Fundamentalist literature. But that is another article (or series)!

Truth Magazine XXII: 43, pp. 694-696
November 2, 1978

1. Yes, I am going to resort to the use of footnotes! I am cognizant of the fact that some do not like footnotes, and others think they are out of place in a paper such as Truth Magazine. Normally 1 share this feeling but in an article of this nature it is simply impossible to do justice to the subject in such a brief space without referring the interested reader to other material. Those not interested in pursuing the subject may ignore the numbers and skip the clutter at the end. I simply see no other solution!

2. See “Modernism” in The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,” Edwin R.A. Seligman, ed Vol. 10 (Macmillan, 1933), p. 564ff.

3. See the entries under “modernism” in standard reference works such as the Westminster series, A Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson, (Westminster, 1969), p. 221 ff., or The Westminster Dictionary of Church History ed. Jerald C. Brauer, (Westminster, 1971), p. 561.

4. These dictionaries discuss under “liberalism” the ideas generally associated with “modernism” in this article (see pp. 191 ff. & 496ff, respectively). For an evangelical perspective on these definitions and concepts, see entries under “Modernism in The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. 1. D. Douglas (Zondervan, 1974), and under “Liberalism” in The Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, ed. Charles F. Pfeiffer, Howard F. Vos, and John Rea, Vol. II (Moody Press, 1975), p. 1033f.

5. Two older works (Stewart G. Cole, History of Fundamentalism, Smith, 1931, and Norman Furniss, The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Yale, 1954) have been long considered the “standard” works on the subject. A flood of recent books have appeared in the last decade, the most useful of which are the following. W illard B. Gatewood, Controversy in the Twenties (Vanderbilt, 1969) is an excellent anthology of primary source documents with good short introductions. Gatewood was a colleague of Ed Harrell at the University of Georgia while preparing this work. Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism (Chicago, 1970) demonstrates the close relationship of millennial thought and the Fundamentalists. George W. Dollar, A History of Fundamentalism in America (Bob Jones, 1973) is totally biased in favor of the Fundamentalists (as other earlier works are often totally biased against them) but is indispensable as a handbook to sort out all of the Fundamentalist figures and institutions, in addition to being interesting reading regarding some “inside” details not found in other works. Finally, C. Allyn Russell’s anthology, Voices ofAmerican Fundamentalism (Westminster, 1976), is a biographical study of seven leaders in the movement, including J. G. Machen, J. Frank Norris, and William Jennings Bryan. An “evangelical” publication, the Christian Scholars Review, has within the last several years contained a running commentary on the subject of Fundamentalism between Sandeen, George Marsden and others which is quite revealing.

6. The best introduction I have seen yet to the confusing welter of persons, papers, and institutions flying under the evangelical “flag” is Richard Quebedeaux’s recent book, The Worldly Evangelicals (Harper and Row, 1978). For one who has no knowledge of where to begin to sort out the evangelicals, this is as good a place as any. Wuebedeaux’s earlier work, The Young Evangelicals (Harper and Row, 1974) is also good but not so thorough as the later work. If you can get only one book on the evangelicals, this should probably be it.

7. On the formation on Fuller Seminary from an inside view, see Wilbur M. Smith’s memoirs, Before I Forget (Moody Press, 1971), pp. 287-291. A recent book in honor of Smith, edited by the current editor of Christianity Today, Kenneth Kanuer, is Evangelical Roots (Thomas Nelson, 1978).

8. For inside details on the founding of Christianity Today, see Smith’s memoirs, pp. 175-182, and the biography of L. Nelson Bell (Billy Graham’s father-in-law), A Foreign Devil in China (Zondervan, 1971, by John C. Pollack), pp. 237-244. Quebedeaux also has various details from another perspective scattered throughout The Worldly Evangelicals.

9. See Murch, Cooperation Without Compromise: A History of the National Association of Evangelicals (Eerdmans, 1956), and chapters 12, 13, 17, 18, and 21 of his autobiography, Adventuring for Christ in Changing Times (Restoration Press, 1973).

10. See Ronald H. Nash, The New Evangelicalism (Zondervan, 1963); Bruce L. Shelley, Evangelicalism in America (Eerdmans, 1967); and Millard Erickson, The New Evangelical Theology (Revell, 1968).

11. Time Magazine, “U.S. Evangelicals: Moving Again,” (September 19, 1969), pp. 58-60.

12. Ramm, The Evangelical Heritage (Word, 1973), and Bloesch, The Evangelical Renaissance(Eerdmans, 1973). For a good description of the tension of evangelical thought with liberalism up to that time, see Richard J. Coleman, Issues of Theological Warfare: Evangelicals and Liberals (Eerdmans, 1972). Probably the second most useful book in describing the evangelicals (after Quebedeaux’s Worldly Evangelicals, is David F. Wells and John D. Woodbridge, The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing (revised edition; Baker, 1977; get the revised edition, available in paperback).

13. Henry’s book, Evangelicals in Search of identity, was originally a series of articles in Christianity Today in the spring and summer of 1976, during the period of the publication of Lindsell’s book The Battle for the Bible. At the time, Lindsell was editor of CT. Henry described Lindsell’s book as “theological atom bombing,” stating further that “as many evangelical friends as foes wind up as casualties” (Time Magazine, “Bible Battles,” May 10, 1976, p. 57).

14. Several journals have sprung up among “young evangelicals” which openly espouse severe criticism of the American government’s social programs, military policies, etc. Included among the writers of this almost 1960-ish language are authors such as Daniel Berrigan, all the way to Clark Pinnock, whose works are fairly widely known at least among some younger preachers in the Churches of Christ. The most critical of them is Sojourners (formerly the Post-American – signifying the need in the editors’ minds to move beyond the current American society and values), the Reformed Journal, and perhaps others. A recent book which deals on a tamer level with the “young evangelicals’ search for social consciousness” is Donald W. Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage (Harper and Row, 1976). See also Robert Webber, Common Roots (Zondervan,1978).

15. Time, May 10, 1976, p. 57.

16. Lindsell’s book was published by Zondervan. For a work along the same lines, see John Warwick Montgomery, ed., Cod’s Inerrant Word (Bethany Fellowship, 1974). Compare Clark Pinnock, A Defense of Biblical lnfallability (Baker, 1973), and Biblical Revelation (Moody, 1971).

17. Jack Rogers, ed. Biblical Authority (Word, 1977). Other recent books written at least in part in answer to Lindsell’s broadside, are Harry R. Boer, Above the Battle? The Bible and Its Critics (Eerdmans, 1976); Stephen T. Davis, The Debate About the Bible: Inerrancy versus Infallibility (Westminster, 1977); and Herman Ridderbos, Studies in Scripture and Its Authority (Eerdmans, 1978). Quebedeaux (Worldly Evangelicals, pp. 85-88) discusses the doctrine of “limited inerrancy” proposed by Fuller Seminary’s David Hubbard, and the flat assertions in Fuller faculty member Paul K. Jewett’s Man as Male and Female that Paul was not inspired in instructions given about women, “in a word, Paul was wrong” (Quebedeaux, p. 88).

James Barr, Fundamentalism (Westminster, 1978). The most recent book I have seen regarding evangelicals is Morris A. Inch, The Evangelical Challenge (Westminster, 1978). However, advertisements in evangelical journals such as Christianity Today and Eternity are advertising even yet more books to be released this fall. Truly Solomon was “write”: of the making of many books there is no end. There is, however, an end to my patience and to this article!

By Jimmy Tuten, Jr.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has been stalled somewhat by the lack of legislative approval nation wide. Radicals behind this movement have sought passage postponement until a more suitable time. This has brought about serious political overtones. However, conditions could change and passage of this insidious amendment, coming sooner than expected, could have devastating effects upon society and the church. In the August, 1978 issue of Reader’s Digest, “Six Political Reforms Most Americans Want” are discussed. On page 61, Reform 6, introduced by Senators James Abourezk (D., S.D.) and Mark Hatfield (R., Ore.) would allow Americans to initiate federal legislation when a group of voters equal to three percent of the number who voted in the last Presidential election sign a petition requesting such a vote. Although this procedure is new to the Federal Government, it is familiar to about half of the states in the Union. The threat of invoking this initiative could very well bring about the approval of ERA by a majority of 57 percent, including more men than women. By no means is ERA a dead or dying issue!

Why ERA? There are already statues on the books guaranteeing equal rights for women. They are protected by the following acts of Congress: The Equal Pay Act of 1963 as amended by the Higher Education Act of 1972; The Civil Rights Acts of 1964; the Equal Employment Opportunities Acts of 1972; Federal Minimum Wage Acts of 1974; Federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1972, and these make it impossible for ERA to afford further protection for women. If inequities exist, the problem lies in the enforcement of these laws. In view of this, how can organizations such as “The National Organization of Women” (known as NOW), pushing ERA have women’s best interest at heart? If passed ERA will bring more losses than gains and protective laws for females now in existence would be sacrificed.

Advocations of ERA

While space will not permit a listing of all items ERA is pushing for, attention will be given to what this writer considers the most important. They are:

(1) Unlimited, taxpayer-funded abortions on demand, free to all women.

(2) Homosexual and lesbian rights permitted resulting in marriage to persons of the same sex and the adoption of children. Along with this is the demand for special protective legislation preventing discrimination and allowing no restrictions against teaching positions and the holding of public office.

(3) Taxpayer supported child care centers where mothers can leave their children while they assert their so-called rights.

(4) Prison reforms where negative attitudes towards homosexuality would be eliminated among prisoners and staff.

After all this writer has read on the subject I will have to agree with Senator Sam Ervin: “I don’t know but one group of people in the United States the ERA would do any good for, that’s the homosexual.”

Alterations of Home and Society

Brother Stanley Paher, who has done some excellent writing in Vanguard on equal rights for women, has listed a number of quotations from radical women who wish to vastly alter home and society as we know it. The following citations from brother Paher’s material gives us a good idea of the ulterior motives of those who support ERA. Observe what has already been said:

On Marriage: Gloria Steinam in a speech in Houston said, “For the sake of those who wish to love in equal partnership, we have to abolish and reform the institution of legal marriage.” The Document, Declaration of Feminism says, “It is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not live individually with men.”

On Children: “We really don’t know how to raise children . . . .The fact that children are raised in families means there is no equality . . . .In order to raise children with equality we must take them away from families and raise them. . .” (Dr. Mary Jo Bane, Wellsley College).

On God: Gloria Steinam (quoted above) is editor of Ms. Magazine. She says, “By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God.

On Love: “We must detroy love . . . .Love promoted vulnerability, dependence, possessiveness, susceptibility to pain, and prevents the full development of women’s human potential by directing all her energies outward in the interest of others” (Women’s liberation, Notes from the Second Year).

On Sex: In The Document, Declaration of Feminism, it is said, “Liberated sexualtiy is freedom from oppressive sexual stereotyping. The freedom to choose heterosexualtity, homosexuality, bisexuality or asexuality, but not to be bound by them.”

ERA’s Effects on Society and Church

The effect on society and the church can be seen in that Women’s Lib, in the main, is an ungodly movement. There is a supreme lack of fear towards God and respect for His infallible Word. One witnesses in the movement absolute contempt for the Word of God. This cannot help but effect society and the church and is seen in ERA’s effect on the family, on the nation and on the church.

(1) Effect on the Family:The home is Divinely instituted and Divinely regulated. God never intended that the husband and wife be competitive, but that they live together in the capacity God ordained for them. One cannot read the Old Testament nor-the New without realizing that while functionally their roles are different, Man the head of the household, woman the homemaker, there is a spiritual equality (Gen. 3:16; 1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 5:22-24, etc.). The headship of man is a stewardship and not a privilege. The Bible teaches that the rights of the wife are protected. There is no greater function for a woman than to be a wife and mother. By no means is this an inferior function. As to their equality, God made them both in His image (Gen. 1:26-27). In Matthew 19:9, our Lord shows that the structure of the family is permanent with equal rights for the wife. Ephesians 5 is a beautiful display of functional differences cushioned with love and respect. As to children, it is the responsibility of parents to rear their offspring (Eph. 6:4; 1 Tim. 5:8).

The restless feminists pushing ERA are dissatisifed with the position which God has given them. They cannot cope with womanhood and burden us with their frustrations. Notice some of the effects of the feminist movement on the structure and soundness of the family relationship: (a) Equalized Social Security The goal is to have each husband whose wife is not employed outside of the house pay double Social Security taxes on the assumed earnings of the wife as a homemaker. It does not take a matbernatician to figure out what this would involve and that it would result in no increase in benfits for the wife since she already draws benefits from her husband’s salary. What would happen is the forcing of more wives and mothers into the already overcrowded job market. More women would have to find jobs outside of the home just to pay the taxes required. (b) Childcare Facilities. Claming sex discrimination for mothers expected to care for children, government funded childcare facilities are demanded so that a mother, either part-time or full-time, can have access to these facilities in order to pursue professional, educational and personal goals. This is to be universally available to all regardless of income. The result is getting as many children out of the home as possible and making them the wards of the state! It would become no longer the responsibility of the parents to care for children, but the state. (c) Shorter Work Weeks. Since jobs are not so widely available that all women could work if they wanted to, shorter work weeks to a suggested 30 hour week would result in the ability to hire more people. Look what this does to the fellow who is accepting his God-given role as bread winner for his family. He is barely getting by on a 40 hour work week with all the over-time he can get. A 30 hour week would force his wife out of the home (where she is happily content) into the job market. Is this woman’s best interest at heart? (d) Repeal abortion Laws. This is an anti-family resolution showing that Women’s Lib and abortion go hand in hand. The basis for such repeal is sex discrimination because it refers to one sex only. It is also argued that to be equal to men, women must have the right not to bear children. What we must realize, as some law scholars maintain, is that if ERA is passed it will do away with the right of hospitals and medical personal to refuse abortions on grounds of conscience. (e) Homosexual and lesbian rights. This is in direct conflict with what the Bible teaches about the family pattern and is a sin against the natural use of the body (Rom. 1:24-25).

(2) Effect on the Nation: While there are differences of opinion over various ramifications of obedience to civil government (Rom. 13:1-4; 1 Pet. 2:17), Christians recognize that “higher powers” are ordained of God and have enjoyed freedom of worship. If and when laws are passed that put Christians in a position of choosing to obey God rather than man, persecution is the next logical step. ERA is a precarious threat to freedoms .and guarantees now enjoyed. We cannot deal with all the admendments proposed and defeated as a result of ERA. However, observe two or three serious matters: (a) An amendment has been introduced insuring that crimes such as rape continue to be crimes under the law. Since such is enforced only against males, it is likely that it would be declared unconstitutional under the terms of ERA. (b) An effort to guarantee privacy of public restroom facilities was argued against by supporters of ERA. (c) Laws prohibiting homosexual mariages will be ruled unconstitiutional. Not only will this deteriorate the moral climate of our nation, it will destroy the family structure. People living together in homosexual marriages would qualify for joint income tax and homestead benefits. They will be allowed to adopt children. Such couples already have suits pending which if passed in their favor, would grant them rights to teach in public schools. Even private schools could not refuse them. If ERA passes, the Supreme Court would likely be forced to rule all state and local laws involving such unconstitional. (d) Laws obligating the husband to support his wife and children would be ruled unconstitutional. Women would no longer have the legal right to be full-time wives and mothers in their own homes, for such would be invalidated by ERA. Under this system wives would have equal responsibility for support of family. She would be responsible for her husband’s debts even as he is responsible for the wife’s. It would no longer be a crime for the husband to abandon his wife. Imagine the tremendous hardships imposed on a wife of 20 or 30 years, with children to support, having been abandoned to have to find a job. Suppose a separation or divorce has been in existence for some time and the man has been paying child support. Would it be retroactive? Could the husband go to court and sue the wife for support already paid? It is certainly possible! (e) In case of war women will certainly to subject to the draft and be placed along side men in combat. Before you rule this an impossibility, you had better look a little closer at ERA.

(3) Effect on the Church: Can one possibly imagine the confusion and turmoil of “Christian” women caught up in Women’s Lib asserting their rights in violation of the principles and teaching of 1 Cor. 14:34-35 and 1 Tim. 2:11. Our contributions would no longer be tax exempt and churches would have to pay taxes. Do not be lured into thinking that because churches of Christ are independent and autonomous that they are outside the law. The State could rule the church a denomination. Then there would be no end to what we might be forced to do in violation of our conscience and the Bible. It would be God or Caesar, brethern. What would it be?

Conclusion

ERA ignores and minimizes the seriousness of all sin. Not understanding that it was God who inspired Paul to write what he did in such passages as 1 Cor. 14:34, etc., they shout “male chauvinism”! Erring in trying to equate equality with absolute identity, Biblical teachings on distinctive roles are ignored and the basic makeup of sexes is completely overlooked. Men and women are far more different than similar.

Is ERA really needed? Is it the only way to remove recognized discrimination? Friends, the Equal Rights Amendment is not clear and concise in its meaning and can only lead to endless litigation in addition to known results.

Let the Women libbers have their rights, but let us not let them, spell it out for all women who have rights too. Christians and citizens must take positive steps to prevent creeping feminism from further influence destructive in nature and the undermining of God-ordained relationships. The movement ignores the natural order of things and is contrary to what the Bible teaches. God help us! But, we must first help ourselves.

Truth Magazine XXII: 44, pp. 712-714
November 9, 1978

By Mike Willis

The world around us is becoming progressively more morally degenerate. Perhaps a statement like that needs to be tempered by some modifying phrases such as limiting it to these United States as, obviously, my experience is limited to what I see and read in the papers. Or, perhaps this reflects a view of life: the belief that the world must become increasingly more corrupt immediately prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Certainly, this latter does not express my attitude toward morality. Yet, I cannot ignore the things which I see about me.

I am not a pessimistic person; yet, the moral degeneracy which I see about me is conducive to producing a gloomy outlook on life. Everywhere one looks, he sees righteous conduct being ridiculed and ungodliness being portrayed as something acceptable and desirable. Things which were done in the shades of darkness when I was a youth are now being practiced in broad daylight. Things we were brought up to believe were even socially unacceptable are now being given social acceptability.

One who had a baby out of wedlock was crowned with shame for the rest of her life when I was a child. Today, having a baby out of wedlock is no shameful thing in the eyes of many people. Homosexuality used to be a word that was hardly even whispered. Those who were homosexual never admitted it and only practiced it in a hidden fashion. Today, homosexuals are clamoring for social acceptance. Similar comments could be made about many other forms of immoral conduct.

An Absolute Moral Standard

In the midst of a culture which is presently changing its morals, the Christian might tend to think that what was wrong twenty years ago for him are now acceptable in the sight of God as well. No doubt some of the changes which have occurred in religion have added credence to the idea that our own moral values are subject to change. The Catholics have changed their laws pertaining to eating meat on Friday; the Mormons have changed their laws pertaining to blacks entering the priesthood. Hence, the Christian is being bombarded from every direction with the idea that God’s laws are changeable.

In the midst of a world advocating such changes, the Lord’s people need to remember that God’s word does not change. The Psalmist said, “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven” (119:89). God’s word does not change; the Bible still condemns sin and exalts righteousness. What was considered to be sinful on the day of Pentecost is still considered sinful today, regardless if every person in the world decides to call it righteousness!

The Bible is the word of God. As the word of God, it reveals to man what is sinful. Sin is nothing other than the transgression of the law of God (1 Jn. 3:4). Inasmuch as the Bible has not changed since it was completed at the end of the first century after the death of Christ, what is sinful has not changed. The things which were considered sinful in the first century are still sinful today. The fact that two thousand years have passed and cultures have come and gone has not changed the word of God in any way. Sin is still sin.

As we consider this point, we need to be reminded that Christianity is not tempered to fit into the mold of the various cultures to which it is taken. Rather, Christianity takes the word of God into a given culture and tries to reshape that culture to bring it into conformity with the revelation of God. When Paul preached in Corinth, he did not water down the gospel to make it more acceptable to the loose moral standards of that community. Instead, he taught those in Corinth who were living with such loose moral standards that they needed to repent of their wickedness and seek the Lord’s forgiveness. Hence, the gospel does not change to fit the world; the world must change to be acceptable to God.

Application to Today’s Society

1. Divorce and Remarriage. There seems to be a tendency among many Christians to treat the standard of God’s word as expressing a morality too high for twentieth century Americans. Therefore, we are being taught to accommodate God’s revealed religion to the standards of the world around us. Hence, if a man has divorced his first wife because she burned the toast, remarries that sexy little thing down at the office, and later decides that he wants to become a Christian, some want us to believe that he can stay married to this second wife. The Bible says otherwise. Jesus said, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery” (Mt. 19:9).

What Jesus described in Matt. 19:9 is exactly what is taking place in our society on every hand. He labeled the resulting marriage adultery; some of my brethren do not believe that such a relationship is adultery. Rather, they are accommodating the morality of Christianity to the immorality of our present age. God’s standard has not changed. If such acts were adulterous in the first century, and Jesus said they were, they are adulterous today.

2. Drinking. Some among the brethren today are no longer willing to preach the truth about drinking. Rather, they are persuaded that drinking is not sinful so long as it is done with moderation; they think that the only form of drinking which Jesus condemned was drunkenness. Yet, read what the apostle Peter said about these forms of worldliness. He said, “For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you” (I Pet. 4:3-4). Notice that Peter condemned the following different sins with reference to drinking: excess of wine, revellings, banquetings. The first one is “excess of wine” (oniophlugia) and refers to drunkenness; the second is “revellings” (komos) which refers to “a revel carousal . . .used generally of feasts and drinking parties that are protracted till late at night and indulge in revelry” (Thayer, p. 367). This sinful work of the flesh describes the very conduct that occurs at single’s bars (and other bars as well), the office Christmas party, and other drinking parties. Notice that it is distinguished from drunkenness. The third work of the flesh is “banquetings” (potos). Potos does not refer to a meal that is eaten together followed by a guest speaker; rather, it refers to a drinking party (the idea of excessive drinking is not inherent in the word). This word is a perfect description of social drinking.

Yet, some worldly members and preachers want to come along and give the impression that the only kind of sin which can be committed with drinking is drunkenness-excessive drinking. Peter did not think so. I prefer to stand with the Apostle. Our twentieth century society might see nothing wrong with drinking but the Lord did.

One of the problems which those who defend social drinking are going to face is the problem of explaining to their children why drinking socially is all right whereas social marijuana smoking is wrong. I would like to hear one of these parents try to tell his children why it is wrong to smoke one joint of marijuana but right to drink one social drink. That would be interesting conversation to hear.

3. Lasciviousness. Another work of the flesh which is condemned in the word of God is lasciviousness-unbridled lust, excess licentiousness, wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness, insolence, . . . wanton (acts or) manner, as filthy words, indecent bodily movements, unchaste handling of males and females” (Thayer, p. 79). I can think of a number of matters in American society which fall into this category but one of them which seems to have gained social acceptance is the modern dance. The basic appeal of the modern dance, according to most any eminent psychologist, is the sex appeal. Yet, not a few mothers and daddies are not only condoning their children’s involvement in dancing but are encouraging it. Consequently, their boys and girls go out on a dance floor and wiggle their bodies in such a way as to incite lusts in their partners. My brethren, be not deceived, lasciviousness is still a sin.

Another one of Satan’s devices for inciting lusts are lascivious pictures. According to reports, many of the movies of today are filled with nakedness. I know for a fact, that many of the television shows are becoming sexually suggestive if not featuring explicit sexual scenes. Yet, we have become persuaded that we can passively sit in front of these television sets and watch these programs without them ever affecting our moral character. The result is that men lust after the naked bodies of the women who are willing to unclothe themselves in front of a camera. We cannot take moral garbage into our hearts without it corrupting them!

I am amazed that people who would not go see a “R” or “X” rated movie because of their moral convictions will watch that same movie in the privacy of their own homes. Now I am aware that some of these movies are edited before they are shown on television and might be cleaned up enough through this editing to be fit for consumption. I am also aware that some of these movies are shown unedited on cable television. Christians who would not go to a movie house to watch this garbage are watching it in the privacy of their homes. Have we not enough moral conviction left in us to not subject ourselves and our families to this?

While I am talking about lasciviousness, I might as well add that the “petting” which occurs while our young (and some not so young) people are dating is also condemned by the definition of the word given to us by reputable Greek scholars. What goes on during heavy petting stirs the sexual drives of the individuals involved. Some people act as if no sin has occurred so long as no fornication is committed. Jesus said that the lust which precedes fornication is sinful as well (Matt. 5:28).

Another thing which incites lust and falls under the condemnation of God because it is lascivious is nudity in dress. The Bible demands that the Christian dress himself so as not to call attention to his body (1 Tim. 2:9). Yet, some people see nothing wrong with a man, woman, and all of their children taking off all of their clothes but their undergarments and then parading themselves in a public place. The only thing required for this to be considered modest is for those undergarments to be called “beach clothes” and the place be considered a public swimming place and what would otherwise be considered sinful becomes acceptable social behavior. What is surprising is not that the heathen want to undress in this fashion but that brethren who claim to be the servants of Jesus Christ want to act this way. What particularly alarms me is preachers and their families who sneak off away from the local area in which they labor and go public swimming! They quit preaching against these forms of worldliness because they are just as guilty of it as the rest of the worldly people. Is there any such preacher among us who is willing to defend this conduct? If so, I will be glad to provide the space for his material to be presented and replied to.

Conclusion

These moral issues are just as important as any of the “issues” such as the sponsoring church, church sponsored recreation, church support of human institutions, etc. Frankly, I would not consent to supporting a preacher from the church treasury who would not condemn adultery in the way Jesus did in Matt. 19:9, who defended or practiced drinking, socially, who would not condemn lasciviousness in all of its forms (mixed swimming, petting, dancing, etc.), and other forms of worldliness. The moral purity of the Lord’s church is at stake! We cannot allow the church to become filled with a bunch of moral reprobates. Such a compromise of the gospel of Jesus Christ is sinful.

We must never forget that our moral standard is fixed forever. Jesus has legislated what is sinful and what is not. Our only choice is to preach the word of the cross or to follow the devil. Which shall it be? May the Lord help us to preach moral purity in a perverse generation.

Truth Magazine XXII: 43, pp. 691-693
November 2, 1978