Tag Archives: religious experience

Doctrinalist, pietist, culturalist. How does your church lean?

Posted on June 17, 2012 | 1 comment

English: Darlington Reformed Presbyterian Chur...

Darlington Reformed Presbyterian Church (PCA), Darlington, PA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An interesting counterpart to Avery Dulles‘s “five models of church” (institution, mystical communion, servant, herald, sacrament) is the triad of church emphases laid out by Tim Keller in his paper “What’s So Great about the PCA?” (For those who don’t know, PCA = Presbyterian Church in America). Lots could be said about this article or this denomination, but I’m most interested in these qualities that Keller borrows from George Marsden and describes as facets of Presbyterianism in America, and indeed facets of the PCA, resulting in significant infradenomenational tensions:

The doctrinalist impulse puts the emphasis on the corporate and the objective. The stress is on ministry done through church courts—Session, Presbytery, and General Assembly‐‐ and on people being brought to Christ through objective ordinances and processes like baptism and catechism. Continue reading →

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Zinzendorf’s lecture #s 8 (no comment) and 9–That which, Properly Speaking, can Secure Us from all Fear, Danger, and Harm

Posted on May 2, 2010 | 1 comment

Here is a brief summary and commentary on the eighth (actually no comment there) and ninth lectures of Nicolaus Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf, Bishop of the Church of the Moravian Brethren, from Nine Public Lectures on Important Subjects in Religion, preached in Fetter Lane Chapel in London in the Year 1746.  Translated and Edited by George W. Forell, Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1973.

Again, this was from early in my graduate experience, 1994-1995, in Dr. Richard Lovelace’s class on the Pietist Renewal at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Lecture VIII—Concerning the Blessed Happiness of Sincere and Upright Hearts

‘The eighth, that it is true in sano sensu that from the human side nothing more is requied for salvation than an upright heart.’ (xxxii)

Text:  Psalm 32:2.  ‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.’

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Lecture IX—That which, Properly Speaking, can Secure Us from all Fear, Danger, and Harm

‘The ninth concludes with a frank confession that the object of their faith, although invisible, is nevertheless, in the most real sense, nearer to Christians than the shirt on their backs.’ (xxxii) Continue reading →

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Zinzendorf’s lecture #7–On the Essential Character and Circumstances of the Life of a Christian

Posted on May 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Here is a brief summary and commentary on the seventh lecture of Nicolaus Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf, Bishop of the Church of the Moravian Brethren, from Nine Public Lectures on Important Subjects in Religion, preached in Fetter Lane Chapel in London in the Year 1746.  Translated and Edited by George W. Forell, Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1973.

Again, this was from early in my graduate experience, 1994-1995, in Dr. Richard Lovelace’s class on the Pietist Renewal at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Lecture VII—On the Essential Character and Circumstances of the Life of a Christian

‘The seventh gives the essentials of a Christian inwardly and outwardly.’ (xxxii)

Text:  John 21:16.  “Do you love me?”

From the bit ‘Not of Paul, Cephas, Apollos, Christ’ (I Cor 1:12) Zinzendorf comes to the conclusion that a true Christian is ‘neither Lutheran nor Calvinist, neither this nor the other religious denomination, not even Christian.’ (He adds, ‘Paul excludes Christ himself . . . ‘) (Erb 311) [Note: it looks like the edition I was using for all of these lectures is found in the Paulist Press Classics of Spirituality series, the Pietist volume edited by Peter Erb] Continue reading →

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Zinzendorf’s lecture #4–Saving faith is faith-in-distress and faith-in-love, NOT cognitive assent to propositional truths

Posted on April 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

Here is a brief summary and commentary on the fourth lecture of Nicolaus Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf, Bishop of the Church of the Moravian Brethren, from Nine Public Lectures on Important Subjects in Religion, preached in Fetter Lane Chapel in London in the Year 1746.  Translated and Edited by George W. Forell, Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1973.

Again, this was from early in my graduate experience, from 94-95, in Dr. Richard Lovelace’s class on the Pietist Renewal at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Lecture IV–Concerning Saving Faith

‘In the fourth, I have described the saving faith of the human soul and that this may certainly be understood under the general heading of love, may even be perceived as a property of a heart in love with the object of faith. (xxxii)

Briefly, Z here identifies faith entirely with love:  “…there is no saving faith which is not simultaneously love for him who laid down his life for us, for him who has created us, without whom we cannot live and exist for one moment.” (Erb, 304)

There is an internal and an external faith, says Z.  Only the former is necessary, and it may be quite invisible to those around the quieter sort of Christian.  Fiducia implicita itself is divided further into faith-in-distress and faith-in-love.  The first is the beginning of faith, when “we see our corruption on all sides and are really anxious because of it.” (305) Continue reading →

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To Jonathan Edwards: We’re sorry we threw you out–could you please come back?

Posted on December 8, 2009 | 2 comments

As mentioned in the last post, Jonathan Edwards got thrown out of his own church. Nonetheless, he remains an important pastor-figure for today. Why? 2003 was the 300th anniversary of Edwards’s birth (he was born the same year as his co-conspirator in the birth of evangelicalism, John Wesley), and I reflected on the impact of Edwards on my own life, and his importance to the church. (What is Edwards’s claim on the title “father of evangelicalism”? See here. Why did he get kicked out of his own church? Here. How was he the original “ancient-future” evangelical? Here.)

300-Year-Old Man Returns to Lead His Church
Evangelicals need this grandfather figure more than ever.
By Chris Armstrong | posted 12/05/2003

A recent article by Jay Tolson in U.S. News has reminded me of one of the strangest and most rewarding friendships I have ever enjoyed—one that continues today.

He was a Puritan theologian who had been dead for several centuries and was still known more for his subtle and extensive work in academic philosophy than for his connection with America’s first “revival”—the so-called Great Awakening.

I was a young, newly minted, twentieth century Christian in a Pentecostal church, who had spent much of the previous year basking in a sequence of Spirit-led encounters with the living God. Continue reading →

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