Accommodating to culture succeeds only in making the Church indistinguishable from the world: sixth of a series.
Upon occasion I have been asked why we today should study the work of Herman Bavinck (1856-1921), a Dutch theologian who addressed Christians and their issues over a century ago. What’s the benefit for us contemporary believers?
Of course, it’s always edifying to read the solid theological reflections of the past giants of Reformed theology, and it is encouraging to review how they countered the anti- and sub-Christian views of their era. However, Bavinck is not so distant in time that he has not grappled with issues that are not all that different from what we encounter in our post-modern 21st century. Bavinck’s 15-page essay “The Essence of Christianity” (Essays on Religion, Science and Society, Baker, 2008; pp. 33-47), for example, offers us a pattern of how to deal with fundamental challenges in our own day.
The essay opens with a brief summary of the history of the search for the “essence,” or indispensable core, of Christian teaching. What is of primary importance for the Church and what can be set aside? He notes that in the two centuries from the time of the 16th Century Reformation onwards, the search for the essential core of the faith was sought in doctrine. As time passed, this quest was framed in terms of psychology (a feeling of dependence on God, as in Friedrich Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith, 1822), of philosophy (as in Ludwig Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity, 1841), and of historical-critical research.
It becomes us to encourage them to hold fast to the name of Christ and to lead them back to the fullness of truth and life that this name implies
It was the historical approach that Bavinck focused on, not least because it was often centred on Jesus’ teachings and how they were subsequently developed by the “congregation,” the Church. A peaceable man at heart, Bavinck welcomed discussion of Christ and his message, whether or not he agreed with the views proposed. As he put it: “As long as others who differ from us attach worth to the name of Christ, there is no reason to contest this and to drive them to denial with our whip of consistency and consequence. Rather, it becomes us to encourage them to hold fast to the name of Christ and to lead them back to the fullness of truth and life that this name implies” (p.43).
In keeping with this irenic attitude, Bavinck chose as a proponent of the historical-critical method the famous pastor and theologian Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930). Harnack, like Friedrich Schleiermacher before him in On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (1799), set out to make Christianity relevant and respectable in the eyes of the educated class, in whose eyes the doctrines of the faith could not be justified on philosophical or scientific grounds. For instance, the miracles as related in the Bible were considered to be contrary to reason and science and therefore accounts of them were untrue, in the common sense of the word.
The experience of faith was the ‘kernel’ of Christianity, as opposed to the dogmatic ‘husk’ that developed subsequent to Jesus’ ministry.
Harnack, again much like Schleiermacher, looked to the experience of the Christian faith rather than intellectual assent to its doctrines to define Christianity’s essence. The experience of faith was the “kernel” of Christianity, as opposed to the dogmatic “husk” that developed subsequent to Jesus’ ministry. Dogma could be stripped away if need be⏤it was not essential to the Christian faith. In a series of lectures delivered in Berlin in 1899-1900 (Das Wesen des Christentums [translating as “The Essence of Christianity”], published in English as What is Christianity?, available free on ccel.org), he argued that, as evidenced by the history of Jesus (which he accepted as differing greatly from that found in the Gospel accounts), Jesus’ teaching could be presented under three main headings. These were: “Firstly, the kingdom of God and its coming. Secondly, God the Father and the infinite value of the human soul. Thirdly, the higher righteousness and the commandment of love” (lecture 3).
He, in effect, rejected the historicity of Jesus as the incarnate Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Jesus, he asserted, preached a Gospel of the love of the Father, not a Gospel of himself as the only-begotten Son who gave himself as a sacrifice for humanity’s sin. And yet he staunchly maintained that even though he was not fully divine he was the only person ever to have achieved God-consciousness to the ultimate degree and for that was worthy of veneration.
Jesus, he claimed, advocated for faith in the Father and participation in the kingdom of God, with love as a guiding principle. As for the kingdom itself, it did not pertain to external events or the future life, but internally to the experience of the human soul: “The kingdom of God comes by coming to the individual, by entering into his soul and laying hold of it. True, the kingdom of God is the rule of God; but it is the rule of the holy God in the hearts of individuals; it is God Himself in His power. From this point of view everything that is dramatic in the external and historical sense has vanished; and gone, too, are all the external hopes for the future. . . It is not a question of angels and devils, thrones and principalities, but of God and the soul, the soul and its God” (lecture 3).
Bavinck criticized Harnack on two points. First, he noted that Harnack’s historical reconstruction of Jesus’s words and ministry was only one of countless such attempts by scholars, few of whom agreed on what Jesus’ actually said or did. Given such uncertainty and variety, Bavinck asserted that the orthodox Christian tradition had done a more consistent job than historical critics of explaining and interpreting the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings. On major issues, the creeds and confessions of Christianity were in substantial agreement, and had based their conclusions squarely on Scripture. They expounded a theology and doctrine founded on the Bible, not upon philosophy or ideas alien to the earliest Christian faith, and certainly not on historical speculation.
Bavinck did not deny scholars the right to do historical research and to defend their conclusions, but he argued strongly that they had no right to substitute their work for the dogma or teaching of the Church. The conclusions of scholarship were dogma themselves, based, as was the dogma of the Christian tradition, on the accounts of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament. As such, scholarly reconstructions could only serve as alternatives to orthodox view, not as a replacement for it. It was left to the individual to choose among the various options which view was best.
Second, Bavinck accused Harnack of not being forthright in his claim that miracles were impossible (leaving aside unusual phenomena such as healings and exorcisms). Harnack had asserted that Jesus was unique among humans, which, for Bavinck, was clearly a miracle. In pleading that Jesus’s God-conscious personality was so significant that Christians could look upon him as the leader of their religion, Harnack was unwarrantedly introducing his personal opinion and not relying on historical or scientific fact to buttress the importance of Jesus and the Christian faith. If a miracle such as this were possible, why rule out miracles at all? As Bavinck puts it: “. . . he appeals only to the mystery of personality. This, however, is playing with words; in this way Harnack could as easily justify all miracles” (p. 45).
In a surprising turn, Bavinck’ s essay broke with the “elitist” attitude of the educated class. Few of them would, like Bavinck, have contended that the proper way to receive the New Testament accounts relating to Jesus was to accept them with child-like faith. For Bavinck, because “open-minded historical research” led to the conclusion that it was the conviction of Jesus and the early Church the Jesus was the Christ, there is a split between those “who accept this witness of Jesus in a child-like manner and those who reject him, if not by mouth, certainly with their hearts.” As for those who sought to occupy a middle ground, revering Christ while denying his divinity, having a faith “like that of Jesus, or a faith through Jesus” but not a faith “in Jesus,” he submitted that they inevitably placed Jesus and Christianity on a par with other expressions of religions and their founders (p. 46).
Where is the essence of Christianity, if it is not to be found in the realms of philosophy, psychology or historical-critical studies? Bavinck believed that the answer rested in God, who created Christianity and guides it for his purposes until the end of this world. As such, “the search for the essence of Christianity has not yet been brought to a conclusion.” Christ is the “the starting point and center of Christianity,” and is “the core and center of the gospel, but he is not its origin nor its final destination.” Christ “points from himself back to the Father, just as he points forward to the future, wherein God will be all in all” (46-47).
If there is any sort of essence, he wrote, it is that Christianity and its dogma are charged with “determining and maintaining the place that, according to its own writings, belongs to Christ.” And this task is in reality accomplished not by Christianity of its own doing, but “actually it is Christ himself who has this place and maintains it in spite of all opposition. . . Christianity is no less than the real, supreme work of the Triune God…” (47). In asserting this, one could say that Bavinck seeks not to bring to light only part of God’s plan for Christianity, its “essence,” but to honour the whole of it as essential.
In our post-modern era, many Christian leaders are following a similar path to that of Harnack, although their target audience is drawn from the common culture and not the intellectual elite. An essence of Christianity is being proposed that relegates much of traditional and orthodox doctrine and practice to an exceedingly marginal position. What counts, in essence, is to “follow Jesus,” “practice mission,” “live the fulfilled life,” or to “develop true spirituality.” Anything that might detract from these aims is to be avoided, lest it jeopardize the growth and attractiveness that comes from them.
As in Bavinck’s time, church leaders and groups today are eager to sacrifice the larger part of biblical and orthodox teaching in order to make Christianity appealing to non-Christians.
By way of example, leaders of missional, emergent or seeker-sensitive movements focus on such things as inspiring modes of entertainment as an aid to experiencing God, personal therapy as dispensed by a loving God, strategies to ensure a prosperous life and health or spiritual exercises to enhance fellowship with the divine. Largely lost or sidelined in these efforts are biblical teachings about the sinful fallenness of all humans, the need for continual repentance, a life lived in service and humility before God, and the requirement to live in holiness in accordance with biblical morality.
Set aside as well are worship services that emphasize traditional teaching by including a collective confession of sin, songs, anthems and hymns that proclaim basic tenets of Christian theological doctrine, the reading of historic confessions of faith, and preaching that defends biblical and historic dogma and applies it to daily life. All these are said to be dated, couched in language and terminology unfathomable to a modern audience, and largely unnecessary in any case for disciples of Christ.
A sad experience with my own church “going missional” illustrated this popular strategy. We were told that we would become an “unchurch,” no longer using theological language, getting rid of the pulpit and pews in favour of a stool and comfy chairs, focusing on younger people and not devoting scarce resources to older members, and even eliminating traditional Bible songs and stories at Vacation Bible School in order better to appeal to neighbourhood children. The aim was to increase the number attending the unchurch worship and fellowship services. The result was that many of the existing members, including my wife and me, left.
What God reveals in the Bible and has been historically transmitted to us in orthodox doctrine is the means by which churches are built, lives are changed, and loving, righteous communities are nourished.
As in Bavinck’s time, church leaders and groups today are eager to sacrifice the larger part of biblical and orthodox teaching in order to make Christianity appealing to non-Christians, claiming that such teaching is not part of the essence of the faith. In the case of missional theology, for instance, mission is made a priority for God, a quality at the heart of the divine as an attribute of God. Whatever hinders mission must be avoided. Seeker-sensitive, prosperity gospel and emergent church doctrines take a similar approach.
Recent books by David Wells catalogue these lamentable changes in evangelical thought and practice in our post-modern cultural context (Above All Earthly Powers: Christ in a Postmodern World [Eerdmans, 2005]; The Courage to be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers and Emergents in the Postmodern World [Eerdmans, 2008]. Wells notes that human efforts alone are now widely employed to strengthen Christianity, efforts which display a disregard for dependence on God. As Bavinck did before him, Wells calls for trust that what God reveals in the Bible and has been historically transmitted to us in orthodox doctrine is the means by which churches are built, lives are changed, and loving, righteous communities are nourished.
Wells has the same attitude as Bavinck, who asserted that having child-like faith in what God says in the Bible is a prerequisite to appreciating Jesus and his message. Wells also stresses that authenticity together with declaring biblical truth is key: “That proclamation must arise within a context of authenticity. It is only as the evangelical Church begins to put its own house in order, its members begin to disentangle themselves from all of those cultural habits which militate against a belief in truth, and begin to embody that truth in the way that the Church actually lives, that post-modern skepticism might begin to be overcome. Postmoderns want to see as well as hear, to find authenticity in relationship as the precursor to hearing what is said” (Above All Earthly Powers, p. 315). Non-believers long for Christians to be Christians, to act on what their sacred text trumpets as truth.
And like Bavinck, Wells acknowledges and gives thanks that it is God who directs and animates Christianity: “The truth is that there is nothing in our postmodern world that is a serious threat, or an insurmountable obstacle, to the will of God. This is true of his saving will as well. He is as sovereign in the way that he begets faith today as he is over the sparrow that flies. He will grow the Church.” (The Courage to be Protestant, p. 244). Surrender to cultural pressures is not necessary for Christianity to justify itself.
Conclusion: The essence of Christianity is not found in one or several aspects of the faith such as those advanced in historical-critical study in the past or in missional theory today, but in the biblical message in its entirety. Down-playing aspects of the biblical message and its historic doctrinal summaries in order to accommodate Christianity to the cultural norms of the world, even if done for the best of reasons, only succeeds in making the Christian Church become the world, indistinguishable from what the world offers. It is no longer the instrument of God who in Christ is changing that world into the new Creation that he has promised.
Christianity as a whole is an essential element of God’s plan. Thanks be to Him that Christ continues to rule and to shape it despite our misguided efforts to do that ourselves!
