This recording is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison archive, part of the “Lectures” series, delivered January 1, 1996.
About this sermon
Hebrews 11:16’s longing for a better, heavenly country explains Machen’s eschatological theology, against an America in the 1920s eager to put the church to nationalist use. Machen’s biblical orthodoxy resisted that use. His hope rested on heaven, whatever America thought of him.
Sermon transcript
It’s a privilege to have the Rev. Charles Dennison from the OPC Church in Swickly with us, the denominational historian to lecture to us on Here We Have No Continuing City, The Meaning of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He’s going to take questions after he’s done with each from here on.
Good morning to you. Again, I’m very glad to be here with you for this opportunity to speak about the history of our church. The passage that I would like to set before you this morning is in Hebrews, as was the one last night. Hebrews 11, verse 16. but now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city.”
Just to remind you of the outline of these lectures, if you didn’t catch it last night, I will go over it again for you this morning. Our first lecture was entitled Prelude. This one is entitled Meaning. The third lecture is Confirmation, and the fourth is Finale.
Last night we considered the dangerous and even precarious state in which the Presbyterian and Reformed Church found itself in the first part of its century. We were also made aware of the continuing danger we face as part of that Church world, more particularly the danger we as Orthodox Presbyterians face and the danger that we are to ourselves. This morning we look more closely at the cultural setting in which the OPC was formed in hopes of becoming more aware of the dangers confronting us and more aware of the meaning of our denomination, more aware of what it means for us to confess for us to say, here we have no continuing city.
I will repeat to you what I said last night, because it is very important. First of all, I love the OPC, and as I go through this, even though there are certain things that I criticize about the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I want you to understand that I love this denomination as you do, you that are a part of it. And secondly, I love my country and even though there will be some very difficult things said about the relationship of the Church to the nation, to the culture in which we find ourselves, It is important to keep that in mind. It will be particularly important to keep that in mind with regard to this lecture.
On January 28, 1920, J. Gretchen Machen, then A professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, an institution in which he had held a position since 1906, wrote a letter to his mother in which he said, I see more clearly than ever before that unless the gospel is true and there is another world Our souls are in prison.”
Now this remark by itself may seem innocuous, elementary in its religious affirmation, but hardly deserving of special comment. Some, in hearing it, may dismiss it. as a remark from a world-weary nation who momentarily flirted uncharacteristically with an irresponsible world-flight attitude, with notions far removed from the energetic world-involvement customarily associated with nation and admired in him. something smacking of a Protestant monasticism. Others, in hearing this comment from Machen, may conclude that this comment, with its statement about our souls being in prison, is an indication of the stubborn stain of Platonism, which we in the Reformed world have had difficulty removing. no less a figure than Machen having that difficulty too. However, one thing we should be aware of before we attack or dismiss this comment too quickly is that it expresses an essential ingredient in Machen’s theology and to his overall theological vision.
Machen’s Christianity had always confessed the hope of heaven, and had acknowledged this hope to be indispensable to the gospel. In 1915, early in Machen’s career, he said, The Apostolic Church was intensely otherworldly. The chief gift that the Apostles offered was not a better, more comfortable life in this world, but an entrance into heaven. In 1923, Machen wrote in his classic book, Christianity and Liberalism, In Christian life, there are things that we would like to see removed.
There are fears within, as well as fighting without. Even within the Christian life, there are sad evidences of sin. But according to the hope which Christ has given us, there will be final victory. The struggles of this world will be followed by the glories of heaven. That hope runs all through Christian life. Christian life is not engrossed by this transitory world that measures all things by the thought of eternity.
The goal of the Christian life, Machen went on to say, is another world, a heavenly one, in which believers will enjoy eternal communion with God and with his Christ.” Two years later, in his book, What is Faith?, Machen would write these words, “…at the very heart of the Christian religion is the hope of heaven. Man’s chief end is not merely to enjoy God, rather to glorify God and enjoy Him, but it is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Still, even given this emphatic sincerity expressed in these statements, Their value for Machen remained somewhat abstract and theoretical, and lay at the level of the rhetorical and the systematical. Let me explain this. Even given the emphatic sincerity expressed by Machen in these comments, The doctrine of heaven for him was as yet remote. It was judged essential, and if you read the context in which these quotes appear, it becomes apparent to you, this doctrine was judged essential in the interest of presenting a full-orbed supernatural Christianity over against the anti-supernaturalistic liberals. At the same time, this interest in the hope of heaven was always to be kept within the confines of an equal playing field for all doctrines in the systematical and balanced exposition of Christian theology. In other words, a fair reading of Machen’s comments suggests this. The doctrine of heaven, the hope of heaven, enjoyed in Machen but a momentary rhetorical elevation that it did not have consistently in his life and in his reflection. You understand what I’m saying? Nation’s not alone in this.
He will be driven under the compulsions of Christian theology and the necessity of standing for a supernatural faith to speak very forcefully about the hope of heaven. But it yet remains somewhat abstract and theoretical, serving a rhetorical purpose. and a systematic theological end where all doctrines are leveled, they stand on an equal footing. But by the end of Nathan’s life, he would know truly that at the very heart of Christianity is the hope of heaven. He would know better than ever before to measure things not just by the thought of eternity, but by its reality, its real and gracious presence with and in the believer. But eternity and heaven in the Orthodox Christian sense of the word even rhetorically and systematically considered, was not much on people’s minds in the 1920s and the 1930s. By and large, they were preoccupied with a worldliness that expressed itself in a spirit of growing nationalism.
And that made it something that was particularly difficult to deal with, for how do you speak ill of your country? How do you speak ill of your nation? How do you distance yourself from the solid so-called Christian convictions that seem to be now implanted in and seem to be influencing the culture of which you are a part?
While it is true that the thought of eternity and the heavenly other world had not yet received their full existential power in Machen, he was sufficiently alert in 1920 to recognize just how antithetical the gospel and its promise of glory were to the prevailing mood.
In the same letter to his mother we quoted earlier, he went on to say, the gospel of Christ is a blessed relief from that sinful state of affairs commonly known as 100% Americanism. See, I warned you. This isn’t going to be easy. Now, it’s one thing to write such things in a private letter to your mother. It’s quite another thing to step into the parlor of one of America’s most venerable institutions and say them.
But that’s exactly what Machen had done eight months previous, on May 6, 1919, during the graduation ceremonies at Princeton Theological Seminary. He had just returned from France, and from his involvement in the war effort, that’s the First World War, while in the employ of the YMCA. He was then present at Princeton for those graduation ceremonies, to speak to the subject, The Church in the War.
And in that address, he voiced his extreme grief that the real winner in the war was a very sophisticated, ever-so-polite American paganism, at the center of which stood an uncritical veneration an uncritical veneration of, if not a worship of, the nation itself. Here was a religion commending itself as a, quote, healthy and harmonious and joyous development of human faculties, unquote. A religion preaching a profound satisfaction with human goodness and the inherent merit of one’s own self-sacrifice.
Rather than singing, there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin, instead of resting in the utterly unique and gracious sacrifice of Christ as the only hope for sinners, 100% Americanism taught that every American, every American as particularly seen in the American troops returning from Europe, could do more than enough to secure his soul against any threat.
Now please understand, Machen meant no disrespect to the returning soldiers. He meant no disrespect to those who had given their lives in World War I. He considered himself a patriot, a man who loved his country with binding obligations to this nation. Otherwise, he would not have volunteered for service during the war. and he was convinced that the Allies must win that conflict. At the same time, Manchin was no supporter of what he called 100% Americanism and its tidal wave of post-World War I American euphoria. that found the United States puffing and blowing with ecstatic self-confidence.
In this setting, as Machen knew, the biblical gospel of broken-hearted sinners saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ would be at best only tolerated and at worst judged impertinent, not just by American society. but by the American Church held firmly within the grip of that society. This point has been proven true. Despite America and America’s religious establishment’s seemingly insatiable appetite for religion, and for religious success stories, and for the sentimental, moralistic Christianity of headliner evangelists. American society knows, after all, that such things as these cannot really challenge it at its root. They are no threat. They are absolutely no threat. After all, following World War I, all real Americans were agreed.
The USA was undoubtedly the dominant world power. Our ingenuity, our industry, our practical scientific aptitude, our collective heroism had beaten the Huns, bringing to an end European insanity, something that they could not bring to an end themselves. And now we, we, were responsible for making the world safe for democracy. If German and English historians like Spengler and Toynbee wanted to talk about the decline or the end of the West, they obviously hadn’t looked West far enough. One thing was certain, Americans would never again bow and scrape before European pretensions. We were free now, yes, free at last, from our dependence upon the old world. In fact, now the old world, the European world, depended on us. They couldn’t bring the conflict to an end by themselves. We had to do it.
True superiority, therefore, was not to be found in age-old museums, mausoleums, and cathedrals, in finery and manors preserved under glass, all which had been corrupted, we knew, by generations of inbreeding among profligate royalty, effete artists, and effeminate clergymen.
The United States was a nation of robust, efficient common sense, fresh and unencumbered in its pursuits. Backed by its unparalleled wealth and its appropriately pragmatic civic-minded religion, the United States had become the measure for humanity. Here was the world’s best hope, a hope effectively reinforced in the American populace through catechizing in the standards of American life by governmental agencies and by other genuine American institutions, such as the Church.
Fill in the blank there, please. The Church. After all, the Church now knew its true role. The Church was the priest of culture, sanctifying and reinforcing community and national values. Thus it is that our nation would be prepared. Don’t stop at this. This is what was being said. Our nation was prepared to accomplish its mandated moral mission.
The realization of not just the better life, but of the best life, the veritable kingdom of God on Earth. And who but we could bring the best life to the world since we already had the best government in our democratic organization and system, the best economics in our respect for nature’s control over monetary matters, and the best moral fiber as proved by the fact that we now had the 18th Amendment.
You’re thinking, what was the 18th Amendment? Prohibition! Prohibition. The Prohibition Party, interestingly organized in 1869, the date upon which, or the year in which, the old school and the new school got back together in Presbyterianism. That party was triumphant in 1919, and in 1920, the Wallstead Act was enacted. The 18th Amendment, Prohibition.
Could there be any question about it? The best moral fiber in the world. Certainly not tainted. In fact, our task in bringing the best life to the world is made all the easier. Because all of the nations will naturally envy us. Certainly they will want to be just like us. And if they don’t, they ought to.
Well, as you can well imagine, not everyone was standing to salute this expression of 100% Americanism. Least of all, J. Grissom Mitchell. But it’s at this point that things become very, very complex. Because it is imperative that we be very careful in deciding why Machen would not stand to salute 100% Americanism. There have been many people who have interpreted Machen along a particular line that is particularly useful to them. So. Buckle up for the ride here we go. Why was it that nation could not stand and salute one hundred percent American. Well it certainly was not because he stood for the cause of the so-called non enfranchised. Now I mean no disrespect here. It was not because he stood. For the cause of the immigrant laboring class. May disturb you that I talk like that. that there is a certain class consciousness that was very much at play in the last century and in the early parts of this century in America.
These were the displaced people, in effect, spokesmen for whom were by and large the crusading trade unions. To be sure, Machen would vote for the Roman Catholic and Democrat Al Smith in 1928. Herbert Hoover, just like many of those displaced people.
And he would not only oppose, but he would outrightly attack Prohibition, just as many of those more recent arrivals from Europe did. He would even champion bilingual education in ethnic communities where these displaced people settled, and that in the interest of keeping the government off their backs.
But despite these intersections, Machen could not identify with the class struggle, collective, even socialist consciousness of these people. Nor did he have any sympathy with that wing of the church that promoted a brand of Christianity particularly tailored to these people, their needs, and their desires. He therefore rejected the social gospel. He recognized the social gospel’s this-world eschatology, and repudiated that gospel’s agenda for the realization of its hopes through government-mandated social transformation. away from the non-enfranchised. But very importantly, neither was Machen a friend of the arrogant, anti-establishment crowd of the upper crust.
You know who I’m talking about. It is true that many of these people came from the same social circles in which Machen himself He had been raised in the best of Baltimore society, that was his hometown. At the time, Baltimore was considered the cultural gem of America. And it is true, as historian Gerald Hart has pointed out, that Machen grew up a scamp, a mischievous prankster. devoted to his personal freedom and to having one royal good time.
That’s why you have to take some of Stonehouse’s biography with a grain of salt. Nietzsche was, of course, brilliant. He was even a genius. who was able to breeze through the most advanced education and never compromise his basic commitment to fun. At the same time, there was even a more basic commitment for him in the Christianity revered by his family, especially by his mother, for he had been schooled in the scriptures and in the Westminster catechism from his youth.
And although this instruction was filtered through a very broad social, even societal and cultural, and upper-crust vision, and although this instruction was tried and tested By Machen’s frequent flippancy, Machen himself was constantly monitored by that gospel that stood at the center of this instruction which he had received from his home and by the gospel’s true doctrine of liberty.
But those who were nation’s social equals, those members of the arrogant anti-establishment crowd, loved license, not liberty. They took advantage of their parents, their own, and the nation’s wealth. and the general pursuit of the better life to promote the high life and the most decadent, self-centered, irresponsible social behavior. They were possessed of a hardened cynicism and expressed contempt for what they judged America’s hypocritical, residual Puritan morality. They sneered at the outlandish claims of American Christianity or Even better, they sneered at the outlandish claims of historic Christianity, since the irrefutable certainties of modern science had disproved such nonsense, even though they had never seriously investigated either historic Christianity or modern science. They had developed a remarkable strain of adolescent self-pity which they carried with them into adulthood, blaming, of course, the First World War or anything else that was convenient, in the way in which these things had introduced them to the brevity of life and the injustice of human existence.
If you see something of the lives of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald and the characters in their novels and short stories in all of this, you have not misunderstood. These people, more than any others, would contribute to the destruction of things during this period of time.
They would contradict the sense and sensibility and the imagined stability of 100% Americanism in the 1920s. Because of them, the 20s became the roaring 20s. And in the words of a temporarily sobered F. Scott Fitzgerald, the wasted decade of wasted youth. It was a time ruled by a tragically offbeat and lost generation, drunk on jazz, gin, and easy sex, caught up in the gaudiest spree in history.
And when it was over, for all the nation’s vanity, all the nation’s sanctimonious breast-thumping, all the nation’s hundred percent Americanism. This country was left with an epidemic of venereal disease, a record number of broken families, and addictions of various kinds, all sorts of untreatable neuroses, a collapsed economy, abandoned estates, and enough collective guilt to make this nation easy pickings for the social self-righteousness of FDR’s New Deal.
Now, believe it or not, many who have wished to discredit Jay Aggressive Nation have charged that he had his roots in the morally disreputable rich upper class. Some charged him with being a drunkard, not just an anti-prohibitionist, but a drunkard. Some went even to this extent. They charged him with bisexuality. They even charged him with being a homosexual.
But he, in actual fact, lived far from the decadence of these people. He could not be identified with the decadent rich. He was, despite all of his commitment to fun and to a good time, a trophy of God’s grace in the midst of such wickedness. but of all the groups of dissenters to 100% Americanism, Machen had the most in common not with the non-established, not with the anti-established, but with the dis-established. At the center of this group was the larger-than-life figure of H. L. Machen.
M. E. N. C. K. E. N. The provocative journalist and editor of the Baltimore Sun.
Mencken was a social libertarian, a rebel who waged a lifelong war of protest on behalf of the lost southern culture. He held accountable for this loss the monstrously evil northern establishment which, through the Civil War, had delivered up southern life to the ravages of Plutocrats and Protestant barbarians. particularly those barbarians that held forth in Dayton, Tennessee, and at the trial of J.T. Scope, over the issue of evolution, if I need to fill in that for you. But at this time, in the 20s and in the early 30s, the voice of the disestablished was also being heard from a group of young writers, the most famous of which was Robert Penn. It’s a smug, ugly, urban, industrialist, imperialist, bureaucratic world in life view. how much has been made of Nathan’s connection with the Southern disestablishment.
To be sure, he was raised the fair-haired boy in Baltimore, southern town, and that within a family that felt deeply the cause of the defeated South. He carried with him the imprint of his mother’s ancestry from the state of Georgia. and was undoubtedly marked by her contempt. For all things. Yankee. She dreaded at one point making a trip to Washington D.C. because. It had statues on every corner of those Yankees.
Machen even defended the South’s segregation position in an argument with B. B. Warfield over whether or not a black student would be admitted to Princeton Theological Seminary. Furthermore, Machen’s libertarian views in politics and in social matters have been interpreted by some as dominant in the man. Dominant in the man. and evidence that he was committed to the state’s right position of the confederacy and that was actually what he was all about.
But it’s true as these connections. To the southern disestablishment maybe. As true as the point of contact with the non established and even the anti established tradition of the American populist may have been, the reasons why Machen did not rise and salute the flag of 100% Americanism ran much deeper than those we have just discussed. They run, in fact, as deep as the word of God. And here would be the man’s commitment in the end. Devoted to the scriptures, to the word of God, above everything else. But so deep and so profound were these reasons that they in actuality stood beyond nation’s immediate ability to grasp them.
Nor would the reasons for the comprehensive consideration of the reasons for his refusal to stand and salute be opened up for him by way of his rational penetration of them. Such penetration would come only because of the events of his last years and his last days.
Those events would find Machen far removed from the life of the upper class, life of the encultured Presbyterianism he knew in Baltimore, in Princeton, New Jersey, and even in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. that city to which he had come in 1929 for the purposes of opening up Westminster Theological Seminary.
Now, in his later days, he would be defrocked from the ministry of the Peace USA, this taking place in early June 1936, and that for his failure to remove himself from the independent board of Presbyterian foreign missions, an organization that he had founded and headed in 1933 as a protest against the PCUSA’s refusal to ensure the purity of the preaching and teaching of its foreign missionaries. But further, Nathan would be betrayed by those who were closest to him, by fundamentalists within his ranks, those in the independent board and within the newly formed denomination. For in 1936, in November, he would be removed from the presidency of that independent board by a coup overseen by fundamentalist opponents who believed that he was power-hungry and getting much too much power. Interestingly, that charge came from Carl McIntyre.
So it was that this man increasingly distressed and even despondent as he came to grips more and more with the significance of his life. and where it was that he particularly stood, and why it was he could not stand and salute 100% Americanism. Finally, he finds himself on the Dakota Plains in the dead of winter, keeping a long-standing commitment to small, struggling congregations, endeavoring to maintain their orthodoxy.
In this setting, Machen seemed the alien, the true pilgrim. isolated from such cultural figures and forces judged prominent in the American and the American Church’s deem. And here, in a Bismarck hospital on New Year’s Day 1937, Machen died, virtually stripped of all peripheral interests and concerns. But it would be in this setting that his spirits, ironically, would rebound. and the hope of heaven would consume him. So real was heaven to Machen that he imagined himself already there.
When Sam Allen, his friend and minister to some of those small churches in the Dakotas, came to call on him before his death, Machen said about heaven, Sam, it was glorious, it was glorious. And later, as many as you know, he dictated his telegram to John Murray. That telegram said, I’m so thankful for active obedience of Christ. No hope without it. No hope? No hope of what?
A better or even the best world? Here? world dominance for America, the success of the cause of the South, and the triumph of an agrarian family-based society, hope for Christianity’s conquest of the globe, or even the success and survival in this world for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church? Of course not. The hope of which most nations spoke has now been divested of its theoretical, rhetorical, and systematical restraint. The heart of Christianity, the hope of heaven, the reality of eternity, had become the measure of all things. Do you see it? Do you get it?
Nathan was being taught at the end of his life what it means to begin with the end of all things. To begin with, to start with the truth about that other world. You start with the conclusion that of grace because it is given to you. And all of this is working itself out in this man so that you might begin in the very same way.
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church begins where Machen ended, and that is her calling and her meaning. Essentially, she has been stamped with another worldliness that transcends her cultural setting And in this position, she can hardly seek to regain the world she has lost. But in the interest of the city above, and as citizens of that city, she confesses herself to be a sojourner and Christ’s servant in and to this world. For God’s glory. Thank you. I think I’m supposed to take questions. Not that I want to. Oh, good. I’ve convinced you all. Great. All right. I should know better than to try to string this out. Did I bring that? by revivalism? Oh boy. OK, yes, I will.
The question concerns last night’s lecture and comments that I made about revivalism. Essentially, what is revivalism? It seems that revivalism is a particularly Protestant phenomenon, not that there aren’t renewal movements in Catholicism and in Eastern Orthodoxy, but it seems that revivalism is particularly Protestant phenomenon. Generally, revivalism is traced to the 18th century and movements on the continent with within the German Lutheran state church and other places within Europe. Pockets of it, of course, rising within the Netherlands.
The influences that came to the established church through sort of non-established forms of Christianity. So in that, there was a certain movement away from the particulars of doctrine and dogmatics, and a movement towards the experiential side of Christianity. Now, I think that Presbyterians historically have contended that proper religion is always a matter of heartfelt devotion to Christ and a passion for God. I would judge that the Puritans themselves get A pluses when it comes to the essential religious impulse. And that essential religious impulse, and we’ll be speaking about this a little bit later, is the desire for God and the delight in God himself. Now, we’re not speaking here in general religious terms. We have in mind specifically the God of the Bible, the triune God of historic Christian confession. So there was this movement, though, that of felt that the experiential side of our faith was getting short shrift.
And there was an explosion, as you probably know, in this country in the 18th century called the Great Awakening. And basically, when Americans start talking about revival or revivalism, they have in mind something that issues forth from the Great Awakening. Now, I think that those of you who know that history pretty well realize that the Great Awakening had was something of a mixed bag, and Edwards himself recognized that.
As far as it involved the Presbyterians, you had the extreme statements made by people like Gilbert Tenet, who was basically writing a number of ministers out of the church because of his interest in revival, and he couldn’t find the spark of spiritual life, at least in his estimation, in these people and in their congregations, so he, in effect, wrote them off. That led to the old side-new side split in the Presbyterian Church in the 1700s. The revivalism or the revival of the 18th century, many have contended, was essentially Calvinistic, influenced by the figures of Edwards and Whitfield.
So they feel confident with the theology, at least with the soteriology of these gentlemen. There was another side, of course, to the revival, and that was John Wesley. And that was decidedly, at least on paper, at least in the expressions of Wesley, anti-Calvinist.
So you have this mixture. And historically, Presbyterians have not been unanimous in their support even of Edwards and Whitfield. That’s also true I would be on it would be unfair to say that you know all Presbyterians are solid behind Edwards and Whitfield in fact there were questions raised at Princeton Seminary in the next century about the legacy of the Great Awakening and Edwards owned theology. There were questions they didn’t dismiss him but there were questions.
Now, out of this grows a particular way of looking at the church. For instance, your tried and true Presbyterians, they certainly don’t have the names like those who were so instrumental in the great awakening of the 18th century. Your tried and true Presbyterians were going in the direction of nurture. Revivalism was going in the direction of special occasion. You see what’s happening?
In the solid, you know, these are sort of pejorative terms, I realize that. In the solid historic Presbyterian movement, there was the concern and the interest for a solid, biblically based Christian education. which was always there, which was constant, which was always beating at you, or encouraging you, or nurturing you, or building you up in the fellowship of the Church. In that environment, there was always an assumption that was being made, and not an ill-founded assumption. The ministers in the Church along those lines would look at their congregations and they would say, the best of them now, the best of them, not being presumptuous, they would say, I am bound by the word of God to treat these people as the people of God. I have to address them as Christians.
Now the revivalist mentality comes in and it is taking exception. It is taking exception to the nurture framework, what some in the Presbyterian world would have called the covenantal structure of things. And so now the appeal is made to the occasional intrusion of the Spirit of God. See the difference? One is the constant nurturing, the other now begins to rely upon the sudden intrusion of the Spirit into the affairs of the Church, into the affairs of the community, into the affairs of the world.
So, then you move that from the camp meeting, or out on the hillside where the revival is taking place, back into the pulpit. And you have The minister standing in the pulpit now, like Kenneth and others, who are suggesting that no, these people in front of me are not Christians and they must be converted. They are objects then of the evangel in its most preliminary expression. They must be brought to faith. they must be converted.
So you begin to make your assumptions from that point of view, and you begin to treat the people as if they are not in the faith. So this is not to discount, please understand, this is not to discount the sincerity, the integrity, of the genuineness of those who were involved with the Great Awakening and the great spiritual concern that they had for those who were about them. And it is not to question the integrity of their faith in any way, it’s not to question even the validity of the conversions, some of the conversions that took place under them. But I think that some of you know that Edwards had to distance himself from some of that before his death, just so deliberately.
But that gets you, hey, this is a complete, this is another lecturer. You’ll learn to ask questions of me. We haven’t gotten to the 19th century, but of course, it’s in the 19th century. Just to finish up, just to cap the thing a bit. Many of you are aware of what happened in the 19th century with revivalism and with the second Great Awakening. things are fairly desperate because you have at the center of this movement a figure like Charles Finney, who repudiates his Calvinism, repudiates his Presbyterianism, and looks upon them as a drag upon his effectiveness, and launches out into his program, which is not just spiritual revival, it is national and cultural revival. It is the transformation of society. That is what Finney is interested in. Out of that comes the subsequent movements where you have the revivalists at the end of the century, Dwight L. Moody, you move into the Billy Sunday era, you move into the Billy Graham era.
Now it is, as Ian Murray has rightly pointed out, you’re dealing with contrivance now. You’re dealing with things that are manufactured. This is a science, Ren. The Holy Spirit is actually now bound to technology. And he cannot move without it. In fact, it’s probably impossible for the spirit to move without a particular pulpit that is measured. Most of us who are reformed conviction are distancing ourselves now from the aftermath. But many of us are very sincere in endeavoring to hold on to what we see as genuine religious and Christian impulse in the 18th century. And I respect that. I want you to know that. What do you guys act like a team or something. What is the tag team. Did she touch you. Yeah OK.
Well it certainly isn’t the case to me and Murray. And Ian Murray has just written this book, and he’s fighting a good fight for how he understands genuine revival. And you must see that that is very much at the heart of the Banner of Truth Trust. I’ve subscribed to Banner of Truth. I have for years. I want you to know. Some of my best friends are. And I love Ian Murray, don’t get me wrong, he’s a great tree office man.
But the difficulty is with the revival interest as it is with the other, what I call the other R’s. The whole list of R’s. You have revival amongst typically evangelical Protestants. You have renewal among Episcopalians. You have reformation with some Calvinistically informed individuals. You have reconstruction. You see all the list of orders.
Isn’t it interesting that all of them come See, the difficulty for the R’s is this, the danger in the R’s is that you set for yourself a remedy for all of our ills that come short of the real R, the return of Christ. And all the years now I’ve been reading Banner of Truth and Of course, I’ve written some letters to Ian Murray to talk a little bit through the mails, not directly, but through the mails. But the interest seems to be in revival in some sense as an end in itself.
And that cannot be. It plays itself out, I think, unfortunately, when it comes to the matter of a serious approach to church discipline, which works very well with the nurture idea of the church. Well, you know how it goes. I mean, churches that are into nurture are boring. They’re boring. My church is boring.
I’m being facetious, but I think that you know what I mean. I mean, people look at it as if with this constant, continual, level approach to things that nothing’s happening. When in fact, a very great deal is happening. Taking care of people, being involved with their lives, overseeing them, helping them, kindly, graciously correcting them. You’re there when the revivalist leaves. You continue. You pick up the pieces. You continue to minister. I think that’s where a real church and the church’s real work is to be found. Now does anyone want to fight? The time for us to take our coffee break now, we have a table full of these guys.
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