#i got ordained at 16 through the universal life church | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

earlyandoftenpodcast · 7 years ago

Link

(John Winthrop, an early governor of Massachusetts)

In this episode we look at the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as well as its early struggles over the proper role of popular participation in government.

>>>Direct audio link<<<

(WordPress) (Twitter) (Libsyn) (Podbean) (YouTube) (iTunes)

Transcript and Sources:

Hello, and welcome to Early and Often: The History of Elections in America. Episode 10: The Pig Who Invented Bicameralism.

Last time, we followed the Pilgrims as they established a small colony at Plymouth Bay in what is now Massachusetts in 1620. The Pilgrims proved quite disruptive to the fragile balance of power in the region, but even after 10 years Plymouth’s population was only about 300. But although Plymouth wasn’t too successful, its presence paved the way for bigger things.

In 1629, just a few years before the founding of Maryland, Puritans began streaming into Massachusetts, totally swamping everything and everyone that had been there before. Within a decade over 20,000 settlers would arrive. This was the real founding of New England, much as the real foundations for Virginia were only laid a decade after the settlement of Jamestown.

Back when the Separatists had left England for the Netherlands in the early 1600s, their rejection of the Anglican Church was very much a minority position. The Church of England hadn’t adopted too many Puritan ideas, but it was close enough to their beliefs, and it had taken a live-and-let-live attitude for the most part. There were plenty of Puritan ministers and Puritan sympathizers within the Church. But James I had proven less sympathetic to the Puritans than his predecessor Elizabeth had. And his son Charles I was even less sympathetic than his father. Charles, remember, was married to a French Catholic.

So throughout the 1620s and ‘30s the Church clamped down on dissent and more rigorously enforced Anglican orthodoxy. Puritan-sympathizing ministers were removed from their posts and Catholic-style practices were reintroduced. All of which goes a long way towards explaining why, during the English Civil War in the next decade, Puritans so resolutely sided with Parliament, and why when Parliament won, it was in large part a Puritan victory.

In the face of this official pressure, it was only natural that true believers might start considering immigration. The fringe beliefs of the Pilgrims started to seem more sensible to mainstream Puritans. And tens of thousands of Puritans did in fact pour out of England. Some went to the Netherlands, some went to the Caribbean or to Central America. Those migrations would be largely forgotten in time. But a large minority followed the Pilgrims to New England, where they managed to create for themselves an entire culture of their own that would last for centuries.

In the late 1620s a group of men, mostly prominent and wealthy Puritans or at least Puritan-sympathizers, began meeting to plan out a new colonization effort in New England. Things came together quickly, and in 1629 they secured approval from King Charles for the creation of the Massachusetts Bay Company, a joint stock company like in Virginia. Indeed, the document was modeled on one of the Virginia Company’s charters. This new company absorbed all the preexisting land claims in the region, with the exception of Plymouth Colony.

The Company’s charter gave them the right to create a government for their colony and to administer it as they saw fit. The inhabitants were to retain all the rights of Englishmen. The same sorts of things I mentioned for Virginia back in Episode 2. In principle, legally this was very similar to other past colonization efforts. But while the Company’s official goal was to turn a profit, for the most part religious concerns were the actual motivation. Although I’m sure they didn’t make that clear to the King, nor did they talk about just how independent they wanted to be from his control.

While the legal wrangling was going on, in 1628 they had sent John Endecott to New England to prepare the way for a larger colonization effort. Endecott would go on to become governor of Massachusetts for 16 years, but very little is known of his life before this period. Personality-wise, Endecott was typical of the Puritan leadership, zealous and uncompromising. He was certainly willing to persecute Indians and religious dissenters when called on to do so.

Endecott arrived at what was soon named Salem, Massachusetts, of later Salem witch trial fame. This was the site of a previous failed colony, but there were still a few settlers eking out a living. Endecott and the other new arrivals took over and began constructing buildings to prepare for the coming migration.

After Endecott had been there a few months, in April 1629 the main fleet set off for Massachusetts. There were five ships carrying maybe 300 passengers. This expedition was far better equipped and better prepared than any previous one to date. No doubt learning from past failures helped. At least they sent an advance party instead of just showing up and hoping for the best.

The Puritans who were traveling to Massachusetts resembled the Pilgrims in many ways. A very large majority were coming in family groups rather than as individuals. Even the servants who came, came as part of a household rather than being unattached. Forty percent were female, and according to David Hackett Fischer, “nearly half were children under sixteen.”

They were somewhat better off economically than the Pilgrims had been, and much better off than the average indentured servant in Virginia. The Puritan immigrants were generally what we’d call middle class. And basically no aristocrats went, so the top of the social hierarchy was missing as well. They were artisans and merchants, as well as farmers who owned their own land. But farmers were a minority. Instead, the migration was very disproportionately urban. They were unusually well-educated too. Two thirds of men were at least literate enough to sign their own names. And there was a large group of highly educated ministers as well.

So the Puritans were educated, egalitarian, middle-class, and hyper religious. And that was what New England would be, for a long time to come.

After an easy voyage, the Puritans arrived at Salem that summer and were met by Endecott. There were no moments of big drama like in Jamestown or Plymouth. They just got to work. Thanks to the healthy climate and adequate preparations, there was no big die off that first year. Everything went well, for once.

The success was encouraging. The next year an even larger fleet of eleven ships carrying a thousand passengers set sail. This fleet was led by John Winthrop, aged about 42, who would go on to be governor of Massachusetts for 12 years. He’s important, so let me give you some background.

John Winthrop was born in 1587, the son of a prosperous lawyer/landowner. As a young man, Winthrop followed his father to Cambridge University. By the time he was in his early 20s, he was becoming extremely devout and concerned for the state of his soul. He soon became a staunch Calvinist. He held various minor offices and basically behaved as someone with his status was expected to. He was by disposition inegalitarian. Social inequality was part of God’s will, after all. In his words, “in all times some must be rich some poore, some highe and eminent in power and dignitie; others meane and in [subjection].” Great men were to show mercy to their inferiors, and lesser men were to show obedience to their betters.

The laws of the state should be based on those found in the Bible, though with additions as needed. The common people were incapable of self-government. He didn’t believe in natural rights or liberty or anything like that. Rather, he instead believed that men submitted themselves to a divinely ordained central authority, and then that central authority could grant its subjects rights on a case by case basis. The authorities themselves shouldn’t have too many constraints on their power, other than their individual consciences and their devotion to God. This was a rather Hobbesian view, although he was writing decades before Thomas Hobbes penned Leviathan.

But Winthrop had more immediate concerns than political philosophy. He was facing financial problems, and Charles had just stopped calling Parliaments and was trying to rule on his own. The Puritan cause seemed weak. So Winthrop, disheartened both personally and politically, contacted the Massachusetts Bay Company and helped organize a fleet. Thanks to his status and his drive, he immediately became an important figure in the project, and was soon elected as the next governor of Massachusetts.

He also helped come up with a clever idea to secure greater Puritan control over the colony. It was proposed that, basically, the Puritans in Massachusetts buy out the investors in the Company who were in England and transfer the entire Company from London to America. That would transfer almost total control to the Puritans. This was questionable legally, and certainly against the intention of the colony’s charter. But they did it anyway. Now, with the Company nothing more than a legal formality, Massachusetts would have almost total independence, and almost no duties or obligations toward England. The Company was fast becoming just a government.

Winthrop’s fleet of eleven ships set sail in the summer of 1630. While at sea Winthrop gave the famous “City Upon A Hill Speech”, where he said that “The eies of all people are uppon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee haue undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. Wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of God, and all professors for God's sake.” In other words, Massachusetts was to be a model for right Christian living, and its failure would damage true Christianity the world over.

Winthrop arrived at Salem, but the Puritans found the town to be too small for their needs, so settlers spread out quickly along the coast, founding a number of new towns including Boston, which soon became the capital, thanks to its advantageous harbor. Two hundred colonists died that winter, though that was about the worst of it. Conditions improved rapidly and the Puritans set out building their new society.

As far as the economy goes, from an early date, the New England colonies were engaged in trades such as fishing and shipping. Shipyards were opened in the 1640s, and a small commercial culture began to grow as soon as the initial settlement phase was over. Boston in particular became relatively cosmopolitan.

But of course most New Englanders were still just farmers living in small towns scattered throughout the region. In the more northerly climate of New England, it was much harder to profitably grow cash crops like in the Chesapeake, so big plantations never emerged. Family farms were the norm, and these tended to be similar enough in size. In a typical town the largest farm might be no more than a few times bigger than the average one. There were no landowners who had orders of magnitude more than their neighbors. In fact, in some towns, plots of land were given out at random, with each family drawing lots.

Some families were wealthier than others, of course, but there were few poor and few rich. Indeed, the poor and to a lesser extent the aristocracy were actively discouraged from migrating. There were still ranks, but the top and bottom were closer than usual. Cities and ports were less egalitarian, but they were just a small part of New England’s social fabric.

Another important difference with the Chesapeake is that there was less fertile soil, and there were fewer navigable rivers. These factors encouraged the settlers to live in towns, rather than spread out across far-flung plantations. These small towns became the religious and political centers of New England life.

By far the most important building in any town was the church. Puritan churches, or “meetinghouses”, were tremendously ascetic, made of unpainted wood and entirely undecorated inside, other than a single, staring eye painted on the pulpit to remind them of God’s omnipresence. Each Sunday parishioners sat through two separate hours-long sermons, each analyzing some fragment of the Bible. They were a very, very grim people, paranoid about their spiritual health and about unnaturalness. According to Fischer, “90 percent of executions for witchcraft in British America occurred in the Puritan colonies.”

From the very first church in Salem onwards, the Puritans followed a Congregational model, where each community had an independent compact with God and was largely in charge of its own affairs. They hired their own ministers, and admitted new members themselves. (Just to clarify, people who weren’t members of their local church would have still attended church, they just weren’t official members, that’s all.) There was some overarching authority, of course, but nothing like you’d find in the Church of England. The government could call for synods to be held, meetings that would keep the various churches on the same track, but they were still all ultimately independent. They weren’t totally breaking away from Anglican authority, at least not officially, but they were coming pretty close.

Of course, not everyone in Massachusetts was a Puritan. But two thirds or more of the colonists were, and half of the remainder were servants of the Puritans anyway, so that was still the dominant way of thinking. And this overwhelming religiosity permeated the government as much as it did everything else.

There were distinctions between civil and religious authority. In fact, the separation between religious and civil officials was much greater than in England, where the positions often overlapped. In England, a minister might also have a role in town government, but not in New England. Puritans of course saw this as a return to the original church, before it had been corrupted by involvement in politics. But still, government officials saw it as their duty to enforce Puritan beliefs with the full force of the law. Religious dissenters were sometimes executed. Quakers, who were heretics in Puritan eyes, had their faces branded or their ears cut off.

And there were plenty of laws that may not have been religious per se, but were certainly grounded in a desire to enforce the community’s sense of upright behavior. The Puritans strictly regulated how people lived. Nobody was allowed to live on their own. Single men in their own houses were forced to move in with families. The profits of businessmen were curtailed and idleness was strictly punished. These weren’t all unusual. Other societies were opposed to excessive profits and idleness, but the Puritans were far more rigorous in their control. Punishments went all the way up to being burned alive, though hanging was more usual. Not for idleness, of course. For lesser crimes, public humiliation was common. But although these laws were strict, they didn’t need to be enforced all that frequently since lawbreaking was relatively uncommon. Life in Massachusetts wasn’t actually an endless parade of punishment or anything.

Interestingly, because of their strict reading of the Bible, marriage was seen as a civil matter rather than a religious one, and divorce was relatively easier than elsewhere at the time. So as you can see, the fact that the Puritans were so religious didn’t always mean that everything was subordinated to the church. There were separate sources of authority, even if those separate sources were still ultimately secondary to the will of God.

Despite the presence of elections, the goal of a Puritan government was not to follow the will of the people, or to ensure individual liberty. What “liberty” there was, was the liberty to be a proper Puritan. Popular participation in government was a means to an end, the establishment of a Godly regime. They didn’t consider themselves democratic, although they did believe that power in society came from the bottom up rather than the top down. But that bottom up power meant different things to different people. To Governor Winthrop, it meant that the people surrendered themselves to a rather absolute authority. To others, it meant genuine popular control. The fight between those two views was played out in the fight over the colony’s charter.

Massachusetts’s charter was a de facto constitution which detailed how the government was supposed to operate. Overall, it was somewhat similar to that in Virginia, at least structurally. There was to be a governor, a deputy governor, and 18 Assistants or magistrates, who had a somewhat similar role to the Councilors in Virginia, forming a sort of executive council. Unlike in the Chesapeake, all of these positions were to be filled by annual elections, with the freemen of the colony voting each spring, unlike the irregularly scheduled elections for just the Burgesses in Virginia.

Additionally, there was to be a General Court, which was the equivalent of the General Assembly. This was a unicameral body consisting of the Governor, Deputy Governor, Magistrates, and the freemen of the colony, or at least their representatives, although the exact nature of that representation was kept vague in the charter. The General Court was to meet four times a year and it had the power to pass laws and appoint men to various offices.

So like I said, this was similar enough to Virginia at the time. But of course the fact that all of these offices were all to be elected was a quite significant departure. However, the colony’s leaders weren’t always willing to adhere to the charter’s generous provisions.

In the colony’s first few years, things were simply too unsettled for the charter to be followed. Endecott, since he was the leader on site, served as governor, but there was no real formal structure beyond that. And the arrival of Winthrop upended things yet again.

Winthrop became governor, but his first term was irregular. He was appointed in England, rather than elected, and his term both began before it was supposed to begin, and ended after it was supposed to end. In other words, they were winging it. In fact, when Winthrop got to Massachusetts, the earliest meetings of the government were simply held under a tree.

But although things in the colony soon settled down and moved indoors, that didn’t mean that the charter was now going to be followed. None of these earliest officials were elected, and frankly Governor Winthrop would have been happy to keep it that way. Democracy was, in the words of Winthrop, “the meanest and worst of all formes of Government”, and more importantly democracy lacked Biblical sanction, unlike monarchy. He sure didn’t believe in representative government and so he tried to limit the representative nature of government as much as possible. In his mind, and in the minds of many leaders of the colony, at most elections were there for the leaders merely to affirm their positions. Representation existed to justify a de facto oligarchy. Elections weren’t supposed to be a real outlet for popular opinion or anything like that. At least, that was the idea according to some.

Now, the charter called for a General Court to be held four times a year to represent the freemen. But “freemen” was, as always, a vague term, especially in a colony with so few servants. So the very earliest General Courts that first year in 1630 were, I think, just meetings of whichever colonists showed up. Obviously this would not do.

So in 1631 Governor Winthrop decided that “noe man shalbe admitted to the freedom of this body polliticke, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limitts of the same." Political participation was being limited to men who were members of their local church. In other words, to just the Puritans of the colony, since they were the ones setting up the churches. This religious test was in quite flagrant violation of the rights that had been given to all freemen, but who was going to stop it?

Also contrary to the charter was the decision to cut meetings of the General Court from four times a year down to one. Many of the eighteen Magistrate positions were left vacant. They also ended the direct elections of the governor and deputy governor. Instead, the Magistrates were to pick governors from among themselves. And the ability to create laws was taken away from the General Court and given to just the governor and his Magistrates. Winthrop raised taxes without popular consent, which of course raised fears of Stuart despotism. The Governor and his allies were moving hard and fast against elections, and breaking the law to do so. If he’d had his way, elections would have had no real connection to any actual power.

However, all of these arbitrary and illegal limits on popular government got pushback from the colonists and even from the deputy governor, and so many of Winthrop’s changes had to be rolled back within a few years. The direct elections of governor and deputy governor were restored in 1632, though not completely. Voters were still limited to choosing men who had also been elected as Magistrates. And lawmaking was returned to the General Court, which was additionally given the exclusive power to raise taxes, as with any good English legislature. Two years later the General Assembly was again called to meet four times a year.

In this modified system, the freemen of each town were to send two or three men to meet in three General Courts a year, while the freemen themselves would all meet together for the fourth General Court, to vote for the Governor and Magistrates.

So some, but not all, of the changes were successfully reversed. Most importantly, the restriction of voting rights to church members was kept in place. Although most colonists were Puritans, that didn’t mean that they were all formally members of their local church, since gaining membership was an arduous process involving lengthy interviews where you had to prove your religious sincerity. And of those who were church members, not all bothered to formally become freemen, either, since that could mean more work with little benefit. But maybe half of all adult men were freemen in those first few decades, though estimates vary. Very high by the standards of the day at least. Plus towns often had looser requirements for voting than the Court did, which I’ll talk about in a few episodes.

Women could and did send petitions to the Court, but that was the extent of their formal participation.

Moving on to the elections themselves. Officials in the first few years of Massachusetts history weren’t elected the way officials are today, with voters showing up to the precinct nearest them to cast their ballots, which are then all counted up. Instead, voters had to actually be in Boston on election day to cast their votes. This was called the Court of Election. Of course this system meant that the well-to-do and those who lived in Boston had an advantage over everyone else, thanks to their simple ability to show up. So this system was modified quickly, in 1634. Now, the men of a town could write their votes on paper ballots and send a deputy to Boston to deliver their votes to be counted. If no candidate received a majority, the election was decided by the General Court. This was a practice distinctive to the region. England and the other American colonies all still voted by voice or by show of hands.

Although voting was now done with ballots, this system was still, at best, semi-anonymous. Certainly anonymity wasn’t a goal anyone had in mind at the time. You didn’t have to sign your name on your ballot generally, but you still would have had to hand it in, visible for all to see. There were no special precautions for privacy yet.

Actually, for a few decades people voted for the magistrates not with a paper ballot but with kernels of corn. If you wished to approve of someone’s nomination as a magistrate, you would drop a white kernel of corn in a hat. If you disapproved, you would drop in a black kernel. The deputy from your town would then take the corn to Boston to be counted, avoiding as many birds as possible I assume.

But as Massachusetts grew, so did the number of deputies, until even this system proved unwieldy. There were multiple attempts to cut back on the number of deputies, but the towns would have none of it. It seems to me like it would have been simpler to just tabulate the votes in each town and send those totals to Boston instead of this more elaborate procedure, but perhaps there were concerns about fraud. Or perhaps it was just traditional and no one thought to change it. But in any case, similar systems of paper ballots (and corn) would be adopted by several other of the New England Colonies.

Elections in Massachusetts began at 8 AM with a no-doubt rousing election day sermon. Soon election day in the towns became a festive holiday, with the serving of “election cakes” and “election beer”, a tradition sadly forgotten today. I actually found a recipe for election cake, though it’s from over a century later and may have been different from what was served in these first few decades. The recipe, for one extremely large fruitcake, reads as follows:

“Thirty quarts flour, ten pounds butter, fourteen pounds sugar, twelve pounds raisins, three dozen eggs, one pint wine, one quart brandy, four ounces cinnamon, four ounces fine colander seed, three ounces ground alspice; wet the flour with the milk to the consistency of bread over night, adding one quart yeast, the next morning work the butter and sugar together for half an hour, which will render the cake much lighter and whiter; when it has risen light, work in every other ingredient except the plumbs, which [you] work in when going into the oven.”

Sounds like quite a production! You can find modernized recipes for smaller election cakes online if you just Google “election cake”. Let me know if you make one.

Given all the effort that went into them, it's clear that New Englanders cared a great deal about elections. Remember, they did all that each and every year. It wasn’t just for show. There were in fact some contested elections and changes in power. For instance, after Governor Winthrop’s attempts to limit popular participation were rebuffed he lost the next election to one of his rivals and was out of power for a few years, though he’d be back.

But elections were still much less partisan than today, and the turnover of officials wasn’t that rapid either, apart from the first decade. Officials were more likely to step down of their own accord than to lose reelection. I mean, the governorship was held by a rotating group of just four men for 41 of the next 43 years. So stability was pretty high.

There’s one other early political development to discuss: the division of the General Court into an upper and lower house. In Virginia and Maryland, the split was due to the division between the unelected Councilors and the elected representatives. In Massachusetts both the Deputies and the Magistrates were elected, but there was still a split. The Delegates were more in tune with popular opinion while the Magistrates were a bit more elite.

It didn’t take long for the two groups to become irrevocably at odds, and it was all thanks to a completely minor disagreement over a single pig. More specifically, a lawsuit over a sow. In 1636 there was a stray pig wandering around Boston. No one else claimed it, so it was taken by

Robert Keayne, a wealthy moneylender. When a year went by and still no one had claimed the sow, Keayne had it slaughtered. But after the pig was dead, a lawsuit was brought against Keayne by Goodwife Sherman on behalf of her husband, who was in England at the time. Sherman claimed that they had lost a pig of their own and that it was the same one which Keayne had unjustly taken and killed.

The evidence was apparently against her, and she lost her suit. However, popular sympathy was with Sherman, since she was from a poorer, but well known and well liked family, while Keayne was rich and unpopular. Keayne brought a countersuit for defamation which went before the General Court, which at this time also sometimes acted like a real court, not just a legislature.

The case split the Court in two. Most Magistrates found for Keayne, but most Deputies found for Sherman. There were more Deputies than Magistrates so Sherman got the most support, but unfortunately for her, just getting a majority was insufficient. You also had to get the approval of the Magistrates specifically, since they could on their own block any action from the Delegates, just like how in Virginia the Council could veto laws passed by the Burgesses. This Negative Vote, as it was called, was a way for the Magistrates to keep the Deputies in check. It gave the elite a way to negate popular power. This led to a quite acrimonious dispute between the Deputies and the Magistrates, over whether this Negative Vote should be kept. This was basically a continuation of the disagreement between Winthrop and the Deputies over the powers of the legislature, with the Deputies still pushing to increase their own power.

Relations between the two factions got pretty acrimonious and in 1644 the dispute was finally resolved by dividing the General Court into an upper and lower house, both of which had to approve all legislation. Now, both the Magistrates and the Deputies could block laws. This was right about at the same time as when Governor Berkeley probably split the General Assembly, and just six years before Maryland’s Assembly became bicameral.

But the running dispute between the Deputies and the Magistrates continued, over various constitutional issues like who should be in charge when the General Court was out of session.

And there were further attempts to place some officials beyond the reach of elections altogether. For instance, some of the Magistrates tried to form a new body where a few of them could just serve for life, but that attempt was blocked. Winthrop even tried to block the Court from writing a law code, since he thought that would impinge upon the freedom of the magistrates to do as they wished. He argued that there was no need for a law code, since the magistrates’ oath of office pledging to protect the well-being of the state was sufficient to keep them from behaving tyrannically, even without any formal limits on their power. That argument was rejected, but the disputes were such that it took some 15 years for a satisfactory law code to be passed.

But eventually things settled down after both sides had reached a compromise position. In essence, elections remained the ultimate source of authority, but the governor and magistrates remained powerful in their own right. And voting was still limited to church members. The colony’s charter wasn’t being precisely followed, but neither had it been thrown out completely.

As its form of government was being worked out, Massachusetts was developing in other ways. During the 1630s some 200 ships carrying some 20,000 colonists came to New England. By 1647 there were 33 different towns in Massachusetts.

Laws were passed in the New England colonies mandating that all children be taught to read. According to Fischer, another law “compelled every town of fifty families to hire a schoolmaster, and every town of one hundred families to keep a grammar school which offered instruction in Latin and Greek”. And children in Massachusetts got twice as much schooling as those in Virginia. This was mostly to teach kids the Bible, but of course literacy has many other benefits.

Harvard University was established in 1636, while the first college in Virginia, William and Mary, would only be founded in 1693. Now, Harvard at the time wasn’t a prestigious and world renowned university like it is today. It was mainly just a school for the training of ministers, but the difference is still striking. And the first printing press in New England was set up in 1638, a full 90 years before the first one in Virginia.

Perhaps partly because of this focus on education, the Puritans proved to be financially successful. The colonies wasn’t profitable in the way that the plantations of the Caribbean were, but the colonists themselves were able to live quite well by the standards of the day. The Puritan migrants had been middle class in England and they remained middle class in New England.

They were allowed to do all this, to build their own quite distinct society, without any real interference from the Crown. Which may seem surprising, given Charles’s obvious hostility to the Puritans. Why did he let this happen? After all, it’s not like Massachusetts was totally cut off. People went back and forth and word certainly got out about what kind of society the Puritans were building, and how hostile it was to the English establishment. I mean, they acknowledged the King’s authority only grudgingly and their churches had completely broken away from the Anglican bishops. Well, there were concerns raised, but there was only so much that could be done. Remember, this is the decade when King Charles was ruling without Parliament, so he was busy just keeping everything together in England, and by the end of the decade he was sucked into a war in Scotland. And of course after that, the English Civil War hit, and no one at all in England cared about the colonies. And in any case, the Puritans were less of a threat over there than at home. So despite various worries, New England was mostly left to do its own thing, at least for the time being.

Next episode, we’ll talk about the other colonies of New England, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and how they built upon the Massachusetts way of doing things while making significant innovations of their own. So join me next time on Early and Often: The History of Elections in America.

If you like the podcast, please rate it on iTunes. You can also keep track of Early and Often on Twitter, at earlyoftenpod, or read transcripts of every episode at the blog, at earlyandoftenpodcast.wordpress.com. Thanks for listening.

Sources:

The Colonial Period of American History Volume I by Charles M. Andrews

History of Elections in the American Colonies by Cortlandt F. Bishop

Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction by Francis J. Bremer

The Charter of Massachusetts Bay

Saints and Strangers: New England in British North America by Joseph A. Conforti

Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer

The Political Thought of John Winthrop by Stanley Gray

A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England by David D. Hall

A History Of Election Cake And Why Bakers Want To #MakeAmericaCakeAgain

The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch

'Election Cake' Makes a Modern Day Resurgence by Keia Mastrianni

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

A Model of Christian Charity by John Winthrop

22 notes · View notes

sfung-rmpc · 5 years ago

Text

Week 6

It’s 2019, and marriage has yet to fall out of fashion.

In high school, I smoked a fat bowl of weed and registered as an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery (ULC). It’s that easy. What’s not easy is remembering who’s and how many weddings I’ve promised to officiate. Luckily, I might not have to.

The ULC is not only an non-denominational, non-profit religious organization, but the most popular resource for those interested in obtaining their ordination online. It’s free and simple: all you need is your legal name, e-mail, country and city of residence, and your certificate is sent to your inbox. Since its foundation, over 20 million people have become ministers through their website (Universal Life Church Monastery, 2016). But how is an individual’s basic information solely enough for them to become a minister?

There is no background check or ministry training required. The ULC’s ‘About’ page reads, “The communication and fellowship of our scattered millions of ministers, we believe, is just as valid a form of worship as the weekly services held in some of the world’s more segregated and elitist religious institutions.” They believe in empowering people to fulfill the spiritual needs of the many by providing them the position to be able to, regardless of any affiliation (Universal Life Church Monastery, 2015). Yet they consistently align themselves with a Christian aesthetic, using terminology like ‘minister’ and ‘church’, outlining the process of performing a baptism, and selling clergy cassocks and other traditionally Christian garments (Universal Life Church Monastery).

More and more, anticipating couples are looking outside primary institutions, and instead towards a close friend or family member to conduct their ceremony. Marriage has always had cultural, religious, and spiritual significance and remains a time-honoured tradition, but we forget that it’s as much a union of souls as it is a legal contract. Because the ULC mainly operates online, it’s difficult to validate the legitimacy of the authority it hands out as laws differ worldwide. There is no unanimous jurisdiction that considers the ULC minister a legally allowed to officiate a wedding (Sipher 2007).

Not only may the officiant be unauthorized to perform a marriage, but it could render the union itself invalid. Along with divorce, there are several other legal situations that exist on the periphery of the legitimacy of the marriage ceremony, like inheritance rights, pensions, tax liability, etc. (Mallozi 2012). Multiple cases involving ULC annulments primarily concern divorce where one partner refuses to honour a prenuptial agreement or pay spousal support, claiming that the marriage was not valid to begin with. But for the most part, couples are granted the benefit of the doubt. If the pair believes the marriage to be valid regardless, it may continue to be unless it is challenged (Sipher 2007).

This is not the first time the divine and the digital have intersected. The Internet has evolved beyond a space for information, but also a space for spiritual and social connection. Where a traditional pilgrimage involves a physical journey travelling to sacred sites and interaction with divine practice, online pilgrimages have emerged as a substitute for religious meaning and connection in a post-modern context. The Internet allows for individuals to not only view a sacred space, but interact and participate in the event despite space-time limitations, making the experience accessible to all (Campbell, 2001). And if online pilgrimages are able to facilitate a unique spiritual engagement in a contemporary context, why not online ordination?

Reverend Kent Winters-Hazelton, who has been a pastor at the Presbyterian Church for 34 years, earned his four-year bachelor’s degree in religious studies followed by a three-year master’s in Divinity before he was able to be ordained. “My colleagues in ministry who have received extensive training to become eligible for ordination are recognized by the state in the same way that the state recognizes an attorney who has passed the bar exam,” he argues “You wouldn’t go to an attorney if you knew he got his degree online and paid $20 for it. (Mallozi, 2012)” Does the effortless achievement of such a title infringe on the sanctity of the ministry or marriage itself?

Counsel to the City Clerk of New York Patrick Synmoie says no, and finds that stance outdated. The office even issued its own rule allowing ULC ministers to perform wedding ceremonies in the five boroughs back in October of 2012 (Sipher 2007). The Universal Life Church’s President Andre Hensley defends the church and the authenticity of its practitioners, “Not every minister excels at all the functions of the ministry. Some people are more comfortable preaching. Others aren’t, but that doesn’t mean they still don’t want to serve or pastor in a certain way. (Sipher 2007)”

The ULC is founded on the principle that all humans are “children of the same universe” and its two core tenets for which their ministers to follow:

1. Do only that which is right.

2. Every individual is free to practice their religion in the manner of their choosing, as mandated by the First Amendment, so long as that expression does not impinge upon the rights or freedoms of others and is in accordance with the government’s laws (Universal Life Church Monastery, 2015).

With respect to the law—a different kind of ‘higher’ system—the ULC allows us to define divinity for ourselves, which may be the spiritual notion of all.

Works Cited

“About the Universal Lfe Church.” Universal Life Church Monastery, Universal Life Church Ministries, 8 Sept. 2015, www.themonastery.org/aboutUs.

“Universal Life Church - Official Site - Est. 1977.” Universal Life Church Monastery, Universal Life Church Ministries, 20 Apr. 2016, www.themonastery.org/.

“Universal Life Church Store.” Universal Life Church Monastery, Universal Life Church Ministries, www.themonastery.org/catalog/.

Campbell, Heidi A. “A New Forum for Religion: Spiritual Pilgrimage Online.” The Bible in Transmission (2001): pp. 1-3. Print.

Mallozi, Vincent M. “Reconsidering the Rev. Best Friend.” The New York Times, 16 Nov. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/fashion/weddings/making-sure-that-online-officiant-is-legal.html.

Sipher, Devan. “Great Wedding! But Was It Legal?” The New York Times, 5 Aug. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/fashion/05marry.html.

0 notes

thejoydaily-blog · 7 years ago

Photo

“The Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle” — The Value of a Masculine Ministry

God, Manhood & Ministry: Building Men for the Body of Christ

“The Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle” — The Value of a Masculine Ministry

God, Manhood & Ministry: Building Men for the Body of Christ

Desiring God 2012 Conference for Pastors

Resource by John Piper

Topic: Biography

In dealing with the life and ministry of John Charles Ryle, my hope is to clarify and commend what I mean by the value of a masculine ministry. But before we turn to “the frank and manly Mr. Ryle,”1 let me make some clarifying comments from the Bible.

God has revealed himself to us in the Bible pervasively as King, not Queen, and as Father, not Mother. The second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son. The Father and the Son created man and woman in his image, and gave them together the name of the man, Adam (Genesis 5:2). God appoints all the priests in Israel to be men. The Son of God comes into the world as a man, not a woman. He chooses twelve men to be his apostles. The apostles tell the churches that all the overseers—the pastor/elders who teach and have authority (1 Timothy 2:12)—should be men; and that in the home, the head who bears special responsibility to lead, protect, and provide should be the husband (Ephesians 5:22–33).

Masculine Christianity

From all of this, I conclude that God has given Christianity a masculine feel. And, being a God of love, he has done it for the maximum flourishing of men and women. He did not create women to languish, or be frustrated, or in any way to suffer or fall short of full and lasting joy, in a masculine Christianity. She is a fellow heir of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7). From which I infer that the fullest flourishing of women and men takes place in churches and families where Christianity has this God-ordained, masculine feel. For the sake of the glory of women, and for the sake of the security and joy of children, God has made Christianity to have a masculine feel. He has ordained for the church a masculine ministry.

And, of course, this is liable to serious misunderstanding and serious abuse, because there are views of masculinity that would make such a vision repulsive. So here is more precisely what I mean. And words are always inadequate when describing beauty. Beauty always thrives best when she is perceived by God-given instincts rather than by rational definitions. But we must try. What I mean by “masculine Christianity,” or “masculine ministry,” or “Christianity with a masculine feel,” is this:

Theology and church and mission are marked by overarching godly male leadership in the spirit of Christ, with an ethos of tender-hearted strength, and contrite courage, and risk-taking decisiveness, and readiness to sacrifice for the sake of leading, protecting, and providing for the community—all of which is possible only through the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s the feel of a great, majestic God, who by his redeeming work in Jesus Christ, inclines men to take humble, Christ-exalting initiative, and inclines women to come alongside the men with joyful support, intelligent helpfulness, and fruitful partnership in the work.

There are, I believe, dozens of sweet and precious benefits that come to a church and family that has this kind of masculine feel. Some of those will emerge as we consider “‘The Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle’: The Value of a Masculine Ministry.”

His Early Life

John Charles Ryle was born May 10, 1816, near Macclesfield, in the County of Cheshire, England. His parents were nominal members of the Church of England with no interest in vital religion and would never embrace Ryle’s evangelical faith—which he came to when he was 21 years old.

At the age of eight, he was sent to a boarding school for three years, of which he said when he was 58, “I’m quite certain that I learned more moral evil in a private school than I ever did in my whole life afterwards.”2 But he did leave “tolerably well grounded in Latin and Greek.”3

A month later, at the age of eleven, he was sent to Eton, the elite preparatory school founded in 1440, and stayed there almost seven years, until he eighteen. “Religion,” he says, “was at a very low ebb, and most boys knew far more about the heathen gods and goddesses that about Jesus Christ. . . . On Sundays there was nothing whatever to do us any good; the preaching of the fellows was beneath contempt.”4

Cricket Captain

The last year was his happiest, and the reason seems to be that he was the captain of the Cricket XI—a game he loved and followed all his life. In his last year at Eton, he became very prominent and powerful among the students: “I was ambitious and fond of influence, attained power and was conscious of it.”5

He looked back on his Cricket experience with amazing appreciation for what it taught him about leadership:

I believe it gave me a power of commanding, managing, organizing, and directing, seeing through men’s capacities, and using every man in the post to which he is best suited, bearing and forbearing, keeping men around me in good temper, which I have found of infinite use.6

He was on his way to becoming a strong and forceful personality.

Three Years at Oxford

In October of 1834, he entered Christ Church, Oxford, where he stayed exactly three years till he was 21. He won the Craven University Scholarship, and at the end of his third year, he took a “brilliant first-class in classics.”7 But in spite of his achievements he said,

I thoroughly disliked Oxford on many accounts. . . . Nothing disgusted me so much as the miserable idolatry of money and also of aristocratic connection. I never saw such an amount of toadying flattery, and fawning upon wealth and title as I saw among the undergraduates at Oxford.8

And later, from his perspective as a believer, he wrote, “At Oxford things were very little better [than Eton]. No one cared for our souls anymore than if we had been a pack of heathen.”9

So up till the age of 21, Ryle says, “I had no true religion at all. . . . I certainly never said my prayers, or read a word of my Bible, from the time I was 7 to the time I was 21. . . . My father’s house was respectable and well conducted but there really was not a bit of [true] religion in it.” 10

His Conversion

But things were about to change dramatically.

About the end of 1837 [just after Oxford], my character underwent a thorough and entire change, in consequence of a complete alteration in my view of religion. . . . This change was . . . extremely great and has had . . . a sweeping influence over the whole of my life ever since.11

At least three things conspired to bring this about. First, a severe illness confined him to bed. “That was the time,” he wrote, “when I distinctly remember I began to read my Bible and began to pray.”12

Then a new gospel ministry opened in his hometown of Macclesfield. Till that time, he says, “there was no ministry of the gospel at the church we attended. Macclesfield . . . had only two churches, and in neither of them was the gospel preached.”13 But then a new church was opened and the gospel was preached, and Ryle was contrarian enough to be attracted to it when everyone was criticizing it.

There was a kind of stir among dry bones, and great outcry against the attendants of this new church. This also worked for my good. My natural independence, combativeness, and love of minorities, and hearty dislike for swimming with the stream, combined to make me think that these new evangelical preachers who were so sneered at and disliked were probably right.14

The third influence was some good evangelical books that came into his hands. He mentions Wilberforce's Practical View of Christianity, Angel James’s Christian Professor, Scott’s Reply to Bishop Tomline, Newton’s Cardiaphonia, Milner’s Church History, and Bickersteth’s Christian Student.15

So God used Ryle’s sickness, the gospel preacher, and the evangelical books, and by the beginning of 1838, he says, “I was fairly launched as a Christian, and started on the road which I think I have never entirely left, from that time to this.”16

He tells us what the truths were that the Holy Spirit pressed on his soul in those days:

Nothing . . . appeared to me so clear and distinct, as my own sinfulness, Christ's preciousness, the value of the Bible, the absolute necessity of coming out of the world, the need of being born again, the enormous folly of the whole doctrine of baptismal regeneration. All these things, I repeat, seemed to flash upon me like a sunbeam in the winter of 1837 and have stuck in my mind from that time down to this.

People may account for such a change as they like, my own belief is that no rational explanation of it can be given but that of the Bible; it was what the Bible calls “conversion” or “regeneration.” Before that time I was dead in sins and on the high road to hell, and from that time I have become alive and had a hope of heaven. And nothing to my mind can account for it, but the free sovereign grace of God. And it was the greatest change and event in my life, and has been an influence over the whole of my subsequent history.17

The Bankruptcy He Never Forgot

For the next three and a half years, he mainly worked in the bank that his father owned. Then disaster struck in June 1841, when he was 25 years old. His father lost everything in bankruptcy. Ryle describes this event as so traumatic that “if I had not been a Christian at that time, I do not know if I should not have committed suicide.”18

“Every single acre and penny my father possessed had to be given up to meet the demand of the creditors. . . . We got up one summer’s morning with all the world before us as usual, and went to bed that same night completely and entirely ruined.”19 His own testimony about the effect of this disaster on his life is remarkable.

God alone knows how the iron entered into my soul . . . . I am quite certain it inflicted a wound on my body and mind of which I feel the effects most heavily at this day [he is writing this 32 years later in 1873] and shall feel it if I live to be hundred. To suppose that people do not feel things because they do not scream and yell and fill the air with their cries, is simple nonsense. . . . I do not think there has been a single day in my life for 32 years, that I have not remembered the . . . humiliation.20

Nevertheless, Ryle believed in the sovereignty of God and knew that this event was decisive in making him what he was.

I have not the least doubt it was all for the best. If . . . I had never been ruined, my life of course would have been a very different one. I should have probably gone into Parliament . . . I should never have been a clergyman, never have preached, written a tract or a book. Perhaps I might have made shipwreck in spiritual things. So I do not mean to say at all, that I wish it to have been different to what it was.21

But now what would he do? He had no idea. “The plans of my life were broken up at the age of 25. . . I was going to leave my father's house without the least idea what was going to happen, where I was going to live, or what I was going to do.”22

Reluctantly Entering the Ministry

The Rector of the parish of Fawley, Rev. Gibson, knew of Ryle’s conversion and leadership gifts, and asked him to be the curate of Exbury. It was a strange way to enter the ministry in which he would become the foremost evangelical spokesman of the Church of England in his day.

I never had any particular desire to become a clergyman, and those who fancied that my self will and natural tastes were gratified by it were totally and entirely mistaken. I became a clergyman because I felt shut up to do it, and saw no other course of life open me.23

His parents did not like the idea, but could suggest nothing better, and so he accepted the offer “with a very heavy heart,”24 and was ordained by the Bishop of Winchester in December, 1841.

The people liked him. “I think they would have done anything for me,” he says, although “on the whole . . . I think I was regarded as an enthusiastic, fanatical mad dog of whom most people were afraid.”25

He prepared two written sermons each Sunday, spoke extemporaneously on Wednesday and Thursday, visited 60 families each week, and during an outbreak of scarlet fever, he says, “I saved many lives . . . by supplying them with large quantities of beef tea, made from concentrated essence, and insisted on their swallowing it, as long as their throats kept open.”26

The church was soon filled on Sunday. But he resigned in two years (November, 1843) for health reasons. “The district thoroughly disagreed with me. . . . Constant headache, indigestion, and disturbances of the heart then began and have been the plagues, and have disturbed me ever since that time.”27

Seventeen Years in Helmingham

After a five-month curacy at Winchester, he accepted a call to be the Rector at Helmingham, about 85 miles northeast of London, where he began on Easter, 1844. He was now 28 and still unmarried. Not until now had his income been sufficient to support a wife—which was one of the reasons he accepted this call after only five months at Winchester.28 But this time he stayed 17 years.

In October, 1844, his first year there, he married Matilda Plumbpre. She was 22, and he was 28. A child, Georgina, was born May 1846, and Matilda died June 1847. Ryle was married again in February, 1849, to Jessie Walker, but their ten years together “were years of singular trials.”29 Jessie was never well.

On five occasions, she had to be confined in London for two months each, and one side effect was that Ryle preached in at least sixty different churches in London and became very popular for his power in the pulpit, to which he responded, “I always felt that popularity, as it was called, was a very worthless thing and a very bad thing for man's soul.”30

Jessie bore four children over the ten years of their marriage, Isabelle, Reginald, Herbert, and Arthur. But then in May, 1860, after along battle with Bright’s disease, she died. The last five years, Jessie was unable to do much at all, and when she died the entire load of the five children, with the oldest only thirteen, fell to their father, especially the three little boys.

As to holidays, rest, and relaxation in the year, I never had any at all; while the whole business of entertaining and amusing the three little boys in evening devolved entirely upon me. In fact the whole state of things was a heavy strain upon me, both in body and mind, and I often wonder how I lived through it.31

His middle son, Herbert, recalls the early days of childhood with their father:

He was everything to us—taught us games, natural history, astronomy, and insisted on our never being idle, and carefully fostered our love of books. To us boys he was extraordinarily indulgent. And he was tolerant to a degree little known or recognized. The High Church writers sought to destroy his position by detraction. Much as he differed from me in many points, he never suffered the shadow of a difference to come between us in the intimacy of our affection. And since the time I went to school at the age of nine and a half, I never received from him a harsh word.32

While Ryle was an attentive father or not, none of his sons remained true to his evangelical faith. Reginald became a doctor with no professed Christian faith. Arthur became an artist with no religious inclinations. And Herbert was ordained in the Church of England and eventually became Bishop of Winchester, and Dean of Westminster. Though he became liberal in his theology, there remained a bond of affection between him and his father.

Herbert outlived his brothers and wrote, “The last of the five, I remain, having had two such loving brothers as few men ever had—never a quarrel, always affection and confidence.”33 When his father died he wrote to a friend, “And I, to whom it was an intense stimulus to think of pleasing my father as a boy and a young man, feel how greatly he has filled the picture of my life.”34

Nineteen Years in Stradbroke

The year after Jessie died, Ryle accepted a call to be the Vicar of Stradbroke about 20 miles north of Helmingham. He had served 17 years in the tiny village of Helmingham and would now serve Stradbroke for another 19 years. The year he began at Stradbroke, he was married a third time, October 24, 1861, to Henrietta Legh-Clowes. He was 45, she was 36, and they were married for 28 years, until she died in 1889, eleven years before his own death in 1900.

During the 36 years in rural parishes of Helmingham and Stradbroke, Ryle was becoming a national figure of prominence in the Church of England. He was constantly writing and traveling to speak. “He was Evangelicalism’s best-known and most respected writer and spokesman through the 1870s.”35

During the . . . years he spent in his two Suffolk parishes, he was a prolific writer, producing evangelistic tracts, devotional commentaries, historical and biographical accounts, works on doctrinal and controversial subjects, papers on Christianity and prophecy, all unashamedly written from the standpoint of a convinced Evangelical and Protestant Churchman.36

Virtually all of the books and tracts that Ryle published had been first given as sermons or lectures.37 The main books were all published during his time at Stradbroke: Knots Untied (1874), his most popular work during his lifetime; Old Paths (1877); Holiness (1877, enlarged 1879), the book he is most famous for today; Practical Religion (1878) which he said should be read in conjunction with Holiness.

One of the great ironies of Ryle’s life is that he took a brilliant first class in classics at Oxford, was a constant reader of old and new theology, collected a five-thousand-volume library, and yet, in tiny rural parishes, became “the Prince of tract writers.”38 “Tracts” in those days were little booklets which in Ryle’s case had been sermons and which sold for pennies. The fact that Ryle put such a premium on publishing practical tracts on Christian living and church life shows how zealous he was for personal holiness and church reform. In writing and preaching, he was first a pastor, and “as he read,” J. I. Packer points out, “alongside the question ‘Is it true?’ the question ‘What effect will this have on ordinary people?’ was always in his mind.”39

Not only was he a pastor in all he wrote, but he was a firmly rooted Anglican churchman with a strong allegiance to the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles. He had a huge heart and huge respect for Dissenters and those on the outside, like Charles Spurgeon,40 but he was unbudging in his passion that the Church of England, rightly administered was the best church on earth.41 “The standpoint I have tried to occupy, from first to last, is that of an Evangelical Churchman.”42 His passion was for the reformation and renewal of his own denomination, in accord with the great biblical principles of the Reformation.

Liverpool

At the age of 64, after 36 years in rural parishes, when most people are ready to retire, he was called to be the first Bishop of Liverpool.43 So he moved from parishes of 300 and 1300 to a city of over 700,000 with all the urban problems he had never met face to face. He served in this post for 20 years, till two months before his death on June 9, 1900, at the age of 84.

Here he poured himself out for the spiritual good of the city and took serious initiatives to relieve some of the worst social ills. “During his time 42 new churches were built in the diocese. The number of clergy increased by 146, and confirmations almost doubled.”44 The book with the most detail about his gospel efforts in Liverpool is Ian D. Farley, J. C. Ryle: First Bishop of Liverpool(Waynesboro, Georgia: Paternoster Press, 2000).

On his gravestone, there are two verses of Scripture to capture the two aspects of the Christian life that he heralded, the fight, and the gift. First, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). And then, “By grace are ye saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).

________

Eight Traits of a Masculine Ministry

Of all the helpful things that could be said about the life and ministry of J. C. Ryle, the theme of this conference is governing what I will focus on, namely, “The Value of a Masculine Ministry”—which I tried to define at the beginning.

What I hope to do is illustrate the nature of this “masculine ministry,” or “Christianity with a masculine feel,” with eight traits of such a ministry from the life and ministry of J. C. Ryle.

1. A masculine ministry believes that it is more fitting that men take the lash of criticism that must come in a public ministry, than to unnecessarily expose women to this assault.

Therefore, a masculine ministry puts men at the head of the troop with the flag in hand and the trumpets in their mouths, so that they, and not the women, take the first bullets.

J. C. Ryle was a very controversial figure in British evangelicalism. He saw liberalism and ritualism and worldliness eating away at the heart of the Church of England, and he took such clear stands against these things that criticism against him was sometimes brutal.

In 1985, the Liverpool Review (November 21, 1885) published this assessment:

Dr. Ryle is simply about the most disastrous episcopal failure ever inflicted upon a long-suffering diocese. . . . He is nothing better than a political fossil, who has been very unwisely unearthed from his rural obscurity for no better purpose apparently than to make the episcopacy ridiculous.45

Two years later, another paper, Figaro (May 14, 1887), said, “His name will stink in history. . . . It is to be regretted that he was ever appointed to fill a position in which he has done more mischief than the Liberation Society and all the atheists put together.”46

The point here is not that a woman couldn’t endure such assaults. No doubt a godly woman could. The point is not that women can’t endure criticism, but that godly men prefer to take it for them, rather than thrust them into it.

Courage in the midst of combat, especially harsh and painful combat, whether with arms or with words, is not something a woman can’t exercise, nor even something she shouldn’t exercise under certain circumstances. The reason we call such courage “manly” is not that a woman can’t show it, but that we feel a sense of fitness and joy when a man steps up to risk his life, or his career, with courage; but we (should) feel awkward if a woman is thrust into that role on behalf of men. She may be able to do it, and we may admire her for doing it, if necessary. But we wish the men were numerous enough and strong enough and courageous enough that the women could rejoice in the men, rather than take their place.

2. A masculine ministry seizes on full-orbed, biblical doctrine with a view to teaching it to the church and pressing it with courage into the lives of the people.

Behind the increasing liberalism, ritualism, and worldliness that he saw in the church, Ryle saw a failure of doctrinal nerve — an unmanly failure. Dislike of dogma, he wrote,

is an epidemic which is just now doing great harm, and especially among young people. . . . It produces what I must venture to call . . . a “jelly-fish” Christianity . . . a Christianity without bone, or muscle, or power. . . . Alas! It is a type of much of the religion of this day, of which the leading principle is, “no dogma, no distinct tenets, no positive doctrine.”

We have hundreds of “jellyfish” clergyman, who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity. They have no definite opinions . . . they are so afraid of “extreme views” that they have no views of all.

We have thousands of “jellyfish” sermons preached every year, sermons without an edge, or a point, or corner, smooth as billiard balls, awakening no sinner, and edifying no saint. . . .

And worst of all, we have myriads of “jellyfish” worshipers—respectable Church-gone people, who have no distinct and definite views about any point in theology. They cannot discern things that differ, any more than colorblind people can distinguish colors. . . . They are “tossed to and fro, like children, by every wind of doctrine”; . . . ever ready for new things, because they have no firm grasp on the old.47

This aversion to doctrine was the root cause of the church’s maladies, and the remedy was a manly affirmation of what he called “sharply cut doctrines”48recovered from the Reformation and the Puritans and the giants of the eighteenth century in England.

Mark what I say. If you want to do good in these times, you must throw aside indecision, and take up a distinct, sharply-cut, doctrinal religion. . . .

The victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct doctrinal theology; by telling men roundly of Christ’s vicarious death and sacrifice; by showing them Christ’s substitution on the cross, and His precious blood; by teaching them justification by faith, and bidding them believe on a crucified Saviour; by preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Christ, regeneration by the Spirit; by lifting up the brazen serpent; by telling men to look and live—to believe, repent, and be converted. . . .

Show us at this day any English village, or parish, or city, or town, or district, which has been evangelized without “dogma.” . . . Christianity without distinct doctrine is a powerless thing. . . . No dogma, no fruits!49

The point of calling this failure of doctrinal nerve an unmanly failure is not that women can't grasp and hold fast to the great doctrines of the faith. They can and should. The point is that when the foundations of the church are crumbling, the men should not stand still and wait for women to seize the tools and brick and mortar. And women should expect their men to be at the forefront of rebuilding the ruins.

The point of saying that the remedy for doctrinal indifference is a manlyaffirmation of “sharply cut doctrines” is not that women cannot or should not make such affirmations. The point is that long, hard, focused, mental labor should not be shirked by men. Men should feel a special responsibility for the life and safety and joy of the community that depends on putting these “sharply cut doctrines” in place. This issue is not what women are able to do, but what men ought to do. J. C. Ryle waited for no one. He took the brick and mortar and trowel and spent his whole life rebuilding the sharp edges of gloriously clear truth to make a place where men and women could flourish in the gospel.

3. A masculine ministry brings out the more rugged aspects of the Christian life and presses them on the conscience of the church with a demeanor that accords with their proportion in Scripture.

Ryle is most famous today for his work on holiness and sanctification. And the overwhelming impression you get in reading his book on holiness is how unsentimental and rugged most of it feels.50 That is, it feels very much like the New Testament, especially the Four Gospels.

Over against the perfectionism and Keswick quietism of his day, he was unrelenting in stressing that sanctification, unlike justification, is a process of constant engagement of the will. And that engagement is war. He asks,

Is it wise to teach believers that they ought not to think so much of fighting and struggling against sin, but ought rather to ‘yield themselves to God’ and be passive in the hands of Christ? Is this according to the proportion of God's Word? I doubt it.51

“True Christianity is a fight.”52 He cites, 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 2:3; Ephesians 6:11–13; Luke 13:24; John 6:27; Matthew 10:34; Luke 22:36; 1 Corinthians 16:13; 1 Timothy 1:18–19, and says,

Words such as these appear to me clear, plain, and unmistakable. They all teach one and the same great lesson. . . . That true Christianity is a struggle, a fight, and a warfare.53

“A true Christian,” he said, “is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within.”54 And this is true at every stage of maturity: “The old, the sick, the dying, are never known to repent of fighting Christ’s battles against sin.”55 The tone he sets for the Christian life is “the soldier’s life.” “A holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling, are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian.”56 “He that would understand the nature of true holiness must know that the Christian is “a man of war.”57

Of course, this is not the only picture of the Christian life; but it is a true and prominent one. And Ryle sets it forth with clarity and with a tone that fits the soldier-like theme it is. But the point, again, is not that women cannot, or should not, fight sin with as much urgency as any man. Nor is the point that she is unable to see these things in Scripture, bring them out, and press them on the conscience. She is fully able to do that. The point is that the theme of Christian warfare and other rugged aspects of biblical theology and life should draw the men of the church to take them up in the spirit of a protective warrior in his family and “tribe,” rather than expecting the women to take on the spirit of a combatant for the sake of the church.

4. A masculine ministry takes up heavy and painful realities in the Bible, and puts them forward to those who may not want to hear them.

One of the heaviest and most painful realities in the Bible is the reality of hell. It is a godly and loving and manly responsibility of the leaders of the church not to distort or minimize the weight and horror of hell. Ryle faced the same thing we do. In 1855, he preached the sermon that 24 years later was published in the expanded edition of Holiness. There he said,

I feel constrained to speak freely to my readers on the subject of hell. . . . I believe the time is come when it is a positive duty to speak plainly about the reality and eternity of hell. A flood of false doctrine has lately broken in upon us. Men are beginning to tell us “that God is too merciful to punish souls for ever—that there is a love of God lower even than hell—and that all mankind, however wicked and ungodly some of them may be, will sooner or later be saved.”. . . We are to embrace what is called a “kinder theology.”. . . Against such false teaching I desire, for one, to protest. Painful, sorrowful, distressing as the controversy may be, we must not blink it, or refuse to look the subject in the face. I, for one, am resolved to maintain the old position, and to assert the reality and eternity of hell.58

He pointed out that no one in Scripture “used so many words to express the awfulness of hell” as Jesus did.

Hell, hell fire, the damnation of hell, eternal damnation, the resurrection of damnation, everlasting fire, the place of torment, destruction, outer darkness, the worm that never dies, the fire that is not quenched, the place of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, everlasting punishment—these, these are the words which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself employs.59

He confessed that it sounds dreadful. But then said that the question is: “Is it Scriptural?” If it is, we must not shrink back. “Professing Christians ought to be often reminded that they may be lost and go to hell.60

Ryle’s manly courage that takes up a heavy and painful reality and presses it on people who may not want to hear it was not a callous courage.

God knows that I never speak of hell without pain and sorrow. I would gladly offer the salvation of the Gospel to the very chief of sinners. I would willingly say to the vilest and most profligate of mankind on his deathbed, “Repent, and believe on Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.”61

The point is not that women are unable to lift the weight or bear the pain of the reality of hell. The point is not that they are unable to press it into those who don’t want to hear. The point is that one of the marks of mature manhood is the inclination to spare her that load and its costs. We admire her for embracing the truth, we share her longings to nurture with tenderness, and, if we can, we carry for her the flaming coals of final condemnation.

5. A masculine ministry heralds the truth of Scripture, with urgency and forcefulness and penetrating conviction, to the world and in the regular worship services of the church.

Not all preachers have the same personality or the same tone. Some are louder, some are softer. Some speak faster, some slower. Some with long sentences, some with short. Some with many word pictures, some with fewer. Some with manifest emotion, some with less. Some with lots of gestures, some with few. These differences are inevitable.

But preaching, as opposed to teaching — kerussein (Greek) as opposed to didaskein — involves a kind of emotional engagement signified by the word “heralding.” There is in preaching a kind of urgency and a kind of forcefulness. A message is being delivered from the King of the universe — with his authority, in his name — and this message deals with matters of infinite importance, and the eternal destiny of the hearers hangs on how they respond to the message.

This is preaching. And no matter what a preacher’s personality or preferred tone, this preaching necessarily involves urgency and forcefulness and a penetrating conviction which aims to come with divine thrust into the minds and hearts of the listeners. And therefore, this is a manly task. Coming to a people with an authoritative word from God, aiming to subdue the hearts of men, and summon them into battle, and lead the charge at their head against the principalities and powers—this is where men belong.

J. C. Ryle’s preaching is model for preaching in these ways. J. I. Packer refers to his “electric force of utterance.”62 Ryle knew that he had to crucify his florid,63 literary style which marked his early preaching. The nature of preaching demanded something different. Something simpler, but more forceful and penetrating. What developed was really astonishing. Packer describes it, referring to his

brisk, spare, punchy style . . . its cultivated forcefulness, its use of the simplest words, its fusillades of short, one-clause sentences . . . its a rib-jabbing drumbeat rhetoric, its easy logical flow, its total lack of sentimentality, and its resolve to call a spade a spade.64

Ryle knew the preaching of his day was languishing. It was “dry, heavy, stiff, dull, cold, tame . . . and destitute of warmth, vivacity, direct appeal, or fire.”65So he made every effort to break the mold, even as a dignified Bishop of Liverpool. He would keep it simple, but he would untame his preaching. His simple, forceful, clarity was renown. One older lady came to the church hoping to hear the Bishop, but afterwards said to a friend, “I never heard a Bishop. I thought I’d hear something great. . . He's no Bishop. I could understand every word.”66 Ryle took it as a great compliment.

Listen to what Packer means by the “electric force” of “fusillades” and “rib-jabbing, drumbeat rhetoric.” This is from a sermon on Lot’s lingering as he came out of Sodom and how so many Christians linger as they leave sin.

Would you know what the times demand?—The shaking of nations—the uprooting of ancient things—the overturning of kingdoms—the stir and restlessness of men’s minds—what do they say? They all cry aloud—Christian! do not linger!

Would you be found ready for Christ at His second appearing—your loins girded—your lamp burning—yourself bold, and prepared to meet Him? Then do not linger! . . .

Would you enjoy strong assurance of your own salvation, in the day of sickness, and on the bed of death?—Would you see with the eye of faith heaven opening and Jesus rising to receive you? Then do not linger!

Would you leave great broad evidences behind you when you are gone?—Would you like us to lay you in the grave with comfortable hope, and talk of your state after death without a doubt? Then do not linger!

Would you be useful to the world in your day and generation?—Would you draw men from sin to Christ, adorn your doctrine, and make your Master's cause beautiful and attractive in their eyes? Then do not linger!

Would you help your children and relatives towards heaven, and make them say, “We will go with you”?—and not make them infidels and despisers of all religion? Then do not linger!

Would you have a great crown in the day of Christ’s appearing, and not be the least and smallest star in glory, and not find yourself the last and lowest in the kingdom of God? Then do not linger!

Oh, let not one of us linger! Time does not—death does not—judgment does not—the devil does not—the world does not. Neither let the children of God linger.67

There is urgency, forcefulness, penetrating power. Preaching does not always rise to this level of urgency and force and authority, but regularly does, and should. Again the point is not that a woman is not able to speak this way. The point is that godly men know intuitively, by the masculine nature implanted by God, that turning the hearts of men and women to God with that kind of authoritative speaking is the responsibility of men. And where men handle it with humility and grace, godly women are glad.

6. A masculine ministry welcomes the challenges and costs of strong, courageous leadership without complaint or self-pity with a view to putting in place principles and structures and plans and people to carry a whole church into joyful fruitfulness.

Leadership in the church — tending and feeding and protecting and leading the sheep — is not only the work of preaching, but also a firm, clear, reasonable, wise guiding voice when it comes to hundreds of decisions that have to be made. This calls for great discernment and no little strength. There are a hundred ways that a church can drift into ineffectiveness; and wise leaders spot these early, resist them, and win the church joyfully into a better direction. And what is required again and again is a decisive strength that does not weaken in the face of resistance.

Packer describes Ryle’s leadership like this:

His brains, energy, vision, drive, independence, clear head, kind heart, fair-mind, salty speech, good sense, impatience with stupidity, firmness of principle, and freedom from inhibitions would have made him a leader in any field.68

Ryle was called by his successor to the bishopric of Liverpool, “that man of granite with the heart of a child.”69 He was described as “the most rugged and conservative of all Anglican Evangelical personalities.”70 He said of his own leadership: “The story of my life has been such that I really cared nothing for anyone’s opinion, and I resolved not to consider one jot who was offended and who was not offended by anything I did.”71 These are the words of man surrounded by a rising tide of liberalism, ritualism, and worldliness in the Church of England. They are the voice of strength against overwhelming odds.

I am fully aware [he wrote in 1878] that Evangelical churchmanship is not popular and acceptable in this day. It is despised by many. . . . But none of these things move me. I am not ashamed of my opinions. After 40 years of Bible reading and praying, meditation, and theological study, I find myself clinging more tightly than ever to “Evangelical” religion, and more than ever satisfied with it.72

“None of these things move me.” “More than ever I am satisfied with [the evangelical faith].” Immovable joy in truth is a precious trait in the leaders of the church. A masculine ministry looks on the forces to be resisted, and the magnitude of the truth to be enjoyed, and feels a glad responsibility to carry a whole people forward into joyful fruitfulness.

7. A masculine ministry publicly and privately advocates for the vital and manifold ministries of women in the life and mission of the church.

The aim of godly leadership is a community of maximum joy and flourishing for everyone within—the women, the children, the men—and maximum impact on the world for the glory of Christ. It’s not about the privilege of power, but about the burden of responsibility to enhance the lives of others.

Ryle was outspoken in his zeal for women in the various ministries of the church. He drew attention to Romans 16, where 11 of the 28 names mentioned are women, and said,

The chapter I have mentioned appears to me to contain a special lesson for women. The important position that women occupy in the Church of Christ—the wide field of real, though unobtrusive, usefulness that lies before them . . . I cannot go away with the common notion that great usefulness is for men only, and not for women. . . . It should never be forgotten that it is not preaching alone that moves and influences men. . . . Humanly speaking, the salvation of a household often depends upon the women . . . [and] men’s character is exceedingly influenced by their homes.73

There are countless needs in the community, and needs on the mission field, Ryle says, that cry out for the ministry of women.

There are hundreds of cases continually rising in which a woman is far more suitable visitor than a man. She need not put on a peculiar dress, or call herself by a Roman Catholic name. She has only to go about, in the spirit of her Savior, with kindness on her lips, gentleness in her ways, and the Bible in her hands, and the good that she may do is quite incalculable. Happy indeed is the parish where there are Christian women who “go about doing good.” Happy is that minister who has such helpers.74

The aim of a masculine ministry is the fullest engagement of every member of the church in joyful, fruitful ministry. The aim of leadership is not to be the ministry, but to free the ministry, according to God’s word, by the power of God’s Spirit, for the glory of God’s name.

8. A masculine ministry models for the church the protection, nourishing, and cherishing of a wife and children as part of the high calling of leadership.

The year after he came to Liverpool as bishop, Ryle published a book of eight messages for children. It’s called Boys and Girls Playing based on Zechariah 8:5.75 It reveals the rare mixture of concern for children along with a very masculine feel. One of the messages is called “The Happy Little Girl” about a girl he met in public carriage who spoke of Jesus. He asks, “Dear children, are you as happy and as cheerful as she was?”76 And another message is called “The Two Bears” about the two bears that killed forty-two children for mocking God’s prophet. And he says, “Dear children, remember these things to the end of your lives. The wages of sin is death.”77 He was a masculine lover of children.

Before his ministry was complete, he had loved and buried three wives, Matilde, Jessie, and Henrietta. He had thee sons and two daughters. All the testimonies we have of his children praise their father for his care for them. Whether he did this well, the evidence is too sketchy to know. But what we do know is that he tried. He gives us a hint of the burden he carried in his small biography of Henry Venn, who also was made a widower in the pastoral ministry with children to care for:

Those who have had this cross to carry, can testify that there is no position in this world so trying to body and soul as that of the minister who is left a widower, with a young family and a large congregation. There are anxieties in such cases which no one knows but he who has gone through them; anxieties which can crush the strongest spirit, and wear out the strongest constitution.78

But no matter how difficult the homelife of a pastor, it is part of the calling, part of the masculine ministry.

________

From these eight glimpses into the value of a masculine ministry, I commend it to you. And I think “the frank and manly Mr. Ryle” would commend it also.

I commend it because it fits the way God is in the triune fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It fits the way he created man as male and female, calling the man to bear a unique responsibility of headship. It fits the way God has ordered the church with godly men as her elders. And it fits the way our hearts sing—male and female—when men and women exult in each other’s enjoyment of God as our final and all-satisfying destiny.

28 Ibid., 68–69. "I must honestly say that I went very unwillingly, and of all the steps I ever took in my life, to this day I feel doubts whether the move was right or not. I sometimes think that it was a want of faith to go, and I ought to have stayed. . . . But I have never ceased to wonder whether I was right or not. I only know that my chief desire was to set my father free from any charge on my account, and so I tried to hope all was right. But I think the doubt afflicted my spirits for two or three years."

37 In an appendix to Ian D. Farley, J. C. Ryle, First Bishop of Liverpool, (Waynesboro, Georgia, Paternoster, 2000), 240–243, there a table which shows what sermons and their dates lay behind each of the chapters in Knots Untied, Old Paths, Holiness, Practical Religion, and A New Birth.

38 Russell, 70. To give some idea of the extent of the effectiveness of these tracts here is one story. "One little booklet called True Liberty was translated into Spanish. It came into the hands of a Dominican Friar who had been sent to stamp out the reform movement in the church in that part of Mexico. As he read the tract the scales fell from his eyes and he entered by faith into the true liberty of the sons of God. He began to build up the church he meant to destroy. The church grew in half a century from a tiny remnant of a few believers into a flourishing church of some fifty thousand members." (72)

39 Faithfulness and Holiness, 71.

40 "'When you read Mr. Spurgeon sermons, note how clearly and perspicuously he divides a sermon, and fills each division with beautiful and simple ideas. How easily you grasp his meaning! . . . great truths, that hang to you like hooks of steel, and which you never forget!' Spurgeon once called Ryle the best man in the Church of England; here Ryle in effect hails Spurgeon as the best preacher anywhere in the country." Faithfulness and Holiness, 62.

41 "I am satisfied that well administered, the Church of England is more calculated to help souls to heaven than any church on earth. . . . I am deeply convinced of the excellency of my own Church—I would even say, if it were not a proud boast, its superiority over any other church upon earth." Faithfulness and Holiness, 45, 48. "He believed that the Episcopal government rightly administered is the best form of church government." Eric Russell, J. C. Ryle, 128.

42 J. C. Ryle, Practical Religion, (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1998, orig, 1878), vi.

43 There seemed to be some political intrigue behind this appointment. Some said that Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister at the time, made this appointment of an outspoken conservative to spite William Gladstone who had just defeated him in an election and had come from an Anglo-Catholic family in Liverpool. Self-Portrait, 90.

44 Self-Portrait, 101.

45 Farley, J. C. Ryle: First Bishop of Liverpool, 236.

46 Ibid., 224.

47 J. C. Ryle, Principles for Churchmen (London: William Hunt, 8 1084), 97–98. Quoted in J. I. Packer, Faithfulness and Holiness, 72–73.

48 J. C. Ryle, The Christian Leaders of The Last Century, or England A Hundred Years Ago (Moscow, Idaho: Charles Nolan Publishers, 2002), 392.

49 J. C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots (Moscow, Idaho: Charles Nolan Publishers, 2001), 355–356.

50 "Ryle was habitually factual and unsentimental in his account of things." Faithfulness and Holiness, 71.

51 J. C. Ryle, Holiness, xix.

52 Ibid., 63.

53 Ibid., 66.

54 Ibid., 26.

55 Ibid., 76.

56 Ibid., xxviii.

57 Ibid., 63.

58 Ibid., 208.

59 Ibid., 210.

60 Ibid., 211.

61 Ibid.

62 Faithfulness and Holiness, 11.

63 "I felt that I was doing the country people in my congregation [of Exbury] no good whatever. I was shooting over their heads; they could not understand my imitation of Melville's style, which I thought much of, therefore I thought it my plain duty to crucify my style and bring it down to what it is now." Eric Russell, J. C. Ryle, 60.

64 Faithfulness and Holiness, 19. Examples of his punchy, aphoristic style are almost everywhere. For example, from his book, Thoughts for Young Men: "The poorest saint that ever died in a ghetto is nobler in His sight than the richest sinner that ever died in a palace." (Kindle, location 414) "Never make an intimate friend of anyone who is not a friend of God." (Kindle, location 485) "Bad company in this life, is the sure way to procure worse company in the life to come." (Kindle, location 518) "The gospel keeps many a person from going to jail and from being hanged, if it does not keep him from hell." (Kindle, location 632) And some quoted by Eric Russell: "What we weave in time, we wear in eternity." "Sin forsaken is one of the best evidences of sin forgiven." "It matters little how we die, but it matters much how we live." "One thief on the cross was saved, that none should despair, and only one, that none should presume."

65 Ian Farley, J. C. Ryle, First Bishop of Liverpool, 103.

66 Eric Russell, J. C. Ryle, 253.

67 J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 193.

68 Faithfulness and Holiness, 9.

69 Eric Russell, J. C. Ryle, 9

70 Ian Farley, J. C. Ryle: First Bishop of Liverpool, 123.

71 Self-Portrait, 67.

72 J. C. Ryle, Practical Religion, vi–vii.

73 J. C. Ryle, Shall We Know One Another, and Other Papers (Moscow, Idaho: Charles Nolan Publishers, 2001), 29, 31, 32.

74 J. C. Ryle, Shall We Know One Another? 36. And Ryle made a case for the Zenana Mission who specialized in sending women missionaries to India, China , and Japan. His argument was that half the population of India were women who were almost entirely secluded from men, especially foreigners.

75 J. C. Ryle, Boys and Girls Playing (and Other Addresses to Children), edited by Don Kistler (Morgan, Pennsylvania: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1996, orig. 1881).

76 Ryle, Boys and Girls Playing, 110.

77 Ibid., 65.

78 J. C. Ryle, The Christian Leaders of the Last Century (London: 1869), 279–280.

0 notes

christsbride · 7 years ago

Text

Word of Faith Hermeneutics

Word of Faith Hermeneutics. There is no one central teacher or organizational ministry but a collection that feed off each other adding in their own unique idea, which is usually accepted by the others. The primary teachers that form the collection of Word of Faith doctrine are: Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price, Joyce Meyer, Paul Crouch, Kenneth E. Hagin, Charles Capps, Marilyn Hickey, Benny Hinn, Paul Yonggi Cho, Morris Cerullo, Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, and E.W.Kenyon. What do they teach? The primary influencer of these doctrines is Kenneth Hagin who was ordained by the Assemblies of God Pentecostal church in 1967. He had a weekly television program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network owned by Paul Crouch. He was known my may other Word of Faith teachers as "Dad Hagin". Also, what makes him a primary influencer of the collective doctrines of the Word of Faith movement is the fact that none of the other major teachers in the Word of Faith movement denounce or deny his teachings. Another reason why his teachings are not rejected or denounced is the fact that a majorty of his teachings come from 'personal revelations' which he claimed came directly from God himself. Sense a majority of the Word of Faith teachers also claim these type of personal revelations, it makes it hypocritical and contradictory to denounce others. This article will quote from the primary Word of Faith teachers and organize their doctrines systematically. These teachings will the be compared to what God has made known in his Holy Scripture. Summery of Word of Faith Doctrine God created human beings in His literal, physical image as little gods. Before the fall, humans had the potential to call things into existence by using the faith-force. After the fall, humans took on Satan's nature and lost the ability to call things into existence. In order to correct this situation, Jesus Christ gave up His divinity and became a man, died spiritually, took Satan's nature upon Himself, in hell, was born again, and rose from the dead with God's nature. After this, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to replicate the Incarnation in believers so they could become little gods as God had originally intended. As little gods we again have the ability to manipulate the faith-force and become prosperous in all areas of life. Illness, sin, and failure are the result of a lack of faith, and are remedied by confession—claiming God's promises for oneself into existence. Personal revelation, not Scripture, is highly relied upon. When a believer speaks positive confessions with the use of bible verses, God is compelled to comply, given that the believer has enough faith. Health, wealth, and happiness are a common positive confession taught and encouraged for believers to seek. Doctrine of God God is a material being with measurable human features who has to have faith in order to create. He was not content within himself and desired to replicate himself in the form of man. God thus needed to establish an agreement with Man in order to be able to help man other wise, with out man's permission and agreement, God could not act out his faith on the earth. Because God's replicate, i.e. man, rejected him, God was limited to what he could and could not do for his creation; thus God was a failure. But, when man, allows God to act in their life, God makes them wealthy (Kenneth Copleland, Fred Price).

God is material

Kenneth Copeland describes God as someone “very much like you and me….A being that stands somewhere around 6’2,” 6’3,” that weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple of hundred pounds, little better, [and] has a [hand]span nine inches across.”(Copeland, Spirit, Soul and Body I, side 1.)

Truth: God is a spirit (John 4:24). God the Son has a immaterial spiritual body (the resurrected Christ body, the transfiguration). No physical measurements of God is found anywhere in the bible.

God has Faith (in himself?)

Copeland adds that “God used words when He created the heaven and the earth….Each time God spoke, He released His faith — the creative power to bring His words to pass.”(Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: KCP Publications, 1980), 4.) and the “force of faith is released by words.”(Ibid., 17.).

Truth: God does not need faith, He sees all and knows all for all eternity. God alone is the Sovereign Creator of the Universe (Genesis 1:3; 1 Timothy 6:15) and does not need faith.

God desired to replicate himself

Copeland emphasizes similarities between God and man to the point where any distinction becomes virtually nil: “God’s reason for creating Adam was His desire to reproduce Himself….Adam is as much like God as you could get, just the same as Jesus….Adam, in the Garden of Eden, was God manifested in the flesh” (emphasis added).(Copeland, Following the Faith of Abraham I, side 1.)

Truth: (1) No where in God's Word does he say he desired to reproduce himself. God was perfectly complete with himself from all eternity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (2) Adam was not God because he could sin, and did sin. God can not sin. He is not like Jesus because Jesus can not sin and did not sin. God the Son existed with God the Father in eternity, Adam did not and was created in the beginning of time.

God's Limitations and Not Sovereign

Kenneth Copeland affirms that “God cannot do anything for you apart or separate from faith,”(Kenneth Copeland, Freedom from Fear (Fort Worth: KCP Publications, 1983), 11.) . Copeland’s deflation of God is best exemplified by his comment that “the biggest failure in the Bible…is God.”(Kenneth Copeland, Praise-a-Thon, TBN, 1988. Copeland has, in another instance, stated that God “is not a failure” (Kenneth Copeland, The Troublemaker [Fort Worth, TX: Kenneth Copeland Publications, n.d.], 23). According to Copeland, “God had no avenue of lasting faith or moving in the earth. He had to have covenant with somebody….He had to be invited in, in other words, or He couldn’t come.”(Kenneth Copeland, God’s Covenant with Man II (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1985, audiotape #01-4404), side 1.) In fact, “the reason that He’s making covenant is to get into the earth...God is on the outside looking in,” says Copeland. “In order to have any say-so in the earth, He’s gonna have to be in agreement with a man here.”

Truth: God can not sin or do anything that is not real. God does not have faith because he sees all and knows all from all eternity. God is the absolute perfect and holy source of what is good and right. God's will and plan is perfect. Calling God a failure, is blasphemy. God does whatever he pleases (Ps. 115:3, 135:6). He has already declared the end from the beginning and he WILL accomplish his GOOD will (Isaiah 46:10). Man can not stop God's will or have any right to question his will (Daniel 4:35; Romans 9:19-21; Job 42:2).

Fred Price - "Yeah, God has pleasure in the prosperity. So he must have displeasure in the poverty .So if he does, then poverty couldn't be from God. Yeah, but Brother Price, but God allows it. God lets it happen. You're right, he does. He does, because you do. He can't do anything about it" ("Ever Increasing Faith" recorded 11/16/90).

Truth: "Jesus said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." (Luke 6:20). Satan tempted Jesus with vast prosperity, wealth, and status; Jesus rejected the opportunity (Matthew 4:8-11). Logically, according to Fred Price, God must be pleased with major drug dealers and rich criminals and displeased with the most faithful Christians in 3rd world countries. God does whatever he pleases (Ps. 115:3, 135:6). He has already declared the end from the beginning and he WILL accomplish his GOOD will (Isaiah 46:10). Man can not stop God's will or have any right to question his will (Daniel 4:35; Romans 9:19-21; Job 42:2).

The Word of Faith teachings of Kenneth Copeland and Fred Price in regards to their doctrine of God is flat out heresy. Their teachings belittle and disgrace God and attempting to increase the status of man to that which is greater than God. If God needs man's permission for anything; it is man that is sovereign over God. These teachings should be so shameful and degrading, it should grieve the hearts of those who love the Lord God. Yet, these teachers are supported by the Word of Faith community at large. Doctrine of Sin

Sinlessness

"I'm going to tell you something folks, I didn't stop sinning until I finally got it through my thick head I wasn't a sinner anymore. And the religious world thinks that's heresy and they want to hang you for it. But the Bible says that I'm righteous and I can't be righteous and be a sinner at the same time...All I was ever taught to say was, 'I'm a poor, miserable sinner.' I am not poor, I am not miserable and I am not a sinner. That is a lie from the pit of hell. That is what I was and if I still am then Jesus died in vain. Amen" (Doctrinal Ambiguity of a Wandering Star-The Changing views of Joyce Meyer , G. Richard Fisher and Paul R. Belli).

Truth: The Apostle John (The Holy Spirit) knew she or someone will claim this, so he simply says "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us...If we say, "We don't have any sin," we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. " (1 John 1:8, 10). Christians are imputed with Christ's righteousness, because they are not righteous in and of themselves. We are seen as righteous because, for believers, when God sees us, he sees his Son covering us. The Apostles, authors of Holy Scripture, were not sinless. Galatians 2:11-13, Paul rebuked Peter for showing favoritism, a sin. 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul himself admits that he is currently a sinner. The greek word he used for "am" means "to be, to exist, to happen, to be present" in relation to him as a sinner. In Romans 7:24 Paul also states "what a wretched man I AM". Yet they wrote Holy Scripture and were believers and saved. Needless to say, Joyce Meyer is a sinner but because she claims she is not, the truth is not in her (1 John 1:8).

Doctrine of Man

Mankind are 'little gods'

Man has the ability to speak things into existence and that their faith is like a spiritual force. Because believers are Children of God, they are considered 'little gods'. “Every man who has been ‘born again’ is an Incarnation, and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as much an Incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth.” (E. W. Kenyon, The Father and His Family, 17th ed. (Lynnwood, WA: Kenyon’s Gospel Publishing Society, 1964), 100; cf. Kenneth E. Hagin, “The Incarnation,” The Word of Faith, December 1980, 14.)

“you are to think the way Jesus thought. He didn’t think it robbery to be equal with God.”(Kenneth Copeland, Now We Are in Christ Jesus (Fort Worth: KCP Publications, 1980), 23-24.) Copeland’s remarks, “You are not a spiritual schizophrenic — half-God and half-Satan — you are all-God”(Ibid., 16-17.) and “You don’t have a God in you; you are one, When I read in the Bible where God tells Moses, ‘I AM,’ I say, ‘Yah, I am too!'”(Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1987, audiotape #02-0028), side 1.)(("Believers Voice of Victory" broadcast, TBN 7/9/87).)

Paul Crouch is a little god

"Do you know what else that has settled then tonight? This hue and cry and controversy that has been spawned by the devil to try and bring dissension within the Body of Christ. That we are gods. I am a little god . I have his name. I'm one with him. I'm in covenant relationship. I am a little god. (Kenneth Copeland: "You are anything that he is.") Yes." ("Praise the Lord" TBN, recorded 07/07/86).

“You have the same creative faith and ability on the inside of you that God used when he created the heavens and the earth.”(Copeland, Inner Image of the Covenant, side 2.) However, he adds that most believers are not able to make full use of their inner power because “our imagination…has been so fouled up and fathered up with wasted useless words [and] wasted useless images.”

Mankind become identical to Jesus

At the moment of spiritual birth “the spirit of God hovered over you, and there was conceived in your body a holy thing identical to Jesus….And there was imparted into you zoe, the life of God” (emphases added).(Copeland, The Abrahamic Covenant, side 2.)

Its hard to determine where to start with so much blasphemy and heresy contained in these teachings of Mankind. (1) There is zero indication in God's Holy Word that man could ever and can ever just creation something from nothing. The references used for prayer will be discussed later. This is an attribute that only the divine creator of all realty possesses. But, this teaching then must lead to the next (2) that Mankind is "as much an Incarnation as was Jesus" and even more blunt, “You don’t have a God in you; you are one, When I read in the Bible where God tells Moses, ‘I AM,’ I say, ‘Yah, I am too!'”. Even Paul Crouch claimed to be a god! (see quote above) The claim then must also include being "identical to Jesus" because, after all, he is God. Claiming the divine attribute of God, the nature of God, and being equal to Jesus as God is disgusting. First of all, this idea came from Satan's first temptation! To be like God! (Gen. 3:5). Secondly, NONE of the Prophets or Apostles EVER dared to make the the claim that Jesus made; in fact, they were sinners (see Doctrine of Sin rebuttal). Third, God himself declares there are NO other real gods "I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God." (Isaiah 45:5). Essentially, Paul Crouch, Kenneth E. Hagin, and Kenneth Copeland bought into Satan's lie about being "like God" and idolized themselves. AGAIN these teachings should be so shameful and degrading, it should grieve the hearts of those who love the Lord God. Yet, these teachers are supported by the Word of Faith community at large. Only God alone has a divine nature (Galatians 4:8; Isaiah 1:6-11, 43:10, 44:6; Ezekiel 28:2; Psalm 8:6-8).

Doctrine of Jesus Their teachings about Jesus reflect a lot of Gnostic teachings of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Arianism, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses now. That Jesus was a created being, just a man initially, who was God like, but not actually God himself. Jesus was wealthy. Jesus was only empowered by the Holy Spirit at his baptism to perform his miracles. He only physically died on the cross but then went to hell where he spiritually died too. Satan conquered Jesus. In hell he took on the nature of Satan. At his resurrection he took on the nature of God. These teachings imply the denial of the absolute divinity of Jesus being God and deny the Triune God of Christianity.

Jesus was a created being

Charles Capps has gone so far as to teach that Jesus was the product of God’s positive confession: “This is the key to understanding the virgin birth. God’s Word is full of faith and spirit power. God spoke it. God transmitted that image to Mary. She received the image inside of her….The embryo that was in Mary’s womb was nothing more than the Word of God….She conceived the Word of God.” (Charles Capps, Dynamics of Faith and Confession (Tulsa, OK: Harrison House, 1987), 86-87; cf. Charles Capps, Authority in Three Worlds (Tulsa, OK: Harrison House, 1982), 76-85.).

Truth: The incarnation of God in the Flesh is just simply, God The Son coming to earth in the form or man. He eternally existed prior to the virgin birth (John 1:1,3; Gen. 3:13–15, Gen. 49:10, Job 19:25–29, Num. 24:5–7, Jos. 5:13–15, Ps. 2:7–12, Ps. 22, Ps. 110:1, Pro. 30:1, Isa. 9:6–7, Isa. 53, Dan. 3:24–25, and Dan. 9:24–27). Christ is Eternal, the Only Begotten Son, and the only incarnation of God (John 1:1, 2, 14, 15, 18; 3:16; 1 John 4:1).

Jesus did not claim to be God

Kenneth Copeland also gave a “prophecy” in which Jesus allegedly said, “They crucified Me for claiming that I was God. But I didn’t claim I was God; I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was in Me.”(Kenneth Copeland, “Take Time to Pray,” Believer’s Voice of Victory, February 1987, 9.).

Truth: This is a crazy lie. Jesus makes himself equal to God (John 10:30) and the reaction of the religious leaders makes this clear that is how he meant it (John 10:33). They respond "being man, make yourself God". One of the clearest claims of deity of Jesus is when he made the claim of the title that only God can have (John 8:58). "I AM". This was known as "the name" of God (Ex 3:14). So holy of a title and name that anyone who blasphemes it is killed (Lev 24:16). Jesus goes right ahead and calls himself "the name", I AM (John 8:58). The apostle John fully understood the identity of Jesus, He makes it perfectly clear who Jesus is and straight up says "the word was God" (John 1:1). That God himself clothed himself in flesh, but was still God (John 1:14). We see that Luke expresses that God bought the church with his own blood, the blood of Jesus. That makes Jesus God (Acts 20:28). Testimony of others in scripture also reveals how people understood Jesus as. Thomas bluntly declared Jesus as "my Lord and my God" (John 20:28). Peter declares in 2 Peter 1:1 that we obtain righteousness from "our God and savior Jesus Christ". Throughout scripture we see instances of people worshiping Jesus and Jesus accepts their worship (Matthew 2:11; 14:33; 28:9, 17; Luke 24:52; John 9:38). This is a flat our denial of The Trinity and divinity of Jesus as The God the Son.

Jesus was just a human

Copeland asserts Jesus did not openly claim to be God because “He hadn’t come to earth as God, He’d come as man. He’d set aside His divine power.”(Kenneth Copeland, “Question & Answer,” Believer’s Voice of Victory, August 1988, 8.) Citing Philippians 2:5-7, he states that the incarnate Christ “had no innate supernatural powers. He had no ability to perform miracles until after He was anointed by the Holy Spirit."

Truth: Clearly this can not be true since Jesus per-existed in eternity with God the Father (John 1:1,3; Gen. 3:13–15, Gen. 49:10, Job 19:25–29, Num. 24:5–7, Jos. 5:13–15, Ps. 2:7–12, Ps. 22, Ps. 110:1, Pro. 30:1, Isa. 9:6–7, Isa. 53, Dan. 3:24–25, and Dan. 9:24–27). And since Jesus IS God, He thus HAD the power of God (see Jesus did not claim to be God rebuttal). Jesus gave up the glory of heaven but not His divinity (Philippians 2:6-7), though He did choose to withhold His power while walking the earth as man.

Jesus was wealthy.

Truth: This relates to the Doctrine of Prosperity but we will address it here too. As the second person of the Trinity, Jesus is as rich as God is rich. Indeed, our Lord owns everything and possesses all power, authority, sovereignty, glory, honor, and majesty (Isaiah 9:6; Micah 5:2; John 1:1, 8:58, 10:30, 17:5; Colossians 1:15–18, 2:9–10; Hebrews 1:3). BUT humbling himself in the form of man, he voluntarily allowed himself to be a lowly humble servant (Zechariah 9:9; 2 Corinthians 8:9; Philippians 2:6–8). His earthly possessions amounted to no more than the clothes on His back that were divided up by the soldiers who crucified Him. He didn't even have his own grave. Christ and His disciples depended entirely on the hospitality of others as they ministered from town to town (Matthew 10:9–10). As Jesus told a would-be follower “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head” (Luke 9:58). Jesus chides the rich and praises the poor. He taught us to “be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). And to not store up for ourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal (Matthew 6:19–21).

Jesus not only died physically on the cross but he also died spiritually in hell and was spiritually born again at his resurrection.

Truth: Jesus prayed His last public prayer, asking the Father to glorify Him, just as Jesus had glorified the Father on earth, having “finished the work you have given me to do” (John 17:4). Jesus’ last words meant that His suffering was over and the whole work His Father had given Him to do, which was to preach the Gospel, work miracles, and obtain eternal salvation for His people, was done, accomplished, fulfilled. The debt of sin was paid. (John 19:30). Then, before he died he told the criminal on the cross "And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise." (Luke 23:43). Then, at the moment of death, Jesus declares "And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, "Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT." Having said this, He breathed His last." (Luke 23:46). His spirit went to paradise, not hell, with the Father, not Satan.

Jesus took on the nature of Satan

Fred Price has added his own unique twists to Faith theology by asserting that Jesus took on the nature of Satan prior to the crucifixion (Frederick K. C. Price, “Identification #3” (Inglewood, CA: Ever Increasing Faith Ministries, 1980), audio tape #FP545, side 1.).

Truth: This contradicts what God the Son declared at his bodily death (see rebuttal above).

Regarding the Atonement, Copeland says, “It wasn’t a physical death on the cross that paid the price for sin…anybody can do that.”(Copeland, Our Covenant with God, 21.) Jesus supposedly “put Himself into the hands of Satan when He went to that cross, and took that same nature that Adam did [when he sinned].”(Kenneth Copeland, What Satan Saw on the Day of Pentecost (Fort Worth: Messages by Kenneth Copeland, n.d., audiotape #BCC-19), side 1.)

Truth: Jesus paid the just price of sin on the cross. No one can do that because only Jesus was the perfect sinless sacrificial lamb of God who was without blemish. No one else can do that because everyone else are sinners (see Sinlessness rebuttal). This was God's plan from eternity. Satan was merely involved since he was used by God to bring about absolute Justice for sinners through Jesus Christ. He NEVER took on the corrupted sinful nature of Adam because He, by nature, was God, perfect and holy.

Jesus goes to hell

"There is no hope of anyone going to heaven unless they believe this truth I am presenting. You cannot go to heaven unless you believe with all your heart that Jesus took your place in hell" (The Most important Decision You will Ever Make, 1991, Joyce Meyer).

Truth: Jesus did not go to hell according to God's own Word: before he died he told the criminal on the cross "And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise." (Luke 23:43). Then, at the moment of death, Jesus declares "And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, "Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT." Having said this, He breathed His last." (Luke 23:46). His spirit went to paradise, not hell, with the Father, not Satan. Thus this false truth that Joyce Meyer's claims is actual heresy.

Satan is conquered Jesus

Copeland brashly pronounces God to be the greatest failure of all time, boldly proclaims that “Satan conquered Jesus on the Cross” (emphasis in original),(Kenneth Copeland, Holy Bible: Kenneth Copeland Reference Edition (Fort Worth, TX: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1991), 129.) and describes Christ in hell as an “emaciated, poured out, little, wormy spirit.” (Kenneth Copeland, Believer’s Voice of Victory (television program), TBN, 21 April 1991.).

Truth: The ignorance here is that God planned all along to redeem mankind through the perfect sacrifice of God the Son in the incarnate flesh. Satan did not conquer Jesus because this was the plan from eternity. Also, Christ did not go to hell, nor did he need to (see Jesus Goes to Hell rebuttal).

Doctrine of Faith

Faith is a supernatural energy force

The strength of ones faith produces what is desired and asked for. Kenneth Copeland focuses primarily on an understanding of faith as a force. “Faith is a power force,” he claims. “It is a tangible force. It is a conductive force.”(Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Faith (Fort Worth: KCP Publications, 1989), 10.) Moreover, “faith is a spiritual force….It is substance. Faith has the ability to effect natural substance.”(Forces of the Recreated Human Spirit (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1982), 8.) As “the force of gravity…makes the law of gravity work…this force of faith…makes the laws of the spirit world function.”(Kenneth Copeland, The Laws of Prosperity (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Publications, 1974), 18-19.)

Truth: God's Word contains a clear definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Simply put, the biblical definition of faith is “trusting in something you cannot explicitly prove.”. Faith contains two aspects: intellectual assent and trust. Intellectual assent is believing something to be true. Trust is actually relying on the fact that the something is true. A chair is often used to help illustrate this. Intellectual assent is recognizing that a chair is a chair and agreeing that it is designed to support a person who sits on it. Trust is actually sitting in the chair. Hebrews (The Holy Spirit) does NOT say that IT is a force. God is the object of faith (Mark 11:22; Hebrews 11:3).

Doctrine of Satan Satan is at war with believers trying to steal joy and focus away from their faith. Satan is the cause of suffering and difficulties. One must rebuke Satan in the name of Jesus and verbally claim the promises of God to fight back Satan. Satan is actually in absolute control of earth and God was evicted from earth where he is only outside looking in and has no right to enter the earth unless we give him the permission through our positive confessions.

Satan has authority over God

Kenneth Copeland also claims that Adam’s transgression empowered Satan to evict God from the earth. “God’s on the outside looking in,” says Copeland. “He doesn’t have any legal entree into the earth. The thing don’t belong to Him.”(Kenneth Copeland, The Image of God in You III (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1989, audiotape #01-1403), side 1.)

Truth: God does whatever he pleases (Ps. 115:3, 135:6). He has already declared the end from the beginning and he WILL accomplish his GOOD will (Isaiah 46:10). Man can not stop God's will or have any right to question his will (Daniel 4:35; Romans 9:19-21; Job 42:2). Job 1 shows that Satan was not able to afflict Job without God’s permission. Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32). Thus claiming that God needs Satan's permission or even Man's permission is a lie.

Doctrine of Heaven

The Holy of Holies in Heaven became impure and unholy

since “the sin of Adam went all the way up to, but not including, the throne of God…[even] the Heavenly Holy of Holies had to be purified.”(Kenneth Copeland, Inner Image of the Covenant (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1985, audiotape #01-4406), side 1.)

Truth: The presence of God is absolute perfect holiness. The Holiness of God is so perfect that no one can see God and live (Exodus 33:20) and there is only pure joy and pleasure in the presence of God in eternity (Psalm 16:11). The chosen priests of the people of Israel had to purify themselves before entering, not purify the presence of God. Mankind must be purified before entering the presence of God, through life after coming to faith we become sacrificed and then at death we become glorified- thus purifying us before entering into God's presence. When Adam sinned, the holy presence of God left him. God left the temple in Ezekiel 8:12. God is never corrupted by sin. But the human buildings and the elements that God allowed for his presence were purified but once corrupted, God simply left. God's holiness was unaffected by sin.

Doctrine of Healing

All physical and spiritual illnesses can be healed through faith and prayer. Sickness and deformities are viewed as attempts by Satan to rob one of joy. A case in point are the thousands of “documented” healings claimed by Hinn. Recently, he sent me three examples — presumably, the cream of the crop — as proof of his miracle-working power. One of the cases involved a man who was supposedly healed of colon cancer. A medically naive person reading the pathology report may well see the notation “no evidence of malignancy” and be duped into thinking that a bona fide healing had indeed taken place. CRI’s medical consultant, Dr. Preston Simpson, however, was not fooled by the report. His investigation revealed that the colon tumor in question was surgically removed rather than miraculously healed. (See the concluding section, Christianity in Crisis.)

Copeland also claims that “when you get to the place where you take the Word of God and build an image on the inside of you of not having crippled legs and not having blind eyes, but when you close your eyes you just see yourself just leap out of that wheelchair, it will picture that in the Holy of Holies and you will come out of there.”(Copeland, Inner Image of the Covenant, side 2.)

How To Heal

Kenneth Hagin - "The Lord said to me, 'This is the primary way you are to minister, with the healing anointing. However, the healing anointing will not work unless you tell the people exactly what I told you. That is, you tell the people exactly what I told you. Tell them that you saw me. Tell them that I spoke to you. Tell them that I laid the finger of my right hand in the palm of each of your hands.' Then Jesus smiled and added, 'The anointing is not in your feet-I did not tell you to lay your feet on anybody. The anointing is not in your head-I did not tell you to lay your head on anybody. It is in your hands. Tell the people that I told you to tell them that if they belief that-that is, you are anointed-and will receive that anointing, that power will flow from your hands into their bodies, and it will drive out their sickness or their disease, and it will affect a healing and a cure in them' (The Toronto Blessing, Slaying in the Spirit-The Telling Wonder, Nader Mikhaeil, Southwood Press Pty Limited, Australia, pg. 175)

Truth: It is sad to note that Kenneth Hagin teaches that God's power does not work unless YOU do something. Hagin's formula for healing is not found anywhere in God's word. Secondly, when the Apostles healed, they pointed the The Gospel and people believed in Jesus. Here Hagin tells people to believe HIM "Tell them that I spoke to you". A huge statement from God to keep in mind is in Matthew 7:21-23. "..."Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.' True healing lead people to faith in God the Son and not the person performing the miracles.

Healing that doesn't heal?

Kenneth Hagin - "During the great healing revival, evangelists would hold short meetings, and I'd come along behind them with longer meetings. By the time I got there, I often found people who had been healed in those meetings already had lost their healing. That happened in my meetings too..That is why I changed my ministry and did more teaching. Yes, I could advertise my vision, fill up an auditorium, and get many people healed- but they wouldn't keep their healing..." (The Toronto Blessing, Slaying in the Spirit-The Telling Wonder, Nader Mikhaeil, Southwood Press Pty Limited, Australia, pg. 176)

Truth: It is not a healing from God if it fails. Those who were blind but made to see, did not lose their sight. Those who could not walk but made to walk, did not lose their ability to walk. There are ZERO instances in God's Word where a healing that took place, later failed.

Doctrine of Prosperity God wants his people to be prosperous in health, wealth, and status in this life. When one proves their faith to God, he in turn blesses them.

Pursue wealth because Jesus was wealthy

Fred Price says the reason he drives a Rolls Royce is that he is following in Jesus’ steps. (Frederick K. C. Price, Ever Increasing Faith (television program), TBN, 9 December 1990, available from Crenshaw Christian Center, Inglewood, CA (audio tape #CR-A2).). According to John Avanzini, if Jesus was rich, we should be rich as well. Thus, he recasts Christ into a mirror image of himself — complete with designer clothes, a big house, and a wealthy, well-financed advance team.(John Avanzini, “Was Jesus Poor?” Believer’s Voice of Victory, July/August 1991, 6-7; cf. Believer’s Voice of Victory (television program), TBN, 20 January 1991, and Praise the Lord, TBN, 1 August 1989.)

Truth: Jesus did not have designer cloths, a house, or wealth. His earthly possessions amounted to no more than the clothes on His back that were divided up by the soldiers who crucified Him. Christ and His disciples depended entirely on the hospitality of others as they ministered from town to town (Matthew 10:9–10). As Jesus told a would-be follower “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head” (Luke 9:58). Jesus chides the rich and praises the poor. He taught us to “be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). And to not store up for ourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal (Matthew 6:19–21).

Create money

Marilyn Hickey - "What do you need? Start creating it. Start speaking about it. Start speaking it into being. Speak to your billfold. Say, 'You big, thick billfold full of money." Speak to your checkbook. Say, 'You checkbook, you. You've never been so prosperous since I owned you. You're just jammed full of money" (Christianity in Crisis , Hank Hanegraaff, Harvest House, Oregon, pg. 351).

Truth: But Peter said, "I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene-- walk!" (Acts 3:6). Notice the Apostles did not have any money with them. Secondly, notice, they offered the Gospel message instead of praying for money. The Gospel is worth more than all amounts of money. Giving the gospel is worth more than giving money. Worshiping Jesus is worth more than receiving money.

All one needs to do is study what God talks about as Coveting. This reveals the heart of the sin and why people WANT to believe what these teachers teach and WHY they ask for what they do. Jesus says "he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”(Luke 12:15, 23). Paul, (The Holy Spirit) teaches about contentment in this life, another issue to face with these sort of teachings (1 Timothy 6:5-10)

Doctrine of Confession and Prayer Prayer of words bring into existence what is prayed for. By declaring or claiming a want or need, one evokes the power of The Holy Spirit. One must speak positive things into their life but negative confessions bring about negative things in ones life.

“As a born-again believer, you are equipped with the Word. You have the power of God at your disposal. By getting the Word deep into your spirit and speaking it boldly out your mouth, you release spiritual power to change things in the natural circumstances.”(Copeland, The Power of the Tongue, 15.)

Truth: "the power of God at your disposal"? What if you do not use it? Does God's Will still not take place? All those healed by Jesus were not believers initially. The blind guy could not even see Jesus. "You release spiritual power"? What if you do not release it? Does God's Will never work? What if every believer just decided not to pray, does the God of the universe stop being God?

Truth: Besides believing that you are god and idolizing yourself, why pray for a billfold full of money when billions of people world wide need healing and need to hear the gospel? Why not pray for what is most important, like speaking into being the reality that every person on the planet hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ? What comes from the mouth reveals what is in the heart. "But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man." (Matthew 15:18)

Copeland instructs believers to “go to the New Testament, get the words of the covenant that cover the situation that you hope to bring to pass. Build the image of that hope inside of you….Keep the word before your eyes.”(Copeland, The Power of the Tongue, 15.) As examples, he uses an inner picture of an 82-foot yacht that will transform into reality in the Holy of Holies in heaven, along with a “picture [of a Bible] that came right out of me and went into the Holy of Holies,” where it developed into an actual, physical object.

Truth: "build an image" is the correct word choice for idolatry. The idol if which is imagined is of material wealth and gain. Why not "build an image" of saving the souls of the lost and of anything that brings complete focus on God's glory and not personal gain?

Jesus called God a fool (see Luke 11:2)

Fred Price - "When I first get saved, they didn't tell me I could do anything. What they told me to do is whenever I prayed I should say "The will of the Lord be done." Now doesn't that sound humble? It does. Sounds like humility. It's really stupidity. I mean you know, really, we insult God. We really insult our heavenly father. We really insult him without even realizing it. If you have to say, 'If it be thy will' or 'Thy will be done.' If you have to say that, you are calling God a fool.

Truth: Jesus states "'So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:9-10). I guess Jesus is a fool according to Fred Price.

Doctrine of Divine Revelation God speaks directly to individuals through visions, dreams, personal encounters, and feelings. Rationality and logical reasoning are obstacles to true spiritual understanding. There are some spiritual truths that can only be understood when "in the spirit" and outside of rational logical thought. These teachers receive these visions and experiences when they are "in the spirit" or "under anointing".

Anointing from the dead

Benny Hinn also admits to frequenting the graves of both Kathryn Kuhlman and Aimee Semple McPherson to get the “anointing” from their bones.(Benny Hinn, “Double Portion Anointing, Part #3” (Orlando Christian Center, n.d.), audio tape #A031791-3, sides 1 and 2. This sermon was also aired on TBN (7 April 1991).)

Direct Appearances of the Risen Christ in person

Paul Yonggi Cho — pastor of the world’s largest church, located in Seoul, South Korea — claims to have received his call to preach from Jesus Christ Himself, who supposedly appeared to him dressed like a fireman. (Dwight J. Wilson, “Cho, Paul Yonggi,” Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 161.).

Direct Personal Words from God

Cho recently made the news by changing his name from Paul to David. As Cho tells the story, God showed him that Paul Cho had to die and David Cho was to be resurrected in his place. According to Cho, God Himself came up with his new name.(Paul Yonggi Cho interviewed by C. Peter Wagner, “Yonggi Cho Changes His Name,” Charisma & Christian Life, November 1992, 80.).

Personal transports to the actual presence of God himself

Morris Cerullo purports to have first met God at the tender age of eight. Since then his life has been one mind-blowing experience after another: he says he was taught by leading rabbis;(“God’s Faithful, Anointed Servant, Morris Cerullo” (promotional literature, on file).) led out of a Jewish orphanage by two angelic beings; (Cerullo, The Miracle Book, ix; and 7 Point Outreach — World Evangelism and You (pamphlet), 4.) transported to heaven for a face-to-face meeting with God;(Cerullo, The Miracle Book, xi.) and told he would be capable of revealing the future.

Extra Biblical Truth

Benny Hinn has uttered the claim that the Holy Spirit revealed to him that women were originally designed to give birth out of their sides.(Benny Hinn, “Our Position In Christ #5 — An Heir of God” (Orlando, FL: Orlando Christian Center, 1990), audio tape #A031190-5, side 2.).

Time Travel

Hagin claims he was in the middle of a sermon when, suddenly, he was transported back in time. He ended up in the back seat of a car and watched as a young woman from his church committed adultery with the driver. The entire experience lasted about fifteen minutes, after which Hagin abruptly found himself back in church, summoning his parishioners to prayer. (Kenneth E. Hagin, The Glory of God (Tulsa, OK: Kenneth Hagin Ministries, 1987), 13-15.).

Notice that all these claims of visions are completely unverifiable. Secondly, some of these visions contradict what God's Word reveals about those who had visions or were in the presence of God. The Prophet Isaiah had to be purified. He felt completely unworthy and cried out "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5). John The Apostle, in his vision, "fell at his feet as though dead" (Rev. 1:17). Abraham even stated that he felt like nothing more than dust and ashes before God (Gen. 18:27). These Word of Faith teachers have casual entertaining conversations with a being they claim is God. Seeing as how much of their teachings are heresy, it is impossible for them to be in the presence of God himself and live to tell about it. The issue is, in order for them to have their outlandish teachings they must claim something that is outside of scripture and unverifiable. Their followers have no choice but to accept what they teach. These teachers can not condemn each other because if they do so, they contradict themselves. Also, since they quote God or Jesus, that makes their quotations Holy Scripture. According to the claims this must be. When they say "God said ____ to me" it is then God's Word. If not, then they are a liar. Again, their claims must be accepted as truth or they are a horrendous blasphemous liar. Yet, when their teachings, which were revealed to them, do contradict God's actual Word, what then?

Doctrine of The Bible

the Bible “is the wisdom of God placed in covenant contract….Everything in it is mine….You just keep looking at it, and keep reading it, and that covenant will turn you into that kind of person — whatever it is you decide to be.”(Copeland, The Abrahamic Covenant, side 1.)

Truth: The Bible is NOT ABOUT YOU. The entire Bible is about JESUS "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;" (John 5:39). "but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name." (John 20:31). "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life." (1 John 5:13) CONCLUSION It may seem that with all the variety of teachers and teachings that the Word of Faith doctrines are complicated but in fact they are not. They can be summed up like this: God is more like man and man is more like God. Jesus is like God, but not God, yet man can be like Jesus and thus can be like God. Because of this, man can create and speak nothing into something by using their words and projecting their faith force. This is revealed because of a handful of people claimed to have visions and experiences with whom they perceived to be God. In a simple nutshell: Man can be God and use godlike powers to be happy, wealthy, and healthy in this world. This is not a complete summation of all that the collective Word of Faith teachers claim, but enough to see that they are false prophets who are leading MANY astray. But any honest and genuine believer who tests what they are told (1 John 4:1) against God's divine Holy Word can easily see how they are false prophets who deceive for material gain and status power. Heads up from The Holy Spirit: But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. (2 Timothy 3:1-5) Also read The Errors of The Modern Prosperity Gospel and Health, Wealth, Happiness, and Prosperity Teaching If you have any questions or comments about this article please contact us or join our discussion forms

from Blogger http://ift.tt/2jNccYp

#Blogger

0 notes

dmmowers · 8 years ago

Text

Mary! Rabbouni!

Mary! Rabbouni! A sermon for St. John's Episcopal Church, Portage, Wis. and Trinity Episcopal Church, Baraboo, Wis. EASTER DAY | April 16, 2017 | Year A Jeremiah 31:1-6 | Psalm 118:1-2 | Acts 10:34-43 | John 20:1-18 On February 15, I went to Target. This was when we still lived in Minnesota, which seems like a long time ago now, but was really only a little more than a month ago. On February 15, I went to the dairy section in the back of Target to get some groceries. The dairy section is right next to the seasonal section, which, until recently, had been occupied by all sorts of Valentine's Day merchandise. But on February 15, all of the hearts and candies were demoted, relegated to the back wall: the clearance section. What had occupied the seasonal section? Easter goodies. Most notably: Peeps. You know, the marshmallow birds in neon colors.Now, some of you might be worried. "Oh, here we go. Easter Sunday and the preacher is going to go off about all the fun Easter baskets and say that we're supposed to be serious, that Easter is not supposed to be commercialized and trivialized, and say that we're not supposed to be having fun."So for all of you who think I hate Peeps and all commercialization of Easter, please know that I am a champion Peep Jouster.

My only brother is about five years younger than me. Because of our age difference growing up, let's just say that sometimes I could talk him into things that just might get him into a small bit of trouble. Just a little trouble. He might tell this story differently. But one Easter, he and I both got Peeps in our Easter baskets.This particular year, I had heard from friends that you could joust Peeps. It turns out that if you take two Peeps, and you put a toothpick in each of the Peeps, and then you put the Peeps in the microwave, the Peeps will joust. One of them will end up poking the other, and if they don't explode, they'll just go completely liquid. The winner is the last Peep left standing, the last Peep to not be a puddle of liquid on the plate.So I convinced my brother to joust two peeps, and then we said, how about a Peep Jousting tournament? So we jousted a bunch more peeps. I don't quite remember what sent my mom over the edge: the burnt sugar smell that slowly filled the house, the cackling boys crowding into a tiny kitchen around the microwave, or a peep exploding all over the walls of the microwave. All I know is that after that one year, we were banned from Peep Jousting. I won the inaugural Peep Jousting tournament, and there was never another one. So I'm still the champion.

For all of us over age 12 or so this morning, we're past celebrating Easter because of Peeps and great gifts in Easter baskets. But many of us who think of Easter as a holiday to be with family, the special moments we have in shopping for our kids' Easter baskets, for the beauty of the Wisconsin spring and the rebirth of mother nature after a long, cold winter. For many people, Easter is about spring, renewal, rebirth, spending time with family and grilling out.

Our gospel reading this morning suggests a different reason for our marking Easter. Early in the morning, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb where Jesus was buried, and finds it empty. Thinking that someone had taken Jesus' body, she ran to get Simon Peter and the beloved disciple, probably John, and they run to the tomb. They see the linen wrappings that had been used on Jesus' body lying there, but Jesus is nowhere to be found. Even though the story tells us that the beloved disciple believed, he and Peter go away, and Mary is left crying at the tomb.

As she stood there weeping, she looks into the tomb, and there are two angels there. They gently ask her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She says, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." She turns around, and sees a naked man. The story doesn't exactly say that he's naked, but it seems a safe assumption. Instead of being shocked at the appearance of a naked man, she thinks he's the gardener. He says, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" She replies, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Then the man says to her, "Mary," and she replies, "Rabbouni". She embraces him, and then he tell her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and tell my brothers that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

Why does Jesus tell Mary not to hold onto him? Is it because he is a ghost or a hallucination? Is something wrong with his post-resurrection body? Did any of this conversation outside of the tomb actually happen anyway, and if it did, what difference does that make?

II.

People do not generally rise from the dead, and yet the church proclaims on Easter Day that Jesus Christ has risen again. Some people think that this resurrection is a nice myth, a fairy tale that weak people tell themselves to make them feel better about life. Colleagues in ordained ministry have told me stories of greeting people at the back door of their churches on Easter Sunday morning and being told, "Father, nice sermon." Then the person leans in and says quietly, "But you don't actually believe any of that resurrection business, do you? I mean, you're a smart person: you don't really believe any of this stuff, do you?" I know other clergy, both in the Episcopal Church and outside it, who have decided that they do not believe that Jesus could actually have risen again, but they like being pastors, so they redefine what resurrection means: they say that what the New Testament actually meant was that the first followers of Jesus had a spiritual experience, not that Jesus Christ actually, bodily rose from the dead. You don’t know me all that well yet, but you may already know that I think those approaches are exactly wrong. If Jesus Christ didn’t actually, bodily rise from the dead, I think we’re wasting our time.

Our American Christian culture has not helped this problem. Many of you are familiar with the old hymn, "He Lives", which I grew up singing as boy in our Methodist Church. "You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart." But this doesn't help us at all with the question of why Jesus' tomb was empty on that Sunday morning. Our faith in Christ is not based on how our feelings; it's not based on whether we are currently experiencing his closeness in our heart. It is based on the radical claim that the tomb was empty on that first Easter morning. He doesn't just live within our hearts, Jesus lives as the one who has ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the one who is the Lord of the Universe.

And yet, there are numerous reasons reasons why the resurrection is so hard for many people to believe. It's impossible to prove. The gospels don't give us eyewitness accounts of the Resurrection - they simply agree that the tomb was empty.

III.

But we believe in the good news, the stunning news, the unprecedented news, that Jesus Christ, having been crucified, rose again from the dead on that first Easter Day, and in so doing, conquered death, conquered hell, conquered that human tendency we have to break things. The first person to realize this may have been the disciple Jesus loved, but he doesn't say anything in our story this morning, so it's hard to be sure.

The first person we can be sure knows and believes that Jesus has risen again is Mary Magdalene. A woman has become the apostle to apostles. Mary is alone in a garden, weeping, and when she turns around and sees a naked man, she thinks he is the gardener, but then when she hears him call her name, “Mary!” Her heart leaps and she responds, “Rabbouni”. She has walked into the Central Moment of all Human History, the moment in which the Messiah of Israel has been raised by God from the dead, has conquered death through his own death, giving to all of his people the hope that we will one day be raised again like he was.

Does this sound at all like any other Bible story to you? The author of John's gospel constantly recalls the book of Genesis, and here he gives us the new Garden of Eden. In the old garden, Adam and Eve were put into the garden to care for it: they were to be the gardeners. But the serpent spoke to Eve, and she gave the fruit of the tree to her husband, and through them sin entered the world. Adam and Eve realized they were naked and they were ashamed. In this new Garden of Eden, Mary is alone, weeping, and sees a naked man. Instead of commenting on this, and being ashamed, Mary thinks that Jesus is the gardener. This imagery is meant to make us think of the Garden of Eden, and it shows us that in Jesus - in that lovely exchange between Mary and Jesus, "Mary!" "Rabbouni!" The world has been made new. Jesus, the new Adam, has come into the world to tend it and care for it, just as the old Adam was meant to do.

She embraces him, his real body. He is not a ghost. He is not a hallucination. Jesus' talking is not just an experience within Mary's heart, but it is his actual, physical body speaking to him. He allows her to hug him, because that is the human thing to do. Finally, he tells her, "Don't just stand here and hold on to me. Go and tell my brothers that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." When Jesus calls Mary's name, she recognizes him, and embraces him. After she embraces him, Jesus tells her to go and tell my brothers what has happened, and what is about to happen. After she recognizes Jesus and embraces him, Jesus gives her a mission.

IV.

If today is like any other Easter Sunday I've ever known, there are people here who are all over the board on why we're in church this morning. Your mother dragged some of you, and the memory of your mother dragged some others. Some of you were baptized long ago and have been at this church a very long time; others of you are here for the first time today. For a lot of us, what this day means is grilling and time with family and springtime and Peep Jousting, and we don’t reflect much on what the news of Jesus’ resurrection means for us. But regardless of what brought us here or where we are, I want to tell you that Jesus is calling for you. The question for each of us is the central question of our lives: do we recognize this Jesus as the Lord, risen from death, as the one who put himself on the line for us at the cross? Just as Jesus loved Mary, Jesus has now ascended to the Father and knows and loves each of us.

For more than two thousand years, this event has changed lives. This event changed the course of history. For myself, knowing that the risen Jesus was calling me changed the course of my life. I didn't have to prove myself in order to be loved; in Jesus, God showed his love for me completely apart from my own actions and my own achievements.

But we church people can get caught up in Churchianity sometimes. We can come to church here and there, or even, sometimes, every Sunday, and think that because we go to church or because we got out to church on Easter we can cross Jesus off our to-do list. Church is important; you can't follow Jesus without the church. But our faith begins not by our trying to appease God by going to church. It starts by our hearing the voice of the risen Jesus calling us, and our responding by being baptized. For those of us who were baptized long ago, our faith starts by living out the promises made at our baptism to love and serve the Lord Jesus. If you haven't made a commitment to following Jesus, to answering his call, or if you've been away from faith in Jesus for a long time, I invite you this morning in the silence of your own heart to answer Jesus' call to you.Just like Mary Magdalene, those of us who embrace Jesus are given a mission to tell people what has happened and what is about to happen: the Lord Jesus, crucified, dead and buried, was raised from the dead on the third day, and will return again: to raise all of the Lord's people from the dead on the last day, and to make our creation new, just as he and Mary walked in a new Garden of Eden, where death will be no more. If Christ calls to any of us, there is a new creation: the old order of things has gone away, and the new creation is here! (II Cor 5:12 para). Thanks be to God.

0 notes