Enlightenment,Renaissance, Reformation,Charles finney

I keep pulling the feathers off of this chicken and underneath I keep finding more chicken. This is longer, as I was thinking about it all over Colorado…some observations from recent history and its connections to us today and a suggestion on being relevant in our world today.

Do we have a view of Christianity that is closer to Obama’s walk of personal discovery than compared to the historical record of our fore fathers? It does seem that over time Christianity has become like some interpretive trail that each believer is encouraged to find for themselves. The focus shifted from God and what his word says about Him, His creation and how we should see ourselves in it, to one of, what does the word say about how much God loves us.

During the “dark ages” Gods revealed law was higher than popes and even Kings, all had to submit to Gods Law. Never before had monarchs or rulers seen themselves as under a higher authority, for the first time their every whim and wish was not absolute law. (other than early Israel) This was an out growth of the good news of the gospel.

But with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Adam and Eve’s example from the garden, of being in judgment over what God has said, re-asserted itself in the form of Greek thinking.

With the Enlightenment and Renaissance, reason became the key to truth. Not Gods word. This is why liberals always swoon over these time periods and never cease to heap praise on those who push this mindset.

Otto Scott has said that if you don’t tell people what you are doing you can go a lot farther, as compared to if you come out and really say what you are doing. Try and find a school book on history that says the enlightenment and the renaissance were about casting off any restraints from God.

“ Scholasticism now asserted the sovereignty of reason, the sovereignty of the university over church and state, the modern idea of academic freedom…freedom of the school from any responsibility to God and man.” (Rushdoony’s Institutes)

The divine right of Kings and what the pope said became higher than Gods word.

“…as sovereignty began to be asserted on all sides, by the people, church, state, universities, the authority of law began to recede…”(Rushdoony’s Institutes)

Up to this time it was agreed by all that law was from God, based on his revealed word.

Peter Abelard, a church leader, in about the 1200’s really helped to get the ball rolling. He said …” a doctrine is not to be believed because God has said it, but because we are convinced by reason that it is so…” Today we are at the place where we have entire sections of the bible that are just ignored because we have reasoned that they don’t apply to us anymore.

In contrast to this, the reformers, by use of the bible, saw no area of life that was not called to be subject to Christ in the 1500-1600’s. “ …the commandments all have their origin in God, who as the sovereign lord, issues the law to govern his realm…” (Rushdoonys institutes, my emphasis)

But as I found out while reading Charles Finneys autobiography last week, during the second awakening ,1800’s, just getting people converted, to have them see their need for Christ, was what Finney would call, advancing the Kingdom of God. There was no discipleship. I’m up to about page 80 and I still don’t what to think about him. He did declare Gods holiness and a wrath that can be expected by those separated from God. But no instruction on what, to turn too, wholesome goodness? Today by and large the church still is unable to point his people towards where they should go. As a bonus we gave up Gods holiness and his wrath to come, the need to repent. Its what happens when the New Testament floats away from the foundation of the Old Testament. When the book of the law is lost.

If Gods law is dismissed than all is up for grabs, who has the best argument? Never mind arguments, how do you… feel about it? We all become Popes in our own right and woe to the pastor who feels compelled to speak Gods truth to us. The legalist.

Here is relevance. God and his word is the one unchanging constant for all peoples in any age. Line up with Gods word, and be ready in love, to speak what God has said to any situation. As His witness you will be relevant, but you might not be popular,. (2chron 18:7And Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not still a prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of Him?” 8So the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is still one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord; but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.”[1] ) Even believers upon hearing the law of God applied to their situation might consider it evil! God calls all of us to give up our autonomy. Gods truth from his word is the relevant factor/factors in any/every situation.

2 chron 16:9“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him….