I n recent years, the London Men’s Convention has become one of the highlights of the year for “conservative evangelicals” in the UK. I’ve been attending the event ever since its inception in 2002, though over that time I’ve moved from being a conservative evangelical Anglican to being a Lutheran (or “Augsburg Evangelical”, if you like).
This year’s Convention was on the subject of “Biblical Answers to Tough Questions”, and the highlight of the day was a brilliant address by Dr. John Stott on “The Uniqueness of Christ”. However, a range of other “tough questions” were covered in the main talks and in various seminars: “Can’t you make the Bible say whatever you like?”, “How can a God of love allow so much suffering?”, “Why is Christianity so hung up about sex?”, and so on.
The standard of talks was very high, but the overall approach illustrated the difference between the Lutheran approach to Scripture and that taken by other evangelical Christians of a more “Reformed” or “conservative evangelical” bent.
This was especially the case with questions such as, “Isn’t Christianity restrictive?” and “Why can't God accept us as we are?” The first of these questions was tackled in one of the main talks, in which Dr. Liam Goligher described how Christianity is not, in fact, restrictive, but rather it is liberating (his text being, “If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed”). The second question was covered in one of the afternoon seminars, and focussed on the need for Christians to speak more about the Law and the judgment of God. The following advice from John Wesley to a young preacher was quoted with approval: “I suggest preaching nine-tenths law and one-tenth grace”.
While these two sessions took very different approaches, what each talk presented us with was a single answer from Scripture. This was characteristic of all the talks, and is indeed characteristic of conservative evangelicalism generally: a high regard for what “the Word” has to say in any situation, but a tendency to interpret the Bible as a single, undifferentiated Word, with a single message to that situation.
A contrasting approach can be found in Robert Kolb’s book Speaking the Gospel Today. In the introduction to this book, Kolb describes some of the questions that people may confront us with as we seek to reach them with the Gospel, many of which are similar to those addressed at the London Men’s Convention: “Do I have to be in church every Sunday?”; “Can you be a Christian and have an abortion?”; “Can you give me a ticket to set me free from my guilt and shame?”. Kolb writes:
Whatever the question and however it is phrased, the initial Christian reaction must always be the same: Why do you want to know?
Christian conversation can only begin when we know why the other person is asking this question. As Kolb continues:
Human creatures formulate their questions about life from one or the other of two stances: from a stance of security, based on a sufficiently firm trust in someone or something to enable them to get along without recourse to trust in their Creator; or from a stance of brokenness, perhaps even despair, in which the old bases for decision-making have been so challenged and shaken that they are no longer viable.
We must always aim “to know the agenda behind people’s questions”, to ask: Why do you want to know?
Take the question, “Why can’t God accept us as we are?”. Asked from a “stance of security”, the question becomes defensive, almost aggressive: “How dare God suggest that I need to change before I can be acceptable to Him?” By contrast, asked from a “stance of brokenness”, this question takes on a very different nature: “How can someone like me ever be accepted by God? I could never do enough to earn His favour!”
The seminar on this question took it for granted that it was being asked from a stance of security, and that the answer was to set out the demands of God’s Law and the reality of coming judgment to convince the questioner that God does indeed make demands of us, that He requires us to be holy as He is holy. As our Lord Jesus Christ told us, being “good enough” isn’t good enough: we are to “be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
This is indeed true, but it is not the only answer given in God’s Word. It is the answer given to those who ask it from a stance of security, but it is emphatically not the answer given to those who ask it from a stance of brokenness. For these people, the answer to the question “Why can’t God accept us as we are?” is, “Good news! He can, and He does, because Christ died for your sins.”
By contrast, the question “Is Christianity restrictive?” was answered as if it could only be asked by those who were, if not in a state of brokenness, then at least concerned that embracing Christianity would involve a dehumanising rejection of legitimate freedoms and desires. The answer to those people is indeed that “If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed”.
However, that is not God’s only answer to this question. To those who ask it from a different perspective, from a stance of security, God’s Word gives a very different answer: “You resent Christianity because you think it calls on you to put aside your pet sins. But it’s even worse than you think: Christianity isn’t here to restrict you; it’s here to kill you, to crucify you with Christ, to drown your old Adam in the waters of Baptism day after day after day. Not just your favourite sins, but your whole sinful nature must be put aside in true repentance.”
What this is all about, of course, is the proper distinction of Law and Gospel. Kolb’s achievement is to put this familiar theological principle in a fresh way that highlights its essentially pastoral nature. The distinction between Law and Gospel is not about how we deal with God’s Word in the abstract, but about how we proclaim God’s twofold Word in practice to real people who have different needs at different times and in different areas of their lives: either to have their false security exposed and destroyed by the Law, or to have their brokenness healed by the Gospel.
Dr. Ronald Feuerhahn argues that the distinction between Law and Gospel is one of the features that makes the Lutheran Reformation unique, despite the fact that Reformed Christians would also frequently claim to observe the same distinction. While Calvin, like Luther, taught the distinction between Law and Gospel, he argued that they were both the Word of God and were therefore to be put on an equal footing. Luther agreed that Law and Gospel were both the Word of God. However, the Law is God’s alien Word – what God doesn’t want to say, but has to because of our sin – while the Gospel is God’s proper Word.
Many of the answers given in the Royal Albert Hall last Saturday were very good answers: but only if given to the right people at the right time.
When we are confronted by people’s questions, one way or another (and simply asking “straight out” may not always be the best approach) we must secure an answer to the preliminary question, “Why do you want to know?”. We cannot simply weigh in with the single answer of a single and undifferentiated Word of God: we must rightly divide the Word of God, challenging the secure and bringing comfort to the broken.
Notes
Robert Kolb, Speaking the Gospel Today (Concordia Publishing House, 1995), p.10
Dr. Ronald Feuerhahn, "The Uniqueness of the Lutheran Reformation" (unpublished lecture, 13th May 2004, at Christ Lutheran Church, Petts Wood: Click here for a summary.)
We might say that the problem was not with how the speakers interpreted their texts, but with the selection of those texts, and in particular the decision in each case to select texts which only addressed one of the two stances we have been discussing. Any particular text is unlikely to be addressing both stances at once, so in order to do justice to a particular topic or an individual text – and, more importantly, in order to minister effectively to the person to whom we are speaking – we need to understand which texts are addressing which stance, and in what way.