Know Your Family Tree: Turning Points in Church History

Well, last week I had a similar handout introducing you to three columns.

The first column was the early church, that period that discussed the doctrine of the Trinity in particular,

and their kind of summary phrase,

under the relations written down in the phrase,

Christ with us.

In the Reformation period, they assumed all the insights that had emerged in the early church,

but their questions were much more focused on what is grace and therefore what is the church for.

So if the earliest period of the church summarised its struggles, its thinking with the phrase,

Christ with us, then the Reformation period can summarise its debates,

Christ for us, or Christ instead of us, Christ for our life.

But after a couple hundred years of Protestantism,

people realised that believing in justification by grace to the faith

probably wasn't enough to establish a lively faith, a closed walk of the Lord.

So these Christians of the 18th century, we might call them Gentiles,

and so I said, yes, of course Christ with us, of course Christ for us,

but we must not forget Christ in us.

And they talked up the role of the Spirit,

especially in adorning the world that was newly recreated under enlightened conditions.

I think that the summary is really useful as a code map

on which we can further details in the new ones.

Today we're doing much the same thing.

We're not thinking about three turning points as much as we can,

three cultural moments that have shaped that final column from last week.

So these three cultural moments that have shaped the movement,

you might summarise as the Enlightenment,

something that you've never done instead,

it's the same thing.

The cultural movement called Romanticism,

and the cultural movement called Modernism,

perhaps post-Modernism.

Please note, just in those circles,

I'm going to pay.

Student in modernity and modernism are different.

We all like being very modern,

and we keep trying to find new ways of using the word modern to describe that.

But these three moments

are more like soundtracks from the culture

rather than decisions that Christians have made

to reform or renew their church.

Just imagine this.

You see on a video

a man and woman, arm in arm,

walking down a street at night in Paris,

and the background music are violins.

You know that they've just had a good meal together,

they love each other,

they're comfortable with each other,

and they're going home together.

But if that same visual scene were played,

not with violins in the background,

but screechy, screechy cellos,

you'd know that walking down this dark street at night,

they're about to get mugged.

The music is warning you

that something is going to happen any minute now

that you have to be aware of, right?

The very same visual

can mean something different

according to the soundtrack,

the music that's played in the background.

Evangelicals, these people from the 18th century,

who wanted to work out

how to have a close walk with the Lord

under modern conditions,

have had to stare down a few cultural shifts.

Background music that actually shaped them

more than probably they wanted to be shaped,

or shaped us

more than actually we probably wanted to be shaped.

These background soundtracks are

Enlightenment, Romances, and Modernism.

Now, of these three,

the first two have been well documented.

The third is not so well documented,

and it's something that I've been working on

for the last couple of years.

So what did the Enlightenment do

to Christians

who were wanting a close walk with the Lord,

an experience of the Lord in their heart?

Well, the Enlightenment

talked up human rationality,

human sense perception,

human experience, if you will,

perhaps summarised

with a focus on the mind.

Its characteristic was to help

human beings throw off

external authority,

and especially throw off the church,

which represented forces

that were keeping people back.

So that humans could trust themselves,

trust their own experience,

and trust their own reasoning power, perhaps.

It wasn't necessarily anti-Christian,

but it could be very anti-Christian.

Human beings were trying to develop

their own autonomy.

There's some good things about that.

I'm not just going to obey

because someone's always not going to.

I have to keep this through.

I have to use my own common sense,

my own consensus,

my own rationality,

to work out whether that person's trustworthy,

whether I should go with them or not.

It's not all bad,

but it certainly did impact

evangelical Christians.

Because if they were already saying,

we need to talk about Christ in us,

then the culture was reinforcing

the individual.

Now, those first evangelical Christians

who said,

we need to talk about Christ in us,

of course,

were conservative Protestants.

They were anchored to the Reformation.

They were anchored to Greece

in the early 20s.

Remember that.

But the culture started pushing them further

from those big historical roots.

If you will,

often the image is provided of the machine

to summarise what the Enlightenment was about.

It's self-contained,

well, probably needs a power source,

but self-contained,

regular,

predictable,

mechanical,

of course,

that's what defines a machine.

Powered under its own steam,

if you will,

the result of human engineering.

Now,

the representatives of this movement,

some of them are familiar to us,

Jonathan Edwards,

or John Wesley,

in England,

or in Britain,

Sarah Osmond,

in Newport, Rhode Island.

These are great evangelical representatives.

These were people who talked about

not only Christ in us,

but were trying to engage

with the Enlightenment around them

and make this new mode

of being a conservative process

more acceptable,

more engaging,

with the world

that they were facing.

John Wesley Neville

always carried with him

a briefcase

with different kinds of tea,

tea leaves,

because he saw himself

as a physician

and he would prescribe

teas to people

to cure them

as he travelled to the church.

He kind of had this

Enlightenment,

rationalistic,

scientific thinking

that tea's got the answer

to all your problems.

John Edwards as well

was very deliberate

in trying to work out

what the world

was talking about,

light,

the Enlightenment,

but he knew that

the Lord provided light

in his word.

God provides

supernatural light

as it were.

And he would deliberately

riff off that,

deliberately

take the debates

that the world

was engaging in

and use them

for his own preaching

for revival purposes.

In fact,

the revivals themselves

are,

if you will,

using the technical language,

an artifact

of modernity.

Luther never preached

on the streets,

in the fields.

That was something

that was simply modern.

The revivals themselves

were in part

the creation

of a new kind of culture.

So the issues

that Christians

are available

or the world

are available

in this period

was how,

what autonomy

looks like,

what does it mean

for individuals

to be autonomous?

This is a world

in which revolution

threatened Europe

and North America.

This is a period

when industry

using big machines

developed,

which is also

quite threatening.

Although at this stage,

industry is largely

not in cities,

but in rural locations.

Because you need

rivers to power

factories and stuff.

some of the names

that,

not Christian names

by the way,

but some of the names

that you might

associate with this period

is Emmanuel Cart

the general philosopher,

Voltaire,

the French philosopher,

or Thomas Paine

in the early months.

Some of the outcomes

of this new

cultural movement

were, of course,

revivals themselves,

but also

the Methodist church.

was born

in this period

and the Methodist church

in various forms

is still with us.

But also

in this period

the modern missions movement

was born.

The Enlightenment

enabled

mass movement

of people.

It meant that

ships could cross

the North of Maine,

not just the North of Maine,

travelling there really,

quickly

upon the power

of modern machines.

so that if you

wanted to go to

Burma,

if you wanted to

travel to Australia,

you could in

really

So that's the first

cultural soundtrack

that's playing

at the same time

that Christians

are thinking about

what it means

to revive the church,

what it means

for us to have

a close walk

with the Lord,

what it means

for us

to celebrate

the work of the Spirit

in our life

or in the world

around us.

Let me pause

and hear if you have

any questions

or concerns.

questions.

Well,

yeah,

where was the

Roman Catholic Church

at this time,

kind of in that

late 1600s

to early 1700s?

Was there a lot

of upheaval

or were they just

struggling to kind of

hang on to power

with a little bit

of everything?

Yes,

a little bit

of everything

because when you

say the Roman Catholic

Church,

you mean the Roman

Catholic Church

in South America

or in Italy

or in,

you know,

they'd already

reached out

and gone to

their different

destinations.

The Roman Catholics

were ahead of

Protestants

in terms of

global mission.

Protestants

were right behind

on this floor.

Sure.

The Roman Catholics

weren't classically

liking the revolutions

that were taking

place,

so they'd become

quite reactionary

and tried to

address that

question.

I think this column,

the first one,

is probably the most

familiar,

actually.

The second column,

much less so.

romanticism doesn't

mean how to fall

in love or read

a good novel.

Romanticism is a

cultural moment,

a cultural thing,

which is in reaction

to the Enlightenment.

if the Enlightenment

stressed rationality

and your sense

perception,

romanticism has

stressed emotion

or intuition,

deep connections,

perhaps crudely put,

when it's trying to

highlight the heart.

this was a moment

that saw the

shortcomings

of enlightenment

and tried to

compensate,

perhaps overreact.

the deepest

yearning

amongst

those

promoting

romanticism

was a yearning

for integration.

And seeing that

the Enlightenment

had pulled

people apart,

your mind

was kind of

a different part

of you from your

body or your

soul in

Enlightenment.

Men were

regarded as being

more rational,

therefore men and

women were being

called apart in

the Enlightenment

as well.

Romanticism has

this yearning to

put things,

as it were,

back together

or to integrate,

to see the

connections

between all

that we experience.

And if you will,

the image that

best captures

the romantic

moment is the

tree,

not the machine.

The tree,

the tree is

organic,

organic,

the tree

looks different,

the very same

species planted

there and

planted here,

grows its

limbs in

different places,

it responds to

its environment

and bends in

this direction

and bends in

that direction.

The tree is

earthed,

the tree is

one with its

environment,

the tree

captures something

of what the

romantics

were trying

to highlight.

Now,

the romantics

was not a

Christian movement,

right?

This was something

that's happening

around the church

in the culture

generally,

but it did

impact Christians.

And some of the

people you

might know

who most were

impacted by

this movement

were Charles

Spurgeon or

Dwight Mooney

or Phoebe Palmer,

a New York

doctor's wife

who left

Bible studies

for them

in her

parlour.

Now,

you wouldn't

say that Spurgeon

or Mooney

or Palmer

were driving

pro-applicism

far from it,

but they just

kind of got a

sense that their

culture was changing

and so their

ministry style

needs to change

or their

prioritising of

energy,

money,

had to change.

Charles Spurgeon,

for example,

Bolly,

that churches

should be

comfortable.

Right?

Previously,

you might have

sat on a

wooden bench.

There might

or might not

have been

something to

lend your back

on.

In fact,

it was only

in the modern

world that

chairs were

invented at

all the church.

Traditionally,

you stood in

church,

right?

That was only

really,

really wealthy

churches could

afford chairs.

So having

chairs,

not only having

chairs,

but Spurgeon

having added

chairs?

Some chairs

still don't

like that.

He was a

mega church

pastor.

He had

10,000 people

in his church

on Sundays.

He designed

a building

that visually

was beautiful.

And something

important that

happened in

Anglican churches

or in other

kinds as well

was that

previously,

there had

been two

side aisles

when you

went to a

church.

One side

aisle took

your eye

to the

pulpit,

and the

other side

aisle took

your eye

to the

lectern

where the

Bible is

read.

But in

the Romantic

period,

architecture

changed,

and it

was decided

to get rid

of side

aisles and

to have a

centre aisle

that was

focused on

the communion

table.

Can you see

that's a

very subtle

architectural

change?

No longer

would the

focus in

church be

what you

hear,

the Bible

read or

the Bible

preached,

but now

the focus

on the

church in

the centre

aisle would

be the

table where

the elements

were,

the bread

and wine

were.

Of course,

brides ever

since have

been thankful

because a

centre aisle

is just

perfect for

a long

time of

a living

service.

But that

wasn't

originally,

my church

at home

is two

side

aisles

and people

would want

to book

it because

it's a

very 260

years old

people want

to book

it to have

their

meetings

and so

on from

the

community.

They come

and go,

oh my goodness,

oh he can't

have it,

he can't.

You've got to

have a centre

of the way.

This is the

period when

Christians had

this crazy

thought,

why don't

we cut

some flowers

and bring

them into

the sanctuary?

No one

ever before

had imagined

that you'd

have flowers

in church?

What a dumb

idea.

Flowers

outside,

right?

They're

growing

gardens.

Christians

don't think,

you know what,

why don't we

bring nature

into church?

We saw

of course

have windows

that were

stained glass

so we couldn't

actually see

the trees

that were

around the

door.

That aside,

we had

decided to

bring

cut flowers

into church.

Crazy.

the issues

for Christians

or the

gender

culture

of

Christians

as well

as

how

therefore

do we

create

unity?

Because the

romantic movement

is trying

to integrate.

And this

was a period

in which the

Evangelical

Alliance

was founded.

It was also

a period

when cultures

became increasingly

nationalistic

because

romanticism

spoke about

the importance

of the local

not the importance

of the universal.

And the local

was I'm a German

or I'm a German

or I'm a Pole.

Let's think

about how

our own

local culture

how we work

together

all together.

And it was

a period

in which people

were reacting

to science.

science

was both

answering

the impressions

but was also

creating

enormous

problems too.

Some of the

leaders of this

movement

you might have

heard their names

are

Jean-Charles Rousseau

the French

essayist

William Wordsworth

the English

poet

or

Richard Wagner

the German

composer.

Perhaps

you could put

Beethoven

on that list

as well.

Beethoven's

music

is

stormy

Beethoven's

music

involves

big orchestras

big sounds

this was a

perfect

way of capturing

what romanticism

is about.

And one of the

outcomes

I've given you

a couple of

tiny outcomes

that I was in

church

centre aisle

they want

a comfortable

seating

for example

these are all

kind of trivial

actually.

One of the

the more

significant

outcomes

was

the pursuit

of holiness

and the

establishment

or the

intervention

of holiness

churches.

You wanted

to be one

with your

world

that was

fair enough

right?

You wanted

to be integrated

and for your

experience

not to be

chopped up.

However

how are

Christians

going to

stand apart

from the

world

at the

same time

that they

were trying

to find

integration

within the

world?

And they

used the

categories of

holiness

and holiness

churches

to do that.

It's a

uniquely

mid-19th

century thing.

We did

have them

in Australia

but they

hardly exist

anymore

in Australia

but they

do I

think to

a more

significant

degree

in the

US.

This was

a time

when

Christians

started

valuing

nature

more

and often

therefore

decided

to organise

conferences

Bible

conferences

either

near the

beach

or in

the

mountains.

You might

know

I don't

know

locally

the

equivalent

camp

sites

that

you might

head to.

I think

there's a

place in

New Jersey

called

Ocean Grove

where the

Methodists

who headed

down to

their

summer

conferences

and so

we've

got them

all over

Australia

loads.

In fact

there's a

town in

Victoria

where I'm

from

called

Ocean Grove

some

American

missionaries

from Ocean

Grove

in New

Jersey

decided

that we

had to

have

an

equivalent

Ocean

Grove

in

Melbourne

and so

they

came and

bought

the land

and they

said

it was

a big

conference

centre

and so

on.

It lasted

not real

long

but it's

still

interesting

that the

churches

in town

own most

of the

public

spaces.

Of course

Moody

began his

conference

ministry

in Northfield,

Massachusetts.

where you

could be

close to

the

Lord,

it was

argued

if you

were in

nature

than if

you were

in the

city.

Which

theologically

is of

course

completely

done.

I kind

of get

the

impulse

impulse

that somehow

withdrawing

from your

work of

that world

and walking

praying as

you walk

through the

trees or

as you

sit on

the beach

perhaps

perhaps

can be a

different way

of configuring

what it means

that you have

a personal

place to walk

with the

Lord.

Let me

pause then

and hear

if you have

any

questions.

Yes,

I have a

comment about

your nature.

It's true that

theologically it

doesn't make

any difference

but I think

that the idea

for me anyway

is when you're

in nature

you're looking

around and

seeing all

the stuff

that God

created.

Whereas

we're sitting

right here

we're looking

and we're

seeing buildings

that man

has built.

Yes,

yes,

yes.

So let's

see this.

Yeah,

sure.

Yeah,

yeah.

Yeah,

of course

that's right.

Yes,

sir.

I wonder

if there's

a similar

sense

of motivation

as monasticism

in earlier

periods

of the

church

withdrawing

from

temptation

of sinful

others

and isolating

oneself

to one

who

is

biblical

God.

Yeah,

I think

that's

what we

try.

Yeah.

I think

that's

exactly

right.

There'd

been a

longest

period

in

churches

where

there

hadn't

been the

case.

Something

new was

provoked

in the

19th

century

that gave

them this

trigger

to withdraw

because it

hadn't been

the case.

Well,

100 years

before that

everyone was

living in the

country.

So you

can only

have a

withdrawal to

the country

when there's

need to

withdraw

from.

What are

all these

churches?

Oh,

okay,

I thought

everyone

gave us

the wrong

one.

But that

is

a good

question.

Yes,

so that's

a good

question.

They often

have the

language of

higher,

higher life

in their

label.

Now,

I think

the

Camberlite

churches

or the

Disciples

of Christ

are both

Holman's

church

movements

in the

US.

Nazarenes.

The

Nazarenes,

thank you.

Yes,

they don't

exist in

Australia.

Correct,

yep.

The

Salvation

Army is

a

Mormon's

church.

And the

Holy Church

in the US

grew strongly

after the

Civil War

where the

Civil War

divided.

Holiness

churches

tried to

talk up

our

unity and

holiness

with

whatever

your

politics,

whatever

your

life.

Thank you.

I can't

assume too

much.

It wasn't

a very

good

ordinance.

Yes,

sir?

So,

as the

Romantic

period was

beginning to

wane,

it seems

the

rationalists

that last

laughed when

Darwin published

his book in

1859.

Then,

because that

is purely a

book of the

mind,

book of

I might

qualify that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm most

willing to

hear that

qualification.

But it

seems to me

that that

then provides

the underpinning

for how

shall we

regard

the now

burgeoning

industrial

revolution

from the

mid-19th

century

on.

how

shall

we

regard

that

with

regard

to

culture

and

humanity

and

the

environment

and so

forth.

Well,

it's man

in Darwinism,

it's man

against the

environment.

It's man

against all

that would

come against

the mind.

Yes and

no.

So,

Darwin,

I don't

have to

drink this,

evolution.

Stresses

natural,

slow,

organic

processes.

So,

in lots

of ways,

Darwin

was the

result or

sat comfortably

within the

romantic

movement because

he's doing

the opposite

of seeing

nature as

a machine.

He's

speaking about

the slow,

minuscule

change of

over

kind of

resumption

over the

years.

So,

his

worldview

sat

comfortably

within the

romantic

movement.

Now,

of course,

he was

writing a

book,

so it

appeals to

the

mind,

of course,

right?

He's not

anti-rational,

but his

observations

on how

it works,

whether you

agree with

it or not,

were

observations

which

described

slow

change

rather

than

revolutionary

change.

Revolutionary

could change

was something

that the

environment

had kind

of sponsored,

but romantic

had sponsored

a kind

of slow,

a slow

or gradual

change.

And I

think romantic

is still

with us

the same

thing.

Well,

so the

symbol for

normalism

is the

tree.

I would

imagine

that's

right,

yeah,

or the

finch or

something.

So I

don't mean

that they're

organic

trees,

I mean

the

evolutionary

tree.

Oh,

although

it works

by the

legs.

That's

it.

I'm

fascinated

by some

of these

changes,

especially

regarding

nature,

being nature

in a

church,

things like

that.

How,

in general,

I don't

know if

you can

speak to

this,

it's too

vague of a

question,

but how

conscious were

theologians

of this

shift?

I mean,

were they

aware they

were doing

something?

And did

they appeal

to scripture

for these

changes,

if they

were aware

of it,

or did

it just

happen?

It's the

air you

breathe.

You sometimes

don't even

realise

that you're

breathing in

obnoxious

fumes,

right?

And

things,

there were

some who

were much

more deliberate,

of course,

and when

the German

theologian

Schleimacher

decided to

put the

doctrine of

the trinity

in the

appendix to

his book

on theology,

he was

doing that

deliberately,

and he

thought the

doctrine of

the trinity

did not

represent

his

right

at the

moment.

But most

of them

were just

thinking,

we can't

have

something

that we

did or

felt,

or

too much

deliberate

reflection,

which is

a danger,

right?

Yes.

What are

we doing?

Yeah,

correct.

And we

said this

briefly last

week as

well.

My

students

said to

me,

what's

our

big

sin,

or what

don't

we

see,

of course

it's

really hard

to say,

to see

what we

don't

see.

But our

individualism

has to

be

placed on

the top

of this.

That was

kind of

my thinking

on Tom's

comment,

that it

seems as

if the

church is,

the evangelical

church is

always straining

to catch up

with culture

to understand

what's

happening now

and what

do we need

to change

to appeal

to these

people.

And

sometimes

it's

a,

I think

we've

just

got to

get used

to being

weird.

And

feel

comfortable

with being

weird.

Our

culture,

I think

in our

culture

they're

good.

I'm

the last

person to

kind of

wipe it

off.

But

having

said,

yeah,

we're

just

never

going to

be

like

our

culture.

Let's

just go

comfortable

with

doing

weird

things

in

church

and

having

weird

views.

except

to

understand

that

the

message

is

what's

important

not

the

means

as

much.

And

to be

able to

help

in all

these

responses

and

movements.

Yeah,

yeah.

And keep

coming back

to our

understanding

of Christ,

Christ by

his spirit

making us

alive,

dying for

us and

so on.

So we

need to

be

clear-minded

in having

a base,

a home,

a focus.

Well,

let me

introduce

perhaps

the most

difficult

column,

the third

column,

because

less has

been

written

about.

So I'll

give you

for you

in the

footer

there

an article

I've

written

on

modernism

and how

it's

influenced

which

you can

find at

least one

thing on

the internet

about this.

This is a

movement that

arose, a

cultural

movement,

again, it

wasn't sponsored

by Christians,

it arose at

the end of

the 19th

century.

And this

was a

cultural

movement that

said to

put things

back together

again, to

heal, to

get what

the

romantics

that we

talked about,

finding

integration,

the strategy

must be

increasing

self-expression.

To express

yourself is

to heal

yourself.

and it

would often

be linked

crudely

put to

the

will,

you

decide

to

express

yourself,

you impose,

not only impose,

but possibly impose

your view on

others.

It came out

of an

increasing

sense that

life was

fragmented

almost beyond

repair.

This was

when the

United States

police,

the

guilted

age,

the

lot of

barons,

industrial

work prices

that were

unsafe,

the rise of

unions,

and so on,

very

combustible

politics.

Things were

fragmented.

How do you

deal with

that?

Cities are

now almost

where most

people are.

But in

this period,

city life

was not

something I'm

knew to

do.

But city

life was

very fragmented

life as we

know.

The image

that I think

best catches

this moment

is not the

machine,

something regular

and predictable,

not the

tree,

something organic

and planted,

but the

volcano,

something

dangerous

in its

expression.

And there

was lots

written about

volcanoes in

this period.

Even yesterday

I was reading

a book where

there's this

long quotation

going to me

end of the

19th century

about how

the earth

is unstable

and any

minute now

all these

subterranean

forces are

going to

come to

the surface

and yes,

another

volcano

boat.

I'm feeling

like I

wonder something.

My life is

weird and I'm

kind of chasing

volcano boats.

this period

is probably

less familiar

to the

most and

its leading

heritage might

be less

familiar as

well.

So locally,

Borden and

Gale,

William Borden

was an

example of

this movement

or in

Los Angeles

or beyond

87th person,

a great

Pentecostal

woman,

C.G.

Stud and

a faith

mission.

C.G.

Stud was

English,

Catholic,

and he

served in

India,

and he

served in

China,

and he

served in

South India,

and he

served in

West Africa

as well.

So this

was

extraordinary.

I'm going

to beat

the world,

I'm going

to go

to the

hardest

places,

and when