In the 3rd chapter of Recovering the Reformed Confession, R. Scott Clark tackles the Quest for Illegitimate Religious Experience. In this chapter he addresses inroads of mysticism into Reformed practice. It was here that I learned that I am part of the problem. He lays much of the problem at the feet of … Jonathan Edwards. As a result, people like Tim Keller, John Gerstner and R.C. Sproul (under whom I studied the Theology of Edwards’ Sermons in seminary) are unduly influenced by this quest and part of the problem.
But first, he mentions Reformed people seeking God’s moral will through listening for the “still small voice.” It seems illegitimate to make a crisis out of a few people who might do this. I’m more familiar (though not supportive) with people “listening” for God’s will in matter upon which Scripture does not speak: this person as a spouse? this job or that one? I would disagree that this is a widespread problem in Reformed Communities. There are no data to substantiate his view of the “crisis”.
“If someone asks, ‘What is God teaching you these days?’ one has the sense that the expected answer is not to be a summary of this week’s sermon or reflection on the significance of baptism or the Lord’s Supper, but an insight derived from a special experience or private experience.”
This troubles me. First, because it unfairly represents the person who asks this question. Second, it neglects one of the ordinary means of grace- personal reading of the Scripture (I also find prayer conspicuously absent from his discussion). He bases his criticism on what “he feels”, subjectivism. From my subjective experience, when I ask someone this question, I mean “what is God teaching you from His Word. When someone asks me this, that is how I answer. As we read God’s Word, the Spirit is at work. Themes emerge from Scripture that we need to pay attention to. This is not private revelation, but the illumination of the Scriptures (which we see in WCF I).
He then lets his personal agenda take control regarding the worship service. Since the Scriptures contain 150 Psalms, there should not be a problem with a church that wants to sing to God (I’ve never been anywhere where there was not some introduction, Scripture or liturgical element to break up the songs). Is there something wrong with Power Point in a context in which people don’t read music? Must we cling to the form of hymn books and paper when the point is to actually sing?
Where are all these Reformed churches with dramatic presentations? Where is the liturgical dance? Have they happened? Yes, these examples happen. But I find no reason to think that they are now common place among Reformed Churches.
While I agree that the quest for an unmediated encounter with God is illegitimate, I’m not convinced how prevalent this is in our community. But that is because of how differently we view revival. He seems to equate revival with revivalism.
I have been influenced by Iain Murray’s book Revival and Revivalism ( which Clark criticizes). Murray argues that revivalism is grounded in Pelagianism and the use of illegitimate means for coerce a “decision” and the focus on the subjective experience. Many people, like Murray, use “revival” to describe what Clark terms reformation. Revivalism is a technical term for a movement which has been, and should continue to be, rejected by the Reformed community. But Reformed Communities have witnessed, and affirmed, revivals. Clark’s unfortunate use/change of terminology clouds the issue. But he also takes issue with how a large segment of the Reformed Community, through Jonathan Edwards, has seemingly been bewitched into holding a type of mysticism.
It is difficult for me to fathom how Jonathan Edwards compromised his Calvinism with piety, such that experimental Calvinism is a corruption of the truth. The problem with Jonathan Edwards, and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, was that in addition to teaching the transcendence of God, they also taught the immanence of God- that God draws near in the means of grace to bestow grace. Clark misses the point of the quote from Packer on Lloyd-Jones, it “starts with a deepened sense of the power and authority of God in the preaching of the Biblical message.” It is NOT unmediated, but flows out of the apprehension of objective truth.
Frame asks some questions about this.
Let us ask straightforwardly: is there anything wrong with revival understood in this way? Can there be any objection to people having a deepened sense of the power and authority of God? Later we learn that in revival people sometimes experienced a heightened conviction of sin, assurance of salvation, relief of fears and doubts (90-91). Is any of this objectionable? Scripture tells us that our sins are heinous in God’s sight. Should we not agree with Scripture about that? And if we agree with Scripture about that, will we not feel a sense of our own wickedness? Can we have that conviction without an accompanying feeling? Think of David’s words concerning his own sin, in Psalms 32 and 51. Should we not feel the same way about our own sins, and feel an extreme joy (Rom. 8:1-39) in knowing they have been forgiven? If we acknowledge these facts “intellectually” as we say, but have no feeling about them, isn’t there something wrong?
Emotionalism isn’t the mere presence of emotion, just as rationalism isn’t the mere presence of reason. I don’t recognize any unbiblical focus on emotions in Edwards’ Treatise on Religious Affections. He says that proper affections are in response to truth, and rejects the abuses that were occurring in the Great Awakening. He calls us to examine them, to reject the bad and affirm the good. Clark is merely acting as the opposite of Finney by rejecting everything instead of accepting everything. This is not biblical discernment. The notion that Jonathan Edwards is to blame for the decay of Reformed Theology is one I just cannot accept.
No wonder Clark thinks this is a crisis of epic proportions. Lloyd-Jones, in a quote in the book, overstates his case for revival (seeming to defend particular revivals unreservedly, contrary to Edwards). Probably for the same reason(s) Clark overstates his case. I’d like to see the context there. But let us not deny the working of the Spirit through the Word, which may produce emotional responses akin to what we also find in Scripture (of which barking like a dog or punching elderly women in the face are not examples).
In his criticism of Iain Murray, it sounds as if any religious experience is forbidden us. There is no place for legitimate religious experience, or the category is rather small and inconsequential. Clark never explains what precisely was wrong about Whitfield’s means. Was it preaching to press home the truth? Was it preaching outside of a church building? The Apostles seem to have done both.
In the case of Edwards, Clark points to possible philosophical influences, and a few doctrines in which his views are often questioned. Those will be found in any person. But he doesn’t show the connection between them and his experimental Calvinism which is merely what the Puritans called “heart religion”- sound doctrine experience in sound living. It would appear that Clark has no conception of dead orthodoxy in which doctrine captures the mind in intellectual assent but not the heart in trust and delight (see Psalm 119).
He points to Tennent developing the Log College at a time in which Harvard and Yale were already deviating from Reformed orthodoxy and Princeton had not yet been formed. Were we to hold J. Gresham Machen to the same standard, we should shun the institution at which Clark teaches. These seem silly arguments to me.
His description of Edwards’ account would seem that enthusiasm apart from the ministry of the Word which was taking place, whether public or private. But the ministry of the Word was taking place. The accounts sound similar to what we find in Acts. That is not illegitimate religious experience, is it? Is not a revival an extraordinary thing as opposed to ordinary spiritual experience? If all spiritual experiences to be “ordinary” we have a problem with the “extraordinary” experiences we find in Scripture. Edwards tries to measure them by Scripture, which appears appropriate to me.
Part of the problem here is that subjectivism seeks the extraordinary experiences, often through extra-biblical means. Proper revival uses the ordinary means, and occasionally encounters extraordinary experiences.
Clark sides with Old Side leader John Thomson against the “revivalists” and their low ecclesiology and pietism. One charge is that they made it difficult for ordinary pastors (some of whom may actually have been unregenerate). I wonder if Clark sees any similarity today. Do conferences, while not seeking revival, create difficulties for ordinary pastors who can’t teach like Sproul, Horton or Keller? Or should we recognize these men as unusually gifted for the well-being of the church to complement the ordinary pastor gifted for the being of the church? Just an interesting tangent to consider.
Confessional Piety
Clark engages in a discussion on the fruit of the Spirit contrasted with the gifts of the Spirit. His point is that the fruit is “ordinary” and the gifts are “extraordinary.” I might be reading a different Bible. The fruit of the Spirit are for all Christians, and are merely Christ-like character. The gifts of the Spirit are about empowerment and gifting for the benefit of the church. Paul’s position is that a gift is given to each one, not all the gifts as in the fruit. Yet, it is ordinary for each Christian to be gifted by the Spirit for the building up of the church. Sadly, our focus is on the extraordinary gifts (tongues, prophecy) rather than the ordinary ones (service, teaching, administration) much like the Corinthians. Love, a fruit of the Spirit, is to govern our use of the gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 13). Clark, on page 108) seems to argue that not only have the apostolic gifts (healing, tongues & prophecy) have ceased, but that all the gifts mentioned are apostolic and have ceased. Therefore to seek them would be to seek the extraordinary and illegitimate for us in this stage in the history of redemption.
“What this means for us Calvinists is that we must acknowledge God’s freedom to work extraordinarily, but, in theology, piety, and practice, we must submit ourselves to the ordinary means of grace and consider ourselves shut-up to the revealed will of God.”
I agree with him. Where we disagree is whether or not Edwards, Packer, Lloyd-Jones, Murray and others also agree with this. Perhaps I’m ignorant, but I don’t see the huge subjective gap that Clark sees. Either I’m woefully deceived or he’s making a mountain out of a molehill.
What should our expectations of the Christian life be? He argues for Luther’s theology of the cross against a theology of glory represented by revivalism. I can affirm what he says about the theology of the cross. Yet, I am also struck by the Confession, echoing Scripture, that there should be real progress in my sanctification (Titus 2 for instance). While we reject the over-realized eschatology of the theology of glory, we must not teach an under-realized escahtology in which we just sit around mired in our sin and hearing the gospel preached only for justification instead of also for sanctification. It is God’s will that we be sanctified.
He argues for a piety that rests on the objective work of Christ. Packer, Keller, Sproul, Edwards, Whitfield and others would not and did not advocate a different foundation for piety. All I see here is what I have learned from Packer, who learned it from the Puritans (who are also the subject of my study by Murray, Sproul and Keller).
He affirms corporate prayer, founded on the Word, as a duly appointed means of grace. But somehow private prayer, while a time of communion with the Father, Son and Spirit, is not a means of grace (112). I find no Scriptural basis for the fact that I can ONLY approach the throne of grace (Heb. 4) during public worship. My issue with Clark’s view of the means of grace is all of them are corporate- my personal and/or family worship do not seem to properly fit his scheme. This sounds like a new version of the Roman Catholic sacerdotalism that the Reformation protested. I hope I have misunderstood him.
So while we agree in principle that rationalism and subjectivism are deadly to the church, we don’t agree about particular manifestations of them. He sees them meeting in Jonathan Edwards. Edwards influence is one he finds most troublesome. Since our diagnosis of the problems is so different, I suspect our prescription will also be quite different. To which we move next time.
Cavman Considers 
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