“The parties in this conflict are . . . Atheists, Socialists, Communists, Red Republicans, Jacobins on the one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battle ground, Christianity and Atheism the combatants . . . One party seems to regard society, with all its complicated interests, its divisions and subdivisions, as the machinery of man, which, as it has been invented and arranged by his ingenuity and skill, may be taken to pieces, reconstructed, altered, or repaired, as experience shall indicate defects or confusion in the original plan. The other party beholds in it the ordinance of God.”
Is this one of our contemporaries speaking about progressive Woke elements on our current Christian scene? Apart from one or two terms of abuse in this text (“Jacobins”) one could easily envisage this being said today on social media. But it actually comes from a sermon preached in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 26, 1850, by James Henley Thornwell (1812‒1862), which, in his works that have come down to us, is entitled “The Christian Doctrine of Slavery.”[1] Based upon Colossians 4:1, Thornwell’s sermon is a whole-hearted defence of the enslavement of African Americans, and these words above are a description of the foes of that institution in the Northern states—a good number of whom were Thornwell’s Christian brethren.
1. James Henley Thornwell, “The Christian Doctrine of Slavery” in The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, ed. John B. Adger and John L. Girardeau(Richmond, VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1873), 4:405‒406.
Such rhetoric undoubtedly contributed to the bloody Civil War that came upon America in the following decade. As the Apostle James aptly put it, “the tongue is a fire” that sets ablaze the forest of human society (James 3:5b‒6).
“Fierce Invectives” about the Lord’s Table
During the Reformation, the great controversy that set the Reformers against one another was the question of the presence of Christ at the Lord’s Supper. Martin Luther (1483‒1546), the pathfinder of the Reformation in many ways, was insistent that Christ’s body and blood were actually present “in, with, or under” the bread and the wine. The Swiss German Reformer, Huldreich Zwinlgi (1484‒1531) of Zurich, on the other hand, insisted that Christ’s presence was a spiritual one and that the bread and the wine symbols. But Luther would have none of Zwingli’s “mathematics” as he put it when the two men met in 1529. Since Zwingli failed to see things as Luther saw them on this issue, Luther was convinced that the Zurich Reformer was bereft of the Holy Spirit.
By the summer of 1544, when Luther wrote A Short Confession on the Holy Sacrament Against the Fanatics, he did not hesitate to label Zwingli and all who supported his views—which now included John Calvin (1509‒1564)—as “heretics and murderers of souls.”[2] When Calvin heard of Luther’s “fierce invectives,” as he called them in a letter to Henry Bullinger (1504‒1575), Zwingli’s successor in Zurich, he wisely refused to respond in kind. He thus helped to preserve a measure of unity between the Lutheran and Reformed wings of the Reformation.[3]
2. Cited Allan L. Farris, “Calvin’s Letter to Luther,” Canadian Journal of Theology, 10 (1964): 125.
3. Indeed, he always spoke well of Luther even though he recognized that Luther could be given to bitter speech against anyone who disagreed with him. For Calvin, Luther was nothing less than “a distinguished apostle of Christ by whose ministry the light of the Gospel has shone” in Europe (cited Farris, “Calvin’s Letter to Luther,” 127n14).
Bitter Words over Hymn-Singing
When the Particular Baptist Benjamin Keach (1640‒1704) introduced the singing of a hymn in his London church at the conclusion of the Lord’s Supper in 1673—claiming Matthew 26:30 as scriptural warrant—only two members of the church expressed any open disapproval.[4] By 1691, though, hymn-singing had become a weekly event in the church and it had provoked furious opposition. Twenty-two members left the church that year and eventually founded a new work. Its leaders drew up articles of faith that condemned congregational hymn-singing in a terse sentence, calling it “a gross error.”[5]
4. Thomas Crosby, The History of the English Baptists (London, 1740), 4:299.
5. For details of this controversy and the language used in it, see Murdina D. MacDonald, “London Calvinistic Baptists 1689‒1727: Tensions Within a Dissenting Community under Toleration” (DPhil thesis, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, 1982), 83–108.
Leading the opposition to Keach was Isaac Marlow, a wealthy jeweller and prominent member of another London Baptist Church. The well-to-do businessman wrote and published more than eleven books and tracts during the course of this hymn-singing controversy (1690–1696). Although the controversy was an intramural debate among Particular Baptists, the language that the two sides employed reveals that the issue generated heat reminiscent of that which emanated from the fires of the Reformation at its outset. Marlow claimed he was labeled a “Ridiculous Scribbler,” “Brasen-Forehead,” “Ignoramus,” and “Enthusiast.” But Marlow could give as good as he got. He did not hesitate to call his opponents “a coterie of book burning papists,” for they were seeking to undermine the Reformation by endorsing a practice that to his mind had no scriptural foundation. The upshot was that the Particular Baptist community in London was torn asunder by the controversy.
“If the Service is Honorable, it is Dangerous”
In this bent and fallen world, the air of which we all breathe, controversy within the church is inevitable. However, two things are especially critical with regard to times of controversy. Does the issue at stake really merit attention? Or to put it in more colloquial terms: Is this a hill to die on? And the second vital matter is how one should conduct oneself in such times.
From this vantage-point, I think it is clear that Calvin’s conduct during the Lutheran-Reformed debate offers us a much more preferable pathway to follow than that of the London Particular Baptists during their fight over hymn-singing. Now, it is easy to say that in both of these cases, “fierce invectives” were wrong because these were not issues that went to the heart of Christianity. If they had been, then the importance of the matter would have justified all types of language. This fails to see that during the times of these two controversies, those involved did regard them as utterly vital matters. The general Scriptural model here seems to be spelled out in 2 Timothy 2:24‒25: “The Lord’s servantmust not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.”
Yet this very passage, from what has sometimes been called Paul’s “swan song,” is embedded in a larger text where Paul uses strong language with regard to those teaching false doctrine. Second Timothy is remarkable as being one of only two texts in the Pauline corpus—the other being 1 Timothy—where Paul names his theological opponents. Hymenaeus and Philetus are singled out for essentially denying the resurrection of the body by teaching that the resurrection occurs at the time of conversion. Paul does not waste words on their doctrine: it is “irreverent babble” and akin to “gangrene” (2 Tim. 2:16‒18). There are others at Ephesus, where Timothy was ministering when Paul’s final letter to him was penned, who “oppose the truth.” Again, Paul is blunt: these people “are corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith” (2 Tim. 3:8). Finally, in chapter 4, Paul singles out Alexander the coppersmith, a resident of Troas, who did Paul great harm—was he responsible for Paul’s final arrest?—and opposed Paul’s preaching of the gospel. Paul is confident that “the Lord will repay him according to his deeds” (2 Tim. 4:14‒15).[6]
6. Paul also mentions two elders in Asia Minor, Phygelus and Hermogenes, who failed to stand with Paul, Christ’s Apostle. Their failure may or may not be a doctrinal one, but Paul deems it serious enough to mention it. See 2 Timothy 1:15.
How can all of this be squared with Paul’s admonition that a true teacher of the Faith is not “quarrelsome but kind to everyone” and one who corrects “his opponents with gentleness”? In conclusion, the solution is found along the following lines. In general, a teacher must deal gently with people and not be a man marked “an angry, contentious spirit.”[7] As John Newton noted:
7. This phrase comes from John Newton, Letter XIX: On Controversy in The Works of John Newton, ed. Richard Cecil (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1824), 1:273.
Of all people who engage in controversy, we, who are called Calvinists, are most expressly bound by our own principles to the exercise of gentleness and moderation. If, indeed, they who differ from us have a power of changing themselves, if they can open their own eyes, and soften their own hearts, then we might with less inconsistency be offended at their obstinacy: but if we believe the very contrary to this, our part is, not to strive, but in meekness to instruct those who oppose.[8]
8. Newton, Letter XIX: On Controversy in Works of John Newton, 1:270.
But error that threatens the foundations of the Faith does need a firm and robust response, as Paul reveals in other passages of 2 Timothy. Yet, as Newton further noted, “we find but very few writers of controversy who have not been manifestly hurt by it. . . . This shows, that if the service is honorable, it is dangerous.”[9]
