Lux Lucet

In last week’s post Must Christians Defend the Crusades?, I pointed out a common apologetical error of contemporary Evangelicals.  When the discussion turns to the obvious, gross sins committed by the Roman Catholic Church-State during the course of the Crusades and the Inquisition, rather than taking the opportunity to denounce these activities for what they are the evil fruit of the papal Antichrist, too often Christians implicitly or even explicitly defend them.  Take for example the following video of Southern Baptist minister Dr. Robert Jeffress on the O’Reilly factor from 2/6/15 program.  At about the 2:12 mark Jeffress begins his  comments on the Inquisition.

Jeffress’ words were, “The Inquisition lasted 450 years; there were 2,200 people who died.  That’s about 5 a year.  More people died on 911 in one day at the hands of Muslim terrorists than in all of the Inquisition.” In fairness to Jeffress, he is not attempting to argue that the Inquisition was a good thing.  But in his discussion with O’Reilly, Jeffress made at least two critical mistakes.  First, failed to draw any distinction between Roman Catholicism and Christianity, and thus left Evangelicals on the hook for the sins of Inquisition.  Second, he attempted to minimize the evil of the Inquisition, what was one of the most heinous crimes ever carried out by any organization in history.

And this was not some momentary slip by Jeffress.  In his 2/10/15 interview on Fox News with Gretchen Carlson, Jeffress was even more explicit in identifying Christianity with Romanism.  At about the 1:30 mark, he made the following comment, “Christians have done some terrible things in the past, but nothing compared to radical Islam.  For example, the President brings up the Inquisition [Jeffress is here referring to Obama’s comments at the National Prayer Breakfast, the same ones he discussed with Bill O’Reilly].  Did you know that in the 450 years of the Inquisition there were about 2,200 people killed.  That’s about five a year.”  By his claim that, “Christians have some terrible things,” once Jeffress identified the Inquisition with Christianity, thus putting himself and other Evangelicals in the awkward and unnecessary position of having to answer for the sins of Rome.

Apologetical Failure, The Reasons Why 

Jeffress’ apologetical failures vis-a-vis Roman Catholicism are in no way isolated occurrences.  His defense of the faith is consistent with that offered by other high-profile Protestants in the post-war period. But what accounts for this massive apologetical failure?  Why is it that American Evangelicals find themselves lamely offering excuses for Romanist atrocities such as the Inquisition? There are several reasons for this.

First among them is the failure of Evangelicals to actually understand the Evangel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Gospel is not about doing good works.  The Gospel is not, “you must be born again.”  The Gospel, the good news Christians have for the world, is the finished work of Christ on the cross.  Through Jesus’ cross work, the people of God receive, not only full remission of their sins, but the imputation of his righteousness.  This remission of sins and gift of righteousness is received by faith alone.  This Biblical doctrine of the atonement, this Gospel, this doctrine of justification by faith alone, recovered and preached by the Reformation, created a whole new civilization, separate and distinct from any that had come before it.  While Luther and Calvin understood justification by faith alone as the sine qua non of Christianity, it is safe to say that most American Christians attending nominally Evangelical churches have never even heard of it. It has been watered down, disbelieved and ignored to such an extent that most Evangelicals would be hard pressed to articulate the difference between what is taught and believed in their churches and what is taught and believed by the Romanists.  And in this they are quite correct.

Bad eschatology is a second cause of Evangelicals’ failure to separate themselves from the sins of Rome.  The dominant eschatology among American Evangelicals is pre-millennial dispensationalism.  For these individuals, the activities of Antichrist lie somewhere in the future.  In Reformed circles, post-millennialism is gaining in popularity.  This approach to eschatology puts Antichrist and his works in the distant past.  What adherents to both these schemes likely do not know if that both of them were developed by the Jesuits as part of Rome’s counter-reformation.  As such, they are unwitting dupes of Rome.  On the other hand, the eschatology of the Reformation – and it likely comes as a new thought to many that the Reformation did have a distinct eschatology – that saw the papacy as the Antichrist and identified the Roman Catholic Church-State as the Whore of Babylon has been all but forgotten.

The result of all this is that American Evangelicals have been intellectually disarmed and blinded to the fact that the little horn of Daniel, the son of perdition and man of sin of Paul, the Antichrist of John is doing his work right in from of their noses.  And not only that, they fail to realize that by explaining away or minimizing the atrocities of the Inquisition, far from defending the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they actually are coming to the aid of Antichrist.  What is more, when they link arm and arm with the Romanists to stop abortion, to oppose homosexual marriage or to defend the Inquisition, they are taking the sins of Rome upon themselves.

And this leads us to the third reason for Evangelicals’ failure to properly identify the sins of Rome and separate from them:  thirst for political victory.  It isn’t hard at all to sympathize with Evangelicals horrified at the changes that have taken place in American culture country over the past 50 years.  The aggressive atheism of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the sex-drugs and rock ‘n roll hippie culture of the 60’s, feminism, abortion, the increasing vulgarity and obscenity of TV, music and the movies, and the almost daily victories of the homosexual rights movement have produced in many Evangelicals a practical enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend mentality.   We long for a return to the old paths and see in Rome a powerful ally to bring this about.

But visions of a grand alliance with Rome are one and the same with a betrayal of Christ Jesus.  One of the besetting sins of God’s people from the time of Abraham to the present is to fall into the trap of supposing that the would’s methods can be used to do the Lord’s work.  Whether it was Abraham lying about his relationship with Sarah, the godly Jehoshaphat entering into a military alliance with wicked king Ahab, or the more recent attempts by neo-evangelicals to cozy up to Rome, Christians have often been lured away by the siren song of pragmatism.  One is reminded of the Scene in 2003 film Luther, where Cardinal Cajetan replies to Brother Martin, who remained resolute in his desire to defend his teachings, by saying, “The Turks are building armies on our eastern borders.  We are on the brink of war.  To the west lies a world of souls who have never heard the name of Christ. That is the truth.  Christianity is tearing apart.  And just when we need unity the most, you create confusion!” Had Luther been a practical fellow of the neo-evangelical sort, we never would have had a Reformation.  But, thanks be to God, Luther correctly understood that division over the truth is of more value than unity in a lie.  He refused to knuckle under, even when his reputation and life were on the line, and was greatly used of God as a result.

Love of comfort and the perks of the ministry is a fourth reason many prominent Evangelicals fail to separate from Rome.  Speaking about the religious leaders of his day, Jesus said, “They love the best places at the feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi’ ” (Matt. 23:6, 7).  Loyalty to Christ got in the way of all this in the first century, and it still gets in the way 2000 years on.

Two of the most overlooked of Jesus parables are found in Luke 14, where Christ warns wannabe disciples that following him comes at a cost.  Jesus warns his hearers, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.  And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26, 27).  There is cost involved in being a disciple, and Jesus warns those who would follow him of this.  Before we even start to follow him, Jesus tells us, should consider the cost of doing so.  That is the point of Christ’s illustrations about the man who undertakes to build a tower and the king contemplating a war.  Just as both should consider whether they have the wherewithal to finish  their respective tasks, so too should Christians consider the cost before enlisting to follow Christ.

Among the potential costs of bearing witness to Christ are being falsely reviled by men (Matt. 5:11, 12) and, so to speak, being put out of the synagogue (John 9:22, 23).  One doubts that any minister going on national television and declaring the Inquisition to be the work of Antichrist would ever again find himself in the good graces of the media’s movers and shakers.  After a news cycle or two verbal flogging, he would be cast aside, finding the green room doors of the national news media forever slammed in his face.

He just might lose his pastor’s job too.  If you doubt that, ask yourself the last time you ever heard a clear exposition of reformed eschatology from your church’s pulpit.  One that identified the pope as Antichrist and the Church of Rome as the Babylonian Harlot.  If you’re like me, and I’ve sat in conservative pews for over four decades, you never once have heard this.  The apostle Paul said that he was innocent of the blood of all men, for he did not fail to declare to them the whole counsel of God.  But too many ministers today hold back unpopular parts of God’s counsel and therefore find themselves blood guilty.  Their failure to properly identify Antichrist and warn their flocks about him is one example of this.

There is a flip side of love of perks.  And this brings us to the fifth reason why so many in the ministry fail to teach sound eschatology: the fear of men.  This is not a small matter, and I do not intend to make light of the very real persecution that can come the way of those who declare unpopular truths.  The scriptures, and even history itself, bear witness to the suffering that can come upon those who are bold to advance Biblically sound, but theologically incorrect, ideas.  The believers murdered by papal Rome for their faith are a testimony of this.  But we are not to fear those who can kill the body only.  We are to fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell (Matt. 10:28).  But not only does God command us to be faithful even unto death, there are probably hundreds of promises in the Scriptures that he will grant us the strength to carry out what he commands.  He is with us, even in the valley of the shadow of death.

Testimony from an earlier Baptist

Not so very long ago, there was a Baptist preacher in England whose comments on the papacy would make most of today’s conservative Evangelicals blanch.  And no ranting lunatic was he.  Far from it.  He is known today as the Prince of Preachers.  Of course, I refer to Charles Haddon Spurgeon of London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle.  Unlike today’s Evangelicals, Spurgeon was not confused about the identity of Antichrist or his works, and neither were his hearers.  In the August 1868 issue of The Sword and Trowel, Spurgeon went where prominent Baptists such as Robert Jeffress and Al Mohler or, for that matter, contemporary Evangelicals of any stripe would never dare to go.  Spurgeon wrote,

“The union of the church with the state renders persecution possible; and hitherto churches have not been slow to avail themselves of the secular arm that they might confound all dissent with arguments which come hom to the bone and the flesh.  All churches, when they lose the spirit of Christ, are very prone to persecute; but a horrible pre-eminence must be awarded to  the scarlet harlot of the seven hills, for no church on earth except that of Rome has had a separate institution for hunting out and destroying heretics.  Whether it may be traced to want of will or want of inclination on the part of other establishments, it is certain that the Popish Antichrist alone has  been able to drink of the overflowing blood-cup filled by familiars and tormentors.  Long pampered by the state, she came to be its lord and tyrant, using fire and sword, prison and rack, to work her accursed will.”

“The Inquisition was the masterpiece of infernal craft and malice, and its deeds were far more worthy of fiends than men.  If the church of Rome could at this moment change its Ethiopian skin for ever, lay aside its leopard’s spots, and become a pure community, ten thousand years of immaculate holiness and self-denying philanthropy could not avail to blot out the remembrance of the enormous crimes with which the Inquisition has loaded it.  There is a deep and indelible sentence of damnation written upon the apostate church by avenging justice for its more than infernal cruelties, and the curse is registered in heaven; nor can any pretences to present liberality reverse the condemnation which outraged humanity has pronounced against it; its infamy is engraven in the rock for ever.  Centuries of the most liberal policy would not convince mankind that Popery had become tolerant at heart; she wallowed so greedily in oppression, torture, and murder in her palmy days, that the foam of human ogre hangs around her wolfish fangs, and men will not believe her to be a gentle lamb, let her bleat as she may.”

“Against her common humanity is up in arms as much as evangelical religion.  her confessional is as dangerous to the mere moralist as to the Christian; her inquisition would be as ruinous to mercantile prosperity as to spiritual activity.  Men of all religions and no religion should deprecate the growth of a system which rendered the Inquisition possible; while followers of Jesus, for their own sake as well as for their Lord’s, should oppose it with all their might” (Timothy F. Kauffman ed., Geese in their Hoods:  Selected Writings on Roman Catholicism by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 144, 145).

That is what Jeffress should have said to Bill O’Reilly when challenged on the Inquisition.  And the above is just the introduction to Spurgeon’s article.  There’s much more of a similar vein in the rest of the piece and in the rest of the book.  I highly recommend reading it.  Spurgeon’s comments are so far removed from the lame defense of Christianity offered by Jeffress and other contemporary spiritual Neville Chamberlins that it is likely to shock, and perhaps even offend, most of today’s evangelical readers.  But then Spurgeon’s in good company.  For Jesus shocked and offended many of his hearers as well.

Conclusion         

It is high time, and well past high time, for Evangelicals to get over their infatuation with Rome.  Contemporary ministers, para-church organizations, missionaries and ordinary Christians have fallen away from their first love, the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We have loved the world, feared men, and have thus become blind to the predations of Antichrist even as he does his work in from of our faces.  We have become salt that has lost its savor; watchmen who will not sound the alarm.  It is foolish in the highest degree to view Rome and anything other than the mortal enemy of the truth.  Rome is not our ally in the culture war.  Rome is not our ally on the missions field.  Rome is not our ally in any field of Christian endeavor.

The failure of Evangelicals to distance themselves from Rome comes at a high cost.  Our failure in this area is one of the greatest impediments to the spread of the Gospel in our time.  John Robbins put it this way,

“For most of its history, the Roman Church-State has been a slaveholder.  It has also persecuted and murdered Christians whenever and wherever it has not been restrained by public opinion or civil government.  Even worse, its leading teachers have developed arguments defending both slavery and persecution.  Its claim to be a Christian church, which was almost universally accepted in the decadent and endarkened twentieth century, has also created a completely false impression of Christianity in the minds of billions.  It has rendered them incapable of understanding, let alone believing, the Gospel.”

“For the past two centuries, Protestants have been partly to blame for this situation, for they have failed, though their many philosophical, theological, and organizational compromises with Romanism and Romanists to make it clear to the world that the Roman Church-State is not a Christian church, and that Romanism in not Christianity.  Rome has offended many people and deluded many more, and for those reasons billions of souls will not listen to the Gospel.  they entire Muslim world of one billion souls things Romanism is Christianity.  The entire Romanist world of one billion souls thinks Romanism is Christianity and that they are Christians.  People like bully Graham, Pat Robertson, Charles Colson and J. I. Packer agree.  But Romanism is not Christianity; it is an entirely different religion.  Romanism is a stew of idolatry, superstition, paganism, and tyranny, yet so widely regarded as Christian by the world that the world will not give biblical Christianity a hearing because of the sins of Rome.  The world has accepted the pope’s preposterous claim to speak for Christians, and consequently Christians have been marginalized and silenced” (Christianity and Slavery, 10, 11).

One of the great themes of the Old Testament is that the Lord’s people must fight the Lord’s battles in the Lord’s way.  If they do not do this, if they trust instead in the arm of flesh, they will lose.  And not only that.  They will deserve to lose.  Christians bear no responsibility for the Inquisition.  Let us stop speaking and acting as though we did.  Let us stop seeking aid from the Antichrist on Tiber.  Let us trust in the Lord alone for our deliverance, for he is always faithful.