Author's Note:  This is a paper written for Chinese theological students who have asked me about the value of church history, especially for international students. DCD

Introduction: what is the value of doing church history? I believe the wrong answer goes like this: so we can show how we Reformed are always right. ‘My right answer’ is instead: so we can learn how to communicate the gospel in ways people will deeply understand and value.

I saw myself at WTS as partnering with Harvie Conn, as he worked to ‘contextualize’ the gospel, helping us express it in ways relevant to culture. Tim Keller told me that without Harvie’s work he would never have known how to bring the gospel to urban New York. (Harvie’s legacy is carried on today by his colleagues Manny Ortiz and Sue Baker at Biblical TS in its urban program http://www.biblical.edu/index.php/degree/master-of-divinity/urban). 

When the culture of a people is taken into account, then the gospel message is much more understandable and believable. From church history’s stories of gospel ‘successes’ and gospel ‘failures’ we learn much about that. When the church asks the question, have we helped people understand the gospel, being aware of what they believe already, then there is hope for saving faith to happen.

I appreciate the old Scottish ‘prophesyings,’ small groups within the church who got together to discuss the meaning in their lives of the previous sermon, and through their elder leader then reported back to the preacher: this is what we heard you say, is that right? Sometimes they said: what you preached didn’t help, could you say it again in a way we could understand and use? John Leonard’s amazing little book on evangelism, Get Real says the same thing very powerfully; when we talk to people about Christ we need to listen very hard to them so we can learn to truly communicate. Of course the Holy Spirit must open hearts, but we are called to clarify the message.

Another way to describe this ‘church history’ task is in terms of Revival. So many times people have seemed to believe everything but it made little difference in their lives. But then they understood and many hearts were changed within the body and the gospel was believed by many outside. Why did the message of life become so boring? Why did it again become the power of God? Church history attempts to give the answers.

Church history in my teaching was about trying to understand why the gospel message has meaning sometimes and why it doesn’t at other times. So much is due to the power of the Holy Spirit whom God gives in unexpected ways. But I think that even then, in retrospect you can see why people with their mindset couldn’t see anything, and how when the Lord changed their hearts the gospel became their good news.

I am sure that Harvie’s missionary work in Korea gave him his later insights into contextualization. He learned well Korean values and priorities, and he worked to express the gospel using that knowledge. I myself know very little beyond Western culture and have been satisfied that at least I knew European as well as American, though I am sorry about my limited experience now.  I believe that ‘global’ or ‘international’ or ‘non-American’ students are especially in need of church history’s/mission’s/revival’s insights. I also believe that they will lead the rest of us as we move ahead. Specifically I want to learn from you all the character of church growth in China, and whether the gospel is much better understood there than in America.

The history of modern church history/contextualization. In the USA by far the most important cultural and social struggle has centered around white/black relationships, especially as expressed in slavery and its abolition. (Go see Selma). Blacks were brought here as slaves, and continued to be bought and sold. What should be the Christian response to that? Slavery is in the Bible, what more do we need to know? But there are many more things to know. The Bible teaches: that when slaves are physically abused they are to be set free; at the year of jubilee, all are to be set free; Jews are not to be made slaves involuntarily—wouldn’t that mean that today fellow believers are not to be enslaved? Husband and wife may not be separated. When we consider all of that, obviously American black slavery was radically unbiblical. 

What should the American church say about this? Many believed that the church must limit her message to that which is ‘spiritual,’ never saying anything with political implications. Many taught: because ending slavery, which would be a good thing, will be so complicated politically and socially, and since the church is not to able to say How, therefore it may not say That. (That was Charles Hodge’s first position). Some Northern churches did speak against it—so it looked as if one’s exegesis was driven by his own culture, slave-owning or not. 

The Civil War seemed to decide this question, but when the country refused to follow through in Reconstruction, the American churches became very divided, again on the question whether this is something that the church should address. On the one side there arose the ‘social gospel’ that emphasized the need for believers to seek to bring political justice—but that emphasis became so major that there was little room left for ‘personal’ faith, as social values replaced teaching on ‘personal salvation.’ (There was a German background in Kant and Schleiermacher and many others; but the American Walter Rauschenbusch and his ministry to the poor in Detroit contributed much to this theology).

On the other side arose dispensationalism and its premillennialism: there can be no significant social change until after Jesus Christ returns, so the task of the Christian church is not to attempt to change the world, but instead to focus on personal conversion. Because dispensationalism focused so much on a ‘literal’ interpretation of the Bible (promises to Israel are not for the church) it could be seen as a needed defense against a liberal attack on the Bible, and hence a ‘fundamental’ of the faith (for example at Wheaton College until about 2000). Remember that Scofield was Presbyterian and that the original goal of Dallas TS was to train Presbyterian ministers!

Because of different cultural agendas the terrible dichotomy arose: an either/or approach to the Christianity faith; either you emphasize personal forgiveness or social justice. Not until about 1950 was this dichotomy called into question, with the affirmation that the Christian gospel included both. The world changed with the rise of ‘new evangelicals’ (led by WTS graduates Ockenga, Carnell and Jewett) by Carl Henry’s 1946 Uneasy Conscience book. I believe that in our Reformed world the contributions of Murray in ‘union with Christ’ and Gaffin’s in the resurrection have come to have great significance. ‘Union’ means that all aspects of Christ’s work for us belong together; resurrection emphasizes Christ’s power to change all of life. Practical outworking came through Conn and Keller in their ‘urban theology’—by the power of the gospel we are called also to care for the poor and oppressed.

From a church history/contextualization point of view, American evaluations of social theology had so much to do with the economic and political power of the institution of American slavery, which obviously distorted biblical teaching. In order to return to biblical balance, it was necessary to look at slavery itself, not an idealized representation of it. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin did that so well—but she also believed we needed a post-Calvinist theology. If Americans now reject the whole idea of monarchy and class distinctions, how can we accept a monarchical God, was her searching question. So doesn’t American freedom require a much more democratic theology? Was the New England Calvinism she knew a theology of law and not of love? An obstacle to social justice? She came to think so. Read her Minister’s Wooing and Oldtown Folks, with help from WTS graduate Barry Waugh, http://www.reformation21.org/articles/harriet-beecher-stowes-theological-transition.php    

Even broader perspective came from Ernst Troeltsch’s ’sociology of religion.’ Why are Episcopalians wealthy, Presbyterians almost, Methodists and Baptists in the middle, Pentecostals poor? How does educational level impact biblical understanding, is it always healthy? Is the Max Weber/R. H. Tawney thesis of the link between Calvinism and capitalism correct, that Calvinists regard their wealth as evidence of their election? Why is there today a connection between right-wing Republican politics and evangelical Christian voters?

To think more positively, not about Christians succumbing to culture but transforming it, why is it that Pentecostalism is so strong in South America? Most people there are poor, and Pentecostalism seems more alert to Jesus’ teaching on poverty and how we are to care for each other. They are confident that the Holy Spirit is alive and well, and that he is able to do all for us that needs to be done. I suggest to you Timothy C. Tennent’s Theology in the context of World Christianity, in particular the Pentecostal chapter, where he tells us that the essence of their theology is to move the ‘not yet’ into our ‘already.’ I am especially encouraged to learn that while most other evangelical missions strategies focus on identifying a ‘people-group’ with a common culture as a target for evangelism, Pentecostals resist that trend since they are sure that the Holy Spirit is able to transcend culture! Tennent is good at pointing out the Reformed contribution to Pentecostal theology as in Puritanism/Pietism, but he does miss our John Murray’s insight that sanctification is not just a battle but is also very much ‘definitive,’ something already accomplished by Christ. I am always helped when I hear from my friend Joe Fitzpatrick and his missions work in Puerto Rico—he shows them Christ in the OT and they are amazed. I am still learning, but when I come to understand that a Christian group only about 100 years old is learning so much so rapidly, and because of the cultural challenge of poverty—now that’s stretching my faith.

I know something about the divergence between the Chinese state church’s theology and that of the underground church. Please explain that to me, both culturally and theologically!

Challenges and Blessings of Church History/Contextualization. The church history view of the Lord’s work in and for his church is can be very encouraging. When the church radically misunderstands or minimizes the work of Jesus Christ, then believers are driven back to the Word to see what the Lord has really said. The arbitrariness of late-medieval Nominalism became the setting for the Reformation! Previously the role of human obedience had been presented ambiguously, but when the Roman church was confronted with objections to improper interpretation, it took its stand in exactly the wrong direction, and since then the true gospel has been much clearer.

Think about this too. In most parts of the world there was one state church. Many people with a theology other than the state church’s decided to come to America for religious freedom, and so here we enjoy a great richness in understanding the whole Bible. In one year when I taught at WTS I had students from 80 different denominations and 40 countries!   

In American slavery there was much ambiguity, with its name biblical but its practice not at all. Should black Americans have full rights? That is still a work in progress but much clearer than before. There was little evangelical support for Martin Luther King Jr. (Selma), because of his liberal theology. But Conn/Keller urban theology, that must include care for the poor and the city, is also much more clearly biblical than had been seen before, and widely accepted by evangelicals.

It is a good thing when Christians see how much their understanding of their faith has been distorted by their cultural assumptions, and hence how much their faith needs to change and grow. In order to do that it is necessary to understand both Scripture and also your culture. What is there is my life, in our lives, that makes it difficult for me to see the richness of the gospel? 

But it is also very clear that study of how culture has influenced our  understanding the Bible can easily lead to gross relativism, where so much of our culture today finds itself. ‘Oh, you say you’re a Christian, I’m so glad it works for you,’ is where so many people are today. This is the heart of the Bultmannian demythologizing, with its conclusion that if biblical teaching doesn’t fit our culture today it must easily be relativized away as mythology. (My most difficult experience while pursuing my Göttingen doctorate was the day when Ernst Käsemann taught us why we celebrate Ascension Day even though we don’t believe in the ascension: gerade darum, that’s exactly why. All around me 600 students were stamping their feet in approval). 

I believe it has been this understandable fear of relativism that has been the source of evangelical anxiety over contextualization. This was the reason for the emphasis on ‘literal’ interpretation in dispensationalism and why it was seen as absolutely ’fundamental’ to interpret Scripture that way. 

If we must know our culture and its presuppositions in order to evaluate whether we are understanding the Bible properly, is that similar to the way scholars understand the OT? (Sunny has asked me that). What do the words and the concepts mean? How else can that be determined except by learning how they are used outside the Bible? Does that include also the usage outside of the Jewish usage? What I learned from Meredith Kline at WTS so long ago is, of course. Did God reveal himself to the OT authors by using a structure similar to the organization of a Hittite treaty? I think Kline showed us that the answer is yes. The Bible isn’t written in a special language at all, but in the language of the day. How else would anyone have understood it?

Here we are skating close to thin ice! Should we look to the dispensationalists for help after all, with their literal interpretations? Or should we assume rather that even the OT is written in language generally understandable, since it uses the words and thought-forms of its day? 

‘History’ has somehow become a threatening word, implying cultural relativism. But biblical revelation is a history, an unfolding story with surprises galore, who could question that? I hope that the ‘grammatical-historical’ people and ‘literalists’ can still learn from each other and respect each other’s integrity. Otherwise it will be harder than ever for us to understand and honor each other, and once again biblical insight will be seen to have little connection with the scholarly work of a seminary.

It was in this area that I did my doctoral dissertation at Göttingen under Otto Weber. I wrote on The Hermeneutics of Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Edifying Value as Exegetical Standard. I did that partly because I knew that Charles Hodge had studied with Hengstenberg, and that the old Princeton OT direction owed much to him. He addressed much the same situation that we find ourselves in today, seeking to evaluate an historical look at Scripture. How can we avoid Schleiermacher’s relativism and still find ‘edifying’ value that fits each of us personally? His answer, briefly stated, was to resist the dichotomy! The Bible is historical and it is true! (Today that would mean, although we must understand it grammatically-historically in no way does that detract from its truth).

My colleague Sinclair Ferguson has always helped and encouraged me so much. In the area of biblical interpretation I commend to you very highly his http://www.simeontrust.org/media/doc-sferguson-peachingchrist.pdf

Another colleague and friend is Dan McCartney. I suggest you also work through his http://www.bible-researcher.com/mccartney1.html

I recognize that this area is controversial and has been for two centuries. I have myself once been a literalist premil and continue to value the fellowship and insights I received: above all their emphasis that this is the age of evangelism! I believe I understand the concerns of both sides. But the Princeton and Westminster I knew with Kline, McCartney, Ferguson, and many others was both sympathetic to both sides and eager to foster the historical approach.

I hope for you all that you can find a place that recognizes and appreciates hermeneutical diversity. In my judgment, in our rapidly changing world we will especially need to work with the developing character of biblical truth.

I just heard my colleague Doug Green explain the book of Job. He showed me what I had never seen before: Job is post-exilic! His deep suffering is in no way punishment for his sin! He is a suffering servant! So am I! I believe you can see there the beating heart of a historical understanding of God’s Word.