Waking Jonah

Gary Bryson hosts a program about anabaptism on ABC Radio National called The Anabaptist Vision…

[Part 3 of a 12-part series]

Show: ABC Radio National
Full Podcast: The Anabaptist Vision
Date: 6/17/07
Host: Gary Bryson
Guests: Thorwald Lorenzen and John Hirt

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Thorwald Lorenzen: While the reformers needed the state in order to succeed with the reformation, they would not have succeeded if they would have denied infant baptism, and would have denied the institution of war. And at this point, the Anabaptists – the word ‘Anabaptist’ means re-baptises, and it was given to them by their enemies, so the emphasis is not baptism, the emphasis is to take faith in Christ seriously, what they called ‘following Jesus’, what we may call discipleship today. And living this discipleship in an intentional community. But both discipleship and intentional community has to be a decision, and this decision was celebrated in baptism. And since the New Testament does not support infant baptism, but speaks about believer’s baptism, so they took this over to celebrate their faith in Christ.

Some of the magisterial churches say infant baptism is very important because it is a symbolic representation that we are saved by grace alone. And actually, it is, you know, that’s a beautiful symbol. But the Anabaptists said grace is not just thrown at people, grace is the invitation to follow Jesus. Faith is holistic, it needs to be lived with our whole body, with our whole life.

Gary Bryson: From the very beginning then, Anabaptist ideas set them irrevocably against the power of the state. They put the authority of Jesus over the authority of kings, opposed the church hierarchy or priesthood, and refused to swear oaths or fight wars.

In the mood of the times, their interpretation of scripture was thus deeply political and highly suspect in the eyes of the authorities, both Catholic and Protestant.

John Hirt: The Anabaptists, in saying We will not acknowledge the power of the state, were really quite remarkable champions of democracy and freedom of religion. When they were dragged before the magistrates, they would stand in court and their response to the charge of being disloyal to the state and disloyal to the church – the church and state being one and the same, no separation – in their crude Swiss-German, they would say two words: nicht Vorsteher, which literally means ‘no master’. My only master is Christ and I will die before I will believe that the world is made of two kingdoms, the kingdom of this world and then the kingdom of God. There is only one kingdom and that is the kingdom of Christ. And so they therefore became, if you like, insurgents within the society, they were viewed as dangerous, dangerous people who would create all sorts of societal instability.

Gary Bryson hosts a program about anabaptism on ABC Radio National called The Anabaptist Vision…

[Part 2 of a 12-part series]

Show: ABC Radio National
Full Podcast: The Anabaptist Vision
Date: 6/17/07
Host: Gary Bryson
Guests: Thorwald Lorenzen and John Hirt

Download

Transcript:

Thorwald Lorenzen: Up to the fourth century, the church and Christians were pacifists. In the 4th century, with the victory of Constantine on the Milvian Bridge, just before his military victory, Constantine had a vision of Christ, and in this vision, he was asked to fight the battle under the banner of the cross, and he did this and he won. And this military victory has become a major influence of the Christian church. Under Constantine, the church began to have privileges, the clergy began to have privileges, the church was used to unify the Emperor, and ever since this marriage between church and state has determined the history of the church. In the Reformation, in theory, this history was finished, but it is still living on in the state churches in many countries today.

Gary Bryson: Thorwald Lorenzen. It was a commitment to pacifism that first set the Swiss Anabaptists up against the mainstream Reformation. In Switzerland the Reformers were led by Huldrych Zwingli, one of the major Reformation figures alongside Luther and Calvin. The issue had quickly divided the country, canton against canton. But the Anabaptists resisted Zwingli’s call to arms against the Catholics. John Hirt.

John Hirt: Zwingli as a Protestant reformer in the Canton of Zürich was keen to raise an army to fight against the Catholic Cantons; tragically in the history of Christianity, here’s the church at war, fighting among itself, and it was slaughter and slaughter and slaughter all over the place. Zwingli therefore, wanted to get everybody he could into his army, to fight the Catholic Cantons. He happened to have two best friends, two of his best Biblical scholars, one a Greek scholar, the other a Hebrew scholar, one was Conrad Grebel, and the other guy called Felix Manz. They were both ardent Christians, who like a lot of people at the time said that there’s something more to what Jesus says than us being behoven to the state, or to be given to killing and to that whole process of what the world expects of us. They of course were seen by Zwingli as being betrayers, and when he began to raise an army, these two allies of his, two of his best scholar friends, said to him, ‘We cannot fight because it is not lawful for us to fight. We are followers of Jesus.’ And they chastised Zwingli – he didn’t take that kindly.

Then, to cut to the chase, the argument became about well, who belongs to the state and who doesn’t belong to the state? And at that point, Zwingli said, ‘If you’re baptised as an infant, you belong to the state’, and at that point the Anabaptists started to say, ‘Wait a minute, if that’s what infant baptism is about, me being behoven to the state, that’s a problem.’ And so that’s when the whole discussion really picked up.

Pastor Rodney Shaw from New Life Church in Austin, TX preaches on the real hope for the world today… Jesus Christ.

[Part 5 of a 7-Part series]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: A Real Message for a Real World
Date: 1/23/11
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Notes: We cannot fall into the slump that some Christian groups have fallen into and become merely a social and a political outlet; We ought to be involved… but at the core of our identity is Jesus Christ, crucified, buried and rose from the dead, and He poured His Spirit out… that is the hope for society–that is the hope for this world; Jesus Christ will change your life… Isaiah said “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)… that’s what God can do for your today; God has put you in this world and He’s given you the power to do what He wants done in this world… that is the hope of this world; Paul said in Romans, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16)… you can’t vote that in, you can’t legislate that in, you’ve got to come to the cross and repent of your sins; You’ve got to come and confess, you’ve got to repent, you’ve got to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 2:38), and He will confirm your repentance and faith by filling you with His Spirit–that is the most life transforming that could ever happen to you… it’s a real message for a real world

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 59 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: Restoring the Apostles’ Doctrine
Date: 5/5/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: In Acts 2:37 they ask the big question… “What do we have to do?”; If the Apostles understood this the way moderns understand it, they would have said “Repeat the prayer after me, and say with your mouth Jesus Christ is Lord, and you’re done”; But in Acts 2:38 Peter said that to call on the name of the Lord and be saved you must repent of your sins, get baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and then you will receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost; The “whoever will call on the name of the Lord” is not a formula for salvation, it’s a statement of the availability of God’s salvation–whoever calls on the name of the Lord is going to be saved; Romans 10:12 – “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.”; If you come with an 18th Century Calvinist understanding of this, you get a doctrine that says conversion is you confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and Savior, therefore you’re saved; But if you have a restorationist hermeneutic and say “what did the Apostles do?…”; The passage in Romans is written to people that are already saved–Paul isn’t walking them through conversion, but pointing them back to the assurance of their conversion; We actually see such a conversion in Acts 2, with the same verse being quoted; We take the Apostles’ example and understand Romans 10 through the lens of how the Apostles preached those very same verses when they preached to sinners

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 58 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: Restoring the Apostles’ Doctrine
Date: 5/5/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: Romans 10:1-13; Often used as a formula for salvation… if you confess that Jesus Christ is Lord with your mouth then you’re saved; The question is, how did the Apostles do this?; Paul is quoting several passages from the Old Testament; Romans 10:13 – “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved“; Scholars believe Paul is specifically referring to a baptismal confession (in the waters of baptism, people are calling on the name of Jesus Christ, affirming Him as their Savior); Paul quotes from the Old Testament prophet Joel – “For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (quotation from Joel 2); We also see this in Acts 2–Peter preaches on the day of Pentecost, tells them that these people speaking with tongues is the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy that God is going to pour out His Spirit on all flesh… and that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 57 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: Restoring the Apostles’ Doctrine
Date: 5/5/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: Hermeneutics – the art and science of how we interpret texts; There are different ways of going about reading different kinds of texts; The way restorationists approach Scripture: 1) A literal interpretation if and when possible (a command to “repent” would be interpreted literally), 2) Scripture is always above the history that followed it (it doesn’t matter what any subsequent theologian claims… what does the New Testament say?), 3) Apostolic pattern; Matthew 28:19, The Great Commission – “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost“–only Scripture in the New Testament that makes any sort of allusion to that; In the book of Acts, you have repeated accounts of people being baptized invoking the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, never the language in Matthew 28:19; In the Epistles we learn that the practice was to baptize invoking the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; Many references to Jesus’ name baptism, but no references to being baptized in “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”; If anybody knew what Jesus meant in Matthew 28:19, it was the Apostles; Trinitarian ideology was informed by Greek philosophy/understanding; Trinitarian language comes from the councils and creeds; Who gets to better understand Matthew 28:19?–the 1st Century Apostles who come from a Jewish background, or 4th Century Greek scholars?; When the Apostles go to baptize, they either disobey Jesus Christ throughout the rest of the New Testament, or they carried out His command exactly as He commanded it; We give preference to the Apostolic pattern… not to 3rd/4th Century patterns

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 53 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: Restoring the Apostles’ Doctrine
Date: 5/5/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: The way we do theology is that we give preference to the Apostles; Justification by faith; Sanctification; New Testament; Apostolic authority – the Apostles had an authority that no other group of ministers had–it was invested in them by Jesus Christ; Matthew 10:40 – “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.“; Accounts of baptism in the New Testament; Matthew 28:19 – Great Commission account; Jesus didn’t write the book of Matthew–you don’t get the choice to believe Jesus or the Apostles… you pretty much get to believe the Apostles; How do we “receive” the Apostles?–We receive their writings; John 17:20 – “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word“; Saving faith in Jesus Christ comes to us through the words of the Apostles, not the words of creeds and church traditions; Acts 2:14-47 – First sermon of the Christian church; Peter stands up authoritatively with the 11 Apostles in full agreement; You can’t pit Peter against other writings in the New Testament; You have the choice to accept or not accept the New Testament

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 51 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: Restoring the Apostles’ Doctrine
Date: 5/5/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: There are many versions of baptism today–submersion, immersion, sprinkling, pouring, infant baptism, trine baptism, Matthew 28:19, etc.; How far can you go changing the model until the model is no longer the model?; Restorationists say it’s better if you don’t tweak the model at all–it’s better if you just obey the model you have in Scripture, because we don’t have the authority to change the model; To what degree can you change the model and still have authentic Christianity?; Speaking in tongues as the initial evidence of people receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit–If you throw that out the window, on what authority can you claim anyone has received the baptism of the Holy Spirit?; If you’re going to tweak the model, on what/who’s authority do you get to change it?; Protestant Reformation; Catholic Church; Martin Luther; Reformation inside the Catholic Church; If the church today looked exactly like it did when Luther stepped on the scene, to what extent would that sort of Christianity be authentic?; Common tradition of Christianity vs. a primitive/restorationist model that leapfrogs over history back into the New Testament

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 50 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: Restoring the Apostles’ Doctrine
Date: 5/5/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: Restorationists would say the model for the “new birth” and Christian living is in the New Testament, and that’s what we should follow; If you don’t embrace that teaching, on what authority do you get to say that the normative experiences of the New Testament are no longer valid?; Speaking in tongues is a normative experience in the book of Acts, and seems to be linked with the reception of the Holy Spirit; If you say that speaking in tongues was for the apostles but not for today, on what authority can you say that?; Epistemology – How can you know something is true and on what authority?; Those questions go away when you simply lift up the New Testament as your model and follow it obediently; To what degree can you change the model and still have authentic Christianity?; Scholars admit that the New Testament pattern/model of baptism is submersion in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ–to what extent can you change the model and it still be authentic Christian experience?

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 46 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: The Pentecostal Movement
Date: 4/28/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: This story shows us how a group of people went on a journey, trying to get back to what the Scripture says; They found out that when they obeyed Scripture, it lead them to an understanding that Spirit baptism is evidenced with tongues, it’s part of the “new birth”, and the only way people were baptized was invoking the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; Parham, Seymour, Azusa Street, Ewart, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Augustine–we glean from their insights, but our ultimate and sole authority is Scripture; Scripture is our starting point and our ending point; History of the United Pentecostal Church; Authentic practices, experiences, and beliefs revealed in the Bible; The ultimate conversation is not about the Reformation, or Azusa Street, or any other street… it’s about what has God revealed to us in His Word, and how we can be faithful to it

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 45 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: The Pentecostal Movement
Date: 4/28/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: Quote from Edith Blumhofer, Assemblies of God Pentecostal scholar (Assemblies of God are trinitarian and do not believe that Spirit baptism is essential); If you follow the restorationist hermeneutic (understanding of Scripture) that Pentecostalism started with, oneness Pentecostals follow it more rigidly than the rest; Pentecostalism is trying to restore the apostles’ doctrine, but trinitarian Pentecostals borrowed a whole bunch of things from mainline Christianity; Oneness Pentecostals backed up and evaluated all of it through the lens of Scripture; History is not our authority for doctrine–all history does is show us the extent to which people have been faithful to Scripture; The authority rests on Scripture

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 44 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: The Pentecostal Movement
Date: 4/28/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: Frank Ewart said the apostles’ practice (of baptizing in Jesus’ name) was linked to their understanding that Jesus Christ was God manifested in flesh, not just one person of God manifested in flesh; Ewart claimed that the name of Jesus Christ was invoked in baptism by the apostles in full obedience to Matthew 28:19–they knew exactly what they were doing; We only have record of people being baptized in the New Testament in the name of Jesus; On April 15th, 1914, Ewart preached his first message on Acts 2:38, declaring that repentance, baptism in Jesus’ name, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of tongues is New Testament salvation; He also associated the name of Jesus in baptism with the “oneness” of God; Divergence in Pentecostal history between trinitarian Pentecostals and oneness Pentecostals; Ewart and his fellow minister, Glen Cook, re-baptized each other in Jesus’ name; Standing against an established tradition–the Anabaptists got killed for doing this stuff; 300 years earlier in Europe, Frank Ewart and Glen Cook would have been killed

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 43 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: The Pentecostal Movement
Date: 4/28/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: World-Wide Camp Meeting in Arroyo Seco, California in 1913; Robert McAlister preaches the baptism sermon–points out that in the New Testament they didn’t baptize by triple immersion in the trinitarian formula; A guy named John Schaeppe was in the audience–he began praying and studying, and in the middle of the night he ran through the camp screaming “I see it! I see it! I see it!”; He had an understanding of Jesus’ name baptism in the New Testament; McAlister later preaches his first sermon on the exclusive use of the name of Jesus in baptism in Winnepeg in 1913–30 people were baptized in Jesus’ name; McAlister began working with Frank Ewart, who concluded that the apostles baptized in the name of Jesus because Jesus was the full revelation of the Godhead bodily

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Rodney Shaw

[Part 42 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1.]

Ministry: New Life Church of Austin, TX
Full Podcast: The Pentecostal Movement
Date: 4/28/10
Speaker: Rodney Shaw
Topics: William Durham got the conversation going for people trying to get back to what Scripture says–back to what New Testament salvation is; The next big issue in the Pentecostal movement–”the new issue”; The entire Pentecostal movement is founded on restorationist principles; Charles Parham asked the question, “What does the Bible say about Spirit baptism?”; Processing everything through Scripture instead of history and creeds; The “new issue” leads to Jesus’ name baptism and an acknowledgment of the “oneness” of God; Christocentric worship, theology, and vocabulary; Exaltation/elevation of the name of Jesus; Before the “new issue”, there were already some who baptized invoking the name of Jesus Christ–Charles Parham, Andrew Urshan, etc.

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Rodney Shaw