SOLOMON MALAN: AN EARLY DEFENDER OF THE KJV

October 9, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

The defense of the King James Bible is not new. The following is excerpted from For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the King James Version and the Greek Received Text from 1800 to Present. The fifth edition (October 2008) is revised and updated and fully illustrated. This book is available from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143 (toll free), www.wayoflife.org (online catalog), fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail).
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Solomon Caesar Malan, D.D. (1812-1894), Vicar of Broadwindsor, published A Vindication of the Authorized Version, from Charges Brought against It by Recent Writers (1856), A Plea for the Received Text XE "Received Text" and for the Authorized Version of the New Testament (1869), and Seven Chapters of the Revision XE "English Revised Version" of 1881 Revised (1881). The first of these was Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" ’s reply to a call for revision that had come in 1856 through William Selwyn XE "Selwyn, William" and James Heywood XE "Heywood, James" . About that same time, five other Anglican XE "Anglican" ministers were lobbying for revision. These were Charles Ellicott XE "Ellicott, Charles" (later the New Testament Revision Committee chairman), Henry Alford XE "Alford, Henry" , W.H.G. Humphry XE "Humphry, W.H.G." , John Barrow XE "Barrow, John" , and G. Moberly XE "Moberly, G." . This group was brought together in 1856 by Ernest Hawkins XE "Hawkins, Ernest" , secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and between 1857 and 1863 they published several revised portions of the English Bible. These were issued under the title of Revision of the Authorized Version, by Five Clergymen. Malan wrote in opposition to this work, which has been called “the germ of the 1881 revision.”

Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" exhibited a learned grasp of the unique and glorious heritage of the Authorized English Version. He well understood the seriousness of any attempt to revise it. Let’s go back in time 150 years and listen in as this brilliant man gives a defense of the King James Bible:

“It [the KJV] stands as yet unrivalled among other modern versions for the devout spirit in which its authors rendered the original texts; for the simple beauty of its style; and for the dignified and easy flow of a language that was in a great degree formed from it, and that singles it out from among other translations of the Bible, even as a mere literary composition. It is free from the ruggedness and from the archaisms of the older English versions; and at the same time it possesses at least an equal merit with them, for its faithful rendering of the original. But it has this great advantage over some of them, that whereas they were the work of single individuals, this was made by a goodly company of nearly fifty of the most pious and learned men of that time; who, together, availed themselves of the labours of their predecessors in order to raise their own production to a higher degree of excellence. ...

“It may, indeed, be taken down; but, if so, never to be rebuilt as it was. It might, it is true, have a more modern appearance; but then, it would lose the solemn look of age. It might also possibly be better adapted to the fastidious taste of the present day; but then, unbroken associations of two centuries and a half, together with much of national individuality, would perish for ever; and those persons who think the Authorized Version antiquated XE "Archaic (words in the KJV)" , would be the first to regret the change. ... And they would lament the day when, for the sake of novelty, they had abandoned those sweet and solemn words of warning blended with their earliest recollections of childhood, by renouncing their trust of a national treasure, committed to them in the safe keeping of the Authorized English Version of the Bible. ...

“So much care, so much earnestness, in the due performance of this important task [the creation of the King James Bible], were not bestowed in vain. They have stamped the work with a character for excellence to which no modern version, and but one or two of the older ones, can lay claim. As regards the Old Testament, the Authorized Version is, generally speaking, less paraphrastic, and is therefore a more correct rendering of the Hebrew XE "Hebrew" , than the Septuagint and the versions that follow them wholly or in part; such as the Armenian, the Ethiopic, the Coptic, the Vulgate, the Arabic, and even the Syriac. ... And, as regards the New Testament, the English Bible agrees best with the old versions, which are of the highest value, on account of their faithfulness and accuracy. ...

“[I]t stands pre-eminent when side by side with more modern versions,—not only for its devout adherence to the original texts, but also for the beauty of its style. ... So true is this, that whereas neighbouring nations have had, within a short period, a succession of versions of the Bible in their respective languages, to the detriment of union and of uniformity among the readers of the Bible in those countries, the English Version has stood on its own merits, and has shone of its own lustre for nearly two centuries and a half. ...

“Thus it is that it has entered into the very substance of the nation. It is interwoven with its sinews, and forms more than any other book ever did—an unseen, by many perhaps, unacknowledged, or even neglected, but still a living, element in the prosperity of the people. ... THESE LASTING AND WHOLESOME EFFECTS ARE THE RESULT OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE BEING ONE AND THE SAME FOR ALL. IF, INSTEAD OF ONLY ONE BIBLE, ENGLAND HAD, LIKE SOME OTHER COUNTRIES, MANY BIBLES, THAT VARIETY ALONE WOULD BREED AND FOSTER ENDLESS DIVISION. ...

“Their reverence for the Sacred Scriptures induced them [KJV translators] to be as literal as they could, to avoid obscurity; and it must be acknowledged that they were extremely happy in the simplicity and dignity of their expressions. Their adherence to the Hebrew XE "Hebrew" idiom is supposed at once to have enriched and adorned our language; and, as they laboured for the general benefit of the learned and the unlearned, they avoided all words of Latin original when they could find words in their own language ...

“Thus, then, the English Bible has not only stood for centuries, and NOW STANDS, ON ITS OWN MERITS AS A TRUE WITNESS OF THE INSPIRED TEXT OF SCRIPTURE; but it is also strong of its own strength, in being, as the highest authorities tell us, ‘the best standard of the English language.’ ... For ‘our translators,’ says Dr. Adam Clarke, ‘not only made a standard translation, but they have made their translation the standard of our language. THE ENGLISH TONGUE, IN THEIR DAY, WAS NOT EQUAL TO SUCH A WORK; BUT GOD ENABLED THEM TO STAND AS UPON MOUNT SINAI, AND CRANE UP THEIR COUNTRY’S LANGUAGE TO THE DIGNITY OF THE ORIGINALS, so that after the lapse of two hundred [and fifty] years, the English Bible is, with very few exceptions, the standard of the purity and excellence of the English tongue. The original, from which it was taken, is alone superior to the Bible translated by the authority of King James.’...

“Such considerations, however, have no weight whatever with many who are willing to sacrifice much to the love of change; or at all events, who seem to take pleasure in aiming blows at everything that is not of yesterday. Everything now must keep pace with the age; even the word of God. ... And yet wisdom neither came with us, nor will die with us. As regards the Authorized Version then, and those who find fault with it, ‘let us not too hastily conclude,’ says Mr. Whittaker XE "Whittaker, J.W." , ‘that the translators have fallen on evil days and evil tongues, because it has occasionally happened that an individual, as inferior to them in erudition as in talents and integrity, is found questioning their motives, or denying their qualifications for the task which they so well performed. ... It [the KJV] may be compared with any translation in the world, without fear of inferiority; it has not shrunk from the most rigorous examination; it challenges investigation; and, in spite of numerous attempts to supersede it, it has hitherto remained unrivalled in the affections of the country.’

“And God grant it may long continue so, for the good of the people to which it belongs! ...

“I purpose therefore ... to look into the charges thus brought forward against the English Bible, with those who cling to it as they ought, affectionately and devoutly; in order to assist them in expelling from their mind all doubt on the subject. Meanwhile, they may rest assured that, hitherto, all attempts at improvement upon their Bible, have come far short of it in language, in style, in truthfulness, and above all, in a generally correct and devout rendering of the original texts” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Vindication, pp. i-xvi, xxii-xxvi).
Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" answered the various arguments that were being put forth in advance of a revision of the Authorized Version. For example:

“... we now hear from many, that the English Bible is no longer suited to the exigencies of the present day, but that our advanced state of knowledge loudly calls for a new revision. An evil day that will be when it comes. However, Bishop Middleton holds out no encouragement to them, when he says: ‘The style of our present version is incomparably superior to anything which might be expected from the finical and perverted taste of our own age. It is simple, it is harmonious, it is energetic; and, which is of no small importance, use has made it familiar, and time has rendered it sacred.’ ... its words are ‘household words,’ ... its simple and hallowed language is understood and loved alike, by the poor peasant and by the august Sovereign, whom it binds to Her people. England XE "England" has not ‘a Bible,’ one of many to choose from, like her neighbours; but ‘the Bible’ is in every English home; and ‘my Bible,’ in English, means that one Book, the very words of which are the same for all” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Vindication, pp. xviii, xix).

Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" plainly saw the danger of loosing from the ancient moorings of the Received Text XE "Received Text" and the Authorized Version.

“Who will be bold, or I might almost say hardened enough, if not perhaps to pull down, yet even to whitewash the stately edifice of the English Bible? ... It might possibly be better adapted to the fastidious taste of the age; but then, unbroken associations of two centuries and a half, together with much of national individuality, would perish for ever; and those persons who think the authorized version antiquated XE "Archaic (words in the KJV)" would be the first to regret the change. ... For independently of the words of the Bible being sacred in all languages, the language of the English Bible in particular is consecrated ... the vernacular translation of the Bible has formed and fixed the language of the country” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Vindication of the Authorized Version, 1856, pp. iii, iv, xiv).

Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" pointed out the unsettled, ever-changing character of modern textual criticism, observing: “In other words, the translator chooses his own text, which he renders as he thinks fit; so that, in fact, he has it all his own way. ... Mill is thought by some to be antiquated XE "Archaic (words in the KJV)" , Griesbach XE "Griesbach, J.J." out of date, and Tischendorf XE "Tischendorf" even not exactly to their taste” (Malan, A Vindication of the Authorized Version, p. xxi).

Malan “takes exceptions even to the quite prevalent custom of ministers’ criticising the present translation before their congregations, on the ground that it ‘needlessly unsettles the mind of their hearers on a subject in which comparatively few of them can ever be fair judges’” (Bissell, The Historic Origin of the Bible, p. 350).

In the second book, Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" directed his remarks to a critique of Henry Alford XE "Alford, Henry" ’s sixth edition Greek XE "Greek" New Testament (published in 1868) which followed Tischendorf XE "Tischendorf" and gave heavy preference to the Vaticanus XE "Vaticanus" and Sinaiticus XE "Sinaiticus" manuscripts. Malan comments on some of Alford’s readings in the Gospels and the book of Titus. The following two examples illustrate the tone of the whole:

“[Matthew 1:25] ‘Till she had brought forth her first-born son,’ A.V. is changed by Dr. Alford XE "Alford, Henry" to ‘till she had brought forth a son’! His reasons for this change are, that the Vatican MS. and a very few others make it; whereas the reading of the Auth. Version, which is that of the Received Text XE "Received Text" , is far better supported, and by many more MSS. The English reader may refer to p. 37 for a discussion on this passage; but if he knows no Greek XE "Greek" , he may rest assured the Authorized Version is right and far better than the Dean’s alteration ‘till she brought forth a son’...” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Plea for the Received Text and for the Authorized Version of the New Testament, p. 103).

“[Mark 13:14] ‘Spoken of by Daniel XE "Daniel" the prophet,’ A.V., ‘omit,’ Dr. Alford XE "Alford, Henry" . This clause is not, indeed, in the Vatican MS., but is found in others, as well as in the Syriac, Georgian, Slavonic, and Ethiopic versions. So that we need not obey Dr. Alford’s peremptory order to omit it” (Ibid., p. 142).
Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" ’s conclusion offers a window into the sympathies of a great many nineteenth-century preachers toward the attempts to undermine the Greek Received Text XE "Received Text" :

“A man who, like him [Henry Alford XE "Alford, Henry" ], sets to a work of this kind, apparently without the slightest hesitation or misgiving in his own powers, thinking it the easiest thing in the world to make wholesale changes in the Greek XE "Greek" text and in the joint labours of more than fifty learned men of old, instead of dealing with the utmost reverence and caution, not only forms an unworthy estimate of the work he undertakes—but he also recklessly wounds the feeling of deep respect and affection with which men, nowise his inferiors in judgment or scholarship, still continue to look upon the Received Text XE "Received Text" and the English Bible.

“Both these have, indeed, lasted more than two centuries; a long time, in truth, for those who think that wisdom, learning, and scholarship have only just dawned on the land, and that, until now, all was darkness and ignorance. Wise men, however, do not think so but rather take the long life of those two monuments of ancient piety and learning as a proof of their real merit and excellence. ...

“[A] better acquaintance with his [Alford XE "Alford, Henry" ’s] work only tends to deepen their reverence and to strengthen their affection for their old friends and companions, the Received Greek XE "Greek" Text of the New Testament and the Authorised Version of it—neither of which they ever intend to give up; not even at the Dean’s bidding” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Plea for the Received Text XE "Received Text" and for the Authorized Version of the New Testament, pp. 210, 11).

When the 1881 English Revision XE "English Revised Version" appeared, Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" was not swayed from his earlier position. “The learned writer charged the Revisers with having ‘looked upon’ their work ‘in the light of a Greek XE "Greek" exercise,’ and with having ‘taken pleasure in making as many changes as they could, with little or no regard for cadence, rhythm, style, or even grammar.’ He pronounced the result to be ‘little short of a great failure’” (Samuel Hemphill XE "Hemphill, Samuel" , A History of the Revised Version of the New Testament, p. 96).

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This is excerpted from For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the King James Version and the Greek Received Text from 1800 to Present. The fifth edition (November 2008) is revised and updated and fully illustrated. This book is available from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143 (toll free), www.wayoflife.org (online catalog), fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail).

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

“Elvis Presley never stood for anything. He made no sacrifices, fought no battles, suffered no martyrdom, never raised a finger to struggle on behalf of what he believed or claimed to believe. Even gospel, the music he cherished above all, he travestied and commercialized and soft-soaped to the point where it became nauseating. ... Essentially, Elvis was a phony. ... He feigned piety, but his spirituals sound insincere or histrionic” (Goldman, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, pp. 187,188).

The Bible warns that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4); and while we hope Elvis did trust Jesus Christ as God and Savior before he died, there is no evidence that he truly repented of his sin or separated from the world or believed in the Christ of the Bible. The book he took to the bathroom just before he died was either The Force of Jesus by Frank Adams or The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus, depending on various accounts. Both books present an unscriptural, pagan christ. Pastor Hamill, former pastor of First Assembly of God in Memphis, says that Presley visited him in the late 1950s, when he was at the height of his rock & roll powers, and testified: “Pastor, I’m the most miserable young man you’ve ever seen. I’ve got all the money I’ll ever need to spend. I’ve got millions of fans. I’ve got friends. But I’m doing what you taught me not to do, and I’m not doing the things you taught me to do” (Steve Turner, Hungry for Heaven, p. 20).

ELVIS’S DRUG ABUSE KILLED HIM

Elvis did not drink, but he abused drugs most of his life. He began using amphetamines and Benzedrine to give him a lift when he began his rock & roll career in the first half of the 1950s. It is possible that they were first given to him by Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips, who helped popularize Elvis’s music by playing his songs repeatedly (Goldman, p. 9). The drugs “transformed the shy, mute, passive ‘Baby Elvis’ of those years into the Hillbilly Cat.’” He also used marijuana some and took LSD at least once. In her autobiography, Priscilla Presley says that Elvis was using drugs heavily by 1960 and that his personality changed dramatically. After the breakup of his short-lived marriage in 1973, Elvis “was hopelessly drug-dependent.” He abused barbiturates and narcotics so heavily that he destroyed himself. He died on August 16, 1977, at age 42 in his bathroom at Graceland, of a shutdown of his central nervous system caused by polypharmacy, or the combined effect of a number of drugs. There is some evidence, in fact, that Elvis committed suicide (Goldman, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, pp. 161-175). He had attempted suicide in 1967 just before his marriage. Fourteen drugs were found in his body during the autopsy, including toxic or near toxic levels of four. Dr. Norman Weissman, director of operations at Bio-Sciences Laboratories, where the toxicity tests were performed, testified that he had never seen so many drugs in one specimen. Elvis’s doctor, George Nichopolous, had prescribed 19,000 pills and vials for Elvis in the last 31.5 months of his life. Elvis required 5,110 pills per year just for his sleeping routine. Elvis also obtained drugs from many other sources, both legal and illegal! It was estimated that he spent at least $1 million per year on drugs and drug prescribing doctors (Goldman, p. 56). Dr. Nichopolous’s head nurse, Tish Henley, actually lived on the grounds of Graceland and monitored Elvis’s drug consumption. In 1980, Nichopolous was found in violation of the prescribing rules of the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners, and he lost his license for three months and was put on probation for three years. In 1992, his medical license was revoked permanently.

After a protracted legal battle, Elvis’s daughter, Lisa Marie, inherited his entire estate, now valued at over $100 million. Graceland was made into a museum, and it is visited by more than 650,000 per year.

A SELF-CENTERED MAN

Elvis was self-centered to the extreme. Though he gave away many expensive gifts, including fancy automobiles and jewelry, it was obvious that he used these to obtain his own way. “But when his extravagant presents fail to inspire a properly beholden attitude, the legendary Presley generosity peels off, revealing its true motive as the desire for absolute control” (Goldman, p. 104). He could not take even kind criticism and was quick to cut off friends who crossed him in any way. “A little Caesar, he made himself all-powerful in his kingdom, reducing everyone around him to a sycophant or hustler” (Goldman, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, p. 15). He was hypercritical, sarcastic, and mean-spirited to people around him. When Elvis first began touring with Scotty Moore and Bill Black, they traveled in the automobile owned and maintained by Moore’s wife, Bobbie. She worked at Sears and was the only one who had a steady paying job at the time. When Elvis became an overnight star and began to make big money, he purchased a Lincoln, but he never made any attempt to replace Bobbie’s car or to pay back what she had put into it for them. Elvis promised Scotty Moore and Bill Black, the members of his first band, that he would not forget them if they prospered financially, but he did just that. While Elvis was making tens of thousands of dollars by 1956 and 1957, Moore and Black were paid lowly wages and were finally let go to fend for themselves as best they could. Elvis never gave his old friends automobiles or anything of significant value. Reminiscing on those days, Scotty Moore says, “He promised us that the more he made the more we would make, but it hasn’t worked out that way. The thing that got me, the thing that wasn’t right about it, was the fact that Elvis didn’t keep his word. ... We were supposed to be the King’s men. In reality, we were the court jesters” (Moore, That’s Alright, Elvis, pp. 146,155). Elvis turned them “out to pasture like broken-down mules, without a penny.” Elvis kept up this pattern all his life. He would fire his friends and workers at the snap of a finger, and he “was not one to give his buddies a second change” (The Boy Who Would Be King, p. 197). Bobby West served his cousin Elvis faithfully for 20 years, and was rewarded in 1976 by being fired with three day’s notice and one week’s pay. Delbert West (another cousin) and Dave Hebler were similarly treated.

ELVIS’S RAGE

Elvis often exhibited a violent, even murderous, rage. He was “notorious for making terrible threats.” He cooked up murder plots against a number of people, including the man his ex-wife ran off with and three former bodyguards who wrote a tell-all book about him. He threw things at people and even dragged one woman through several rooms by her hair. He viciously threw a pool ball at one female fan, hitting her in the chest and injuring her severely. One of his sleep-over girlfriends almost died of a drug overdose he had given her and she remained in intensive care for several days near death. He never once went to see her or call and had no further contact with her. According to his cousin Earl, he never apologized for anything. He drew and fired his guns many times when he could not get his way, firing into ceilings, shooting out television sets. When his last girlfriend, Ginger Alden, attempted to leave Graceland against his wishes, he fired over her head to force her to stay. Elvis hit Priscilla, his wife, at least once, giving her a black eye. He also threw chairs and other things at her. Once he tore up her expensive cloths and threw them and her out into the driveway. He even mocked and flaunted her with his affairs. When his father remarried, Elvis treated him and his wife very badly. When he first learned of it, he “threw a tantrum of frightening proportions,” destroying furniture and punching holes in the walls with his fists. On one occasion he stormed around the dinner table and threw the plates full of food at the wall, cursing his father and stepmother and blaspheming God (The Boy Who Would Be King).

ELVIS’S IMMORALITY

Elvis was a fornicator and adulterer. He had “a roving eye.” “His list of one-night stands would fill volumes” (Jim Curtin, Elvis, p. 119). He began sleeping with multiple girls per week when he was only one year out of high school and discovered the power of his music to capture sensual girls. His cousin Earl notes that the sleazy music clubs Elvis was visiting “satisfied more than his thirst for music—they unleashed Elvis’s sexuality” (The Boy Who Would Be King, p. 122). He slept with many girls before his marriage to Priscilla Beaulieu, and had multiple affairs after his marriage. Priscilla was only a 14-year-old ninth grader when Elvis began dating her in 1959 during his army tour in Germany. At the time he met Priscilla, he had an even younger girl living in his house (Moore, That’s Alright, Elvis, p. 162). Elvis corrupted the shy, teenaged Priscilla. He gave her liquor and got her drunk. He got her hooked on pills. He taught her to dress in a licentious manner. He encouraged her to lie to her parents. He led her into immorality and pornography. He taught her to gamble. He used hallucinogenic drugs with her. (These are facts published in Priscilla’s autobiography.) In 1962, the 15-year-old Priscilla moved in with Elvis at his Graceland mansion in Memphis (after Elvis lied to her parents about the living arrangement) and they lived together for five years before they married in May 1967. (The marriage was probably due to pressure put on Elvis by his manager, who was worried about the star’s public image.) Elvis and Priscilla had constant problems in their marriage and were divorced in 1973. Elvis had many adulterous affairs during his marriage, and Priscilla admits two affairs of her own. Scotty Moore’s second wife, Emily, said she felt sorry for Priscilla because of all of the women Elvis was seeing. Elvis seduced his stepbrother Billy’s wife, Angie, and destroyed their marriage. He then banished Billy from Graceland. Elvis’s cousin, Earl, who was his best buddy in high school and during the early years of his music career and who worked for him for many years after his success, describes how Elvis became addicted to orgies involving many girls at one time. Elvis cursed and profaned the Lord’s name continually in his ordinary conversation. Even during his earliest concerts he “told some really dirty, crude jokes in between his songs” (RockABilly, p. 120).

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For the conclusion, see Part 2 of 2 of the article “Elvis Presley: King of Rock & Roll.” The complete article is in the Music section of the End Times Apostasy Database at the Way of Life Literature web site.

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

FROM FUNDAMENTALISM TO ECUMENISM: A WARNING ABOUT THE EMERGING CHURCH FROM THE LIFE OF ROBERT WEBBER

July 2, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

The following is from the new book we are finishing up entitled What about the Emerging Church?
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Robert Webber (1933-2007) was a professor at Wheaton College for about 30 years and taught at Northern Seminary in Chicago the last seven years of his life.

He is one of the fathers of the contemplative movement and a very influential voice in the emerging church. In his book Common Roots (1978) he argued that the early church era of A.D. 100-500 has “insights which evangelicals need to recover.” Those “insights” include monastic “contemplative spirituality.”

Webber continued this line of thinking in Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals Are Attracted to the Liturgical Church (1985), Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World (1999), Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World (2002), and The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (2006).

Webber promoted a very broad ecumenism:

“Paradigm thinking sets us free to affirm the whole church in all its previous manifestations. ...This search for a common heritage allows for the emergence of a new understanding of unity and diversity. ... So while we are all Christians, some of us are Roman Catholic Christians, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Reformation Christians, twentieth-century Christians, or some other form of modern or postmodern Christians” (Ancient-Future Faith, pp. 16, 17).

“A goal for evangelicals in the postmodern world is to accept diversity as a historical reality, but to seek unity in the midst of it. This perspective will allow us to see Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches as various forms of the one true church...” (Ancient-Future Faith, p. 85).

“We evangelicals need to turn our backs on the old separatist model” (Ancient-Future Faith, p. 86).

“Today evangelicals and Catholics are enjoying spiritual camaraderie that was nonexistent a few years ago. ... Evangelicals in a postmodern world will increasingly feel at home with Catholics, Orthodox, and other Protestant bodies...” (Ancient-Future Faith, p. 87).

“... evangelicals need to go beyond talk about the unity of the church to experience it through an attitude of acceptance of the whole church and an entrance into dialogue with the Orthodox, Catholic, and other Protestant bodies” (Ancient-Future Faith, p. 89).

Before he died Webber organized “A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future,” an effort to challenge evangelicals “to strengthen their witness through a recovery of the faith articulated by the consensus of the ancient Church and its guardians in the traditions of EASTERN ORTHODOXY, ROMAN CATHOLICISM, the Protestant Reformation and the Evangelical awakenings.”

To arrive at this radical ecumenical position, Webber traveled far from his roots. In the books Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail and The Divine Embrace he described the move away from a strict biblicist position.

Webber grew up in a fundamental Baptist home. His father, who was born in 1900, was involved in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy and was a separatist. He left the liberal American Baptist Convention and joined the Conservative Baptists. Webber’s parents were missionaries in Africa for the first seven years of his life. The family moved back to the States when one of their children became seriously ill and the father pastored the Montgomeryville Baptist Church, located about 25 miles west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After high school Webber attended Bob Jones University.

Describing his childhood he says:

“I went to Christian schools and palled around with Christian friends from my youth group. The boundaries of home, church, and school were very tight” (The Divine Embrace, p. 150).

“I was the kid who couldn’t go to the movies, the kid who had to keep Sunday as a holy day (no sports), the kid who had to watch everything I did and said. But I wasn’t just a preacher’s kid. I was also a fundamentalist Baptist. From an early age, it was thoroughly ingrained within me that I was both a fundamentalist and a Baptist. Being Christian wasn’t enough. ... Catholics were pagan. Episcopalianism was a social club. Lutherans had departed from the faith. Presbyterians were formalistic. And Pentecostals were off-center” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 13).

“One central conviction of my parents was that our fundamentalist way was the only faith that stood in continuity with the New Testament. All other viewpoints were distorted at best and some, especially Roman Catholicism, contained no connection with New Testament Christianity whatsoever” (The Divine Embrace, p. 199).

What he was taught about Rome was true. How did he get from there to the point where he considered the Roman Catholic Church a genuine church and the Protestant Reformation “a tragedy”? He describes the steps in his books.

Lack of Clarity about Personal Salvation

One thing that is missing in the biographical account of his youth is a biblical testimony of salvation. Never does he give a biblical, life-changing testimony of being born again and walking with Christ in sweet fellowship through faith in God’s Word. The closest he comes is a description of an event that occurred when he was 13. His father talked to him about the need to be baptized. He did not seek out baptism because he had experienced a born again conversion; rather, his father talked him into it.

“I remember going out on the back porch that night, looking up into the stars, and asking myself whether or not I really believed, whether or not I was willing to take up my cross and follow after Christ. The prospect of my own baptism caused me to choose Christ again in a more intense way, to determine once more to follow him” (pp. 45, 46).

This is a works orientation to salvation. A determination to follow Christ is not the same as acknowledging one’s utter sinfulness and surrendering oneself into His care and trusting Him exclusively as one’s Saviour.

Webber argued that salvation does not have to be a dramatic conversion experience and he admitted that he didn’t have such an experience. He said that repentance “can have a dramatic beginning or can come as a result of a process over time” (The Divine Embrace, p. 149). He saw salvation is a sacramental process that begins at baptism, and this is one reason why he left the Baptist church and joined the Episcopalian and was perfectly comfortable with Roman Catholicism.

Webber described many experiences he had with his students, but he doesn’t give any examples of counseling them about personal salvation. Consider something that happened to him in 1968, during his first year of teaching at Wheaton College. As Webber was giving proofs for the existence of God, a student raised his hand and said that he didn’t believe that God exists and that the proofs didn’t mean anything to him (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 27). When Webber asked the class if anyone else agreed, “several other hands slipped into the air.” What is even more amazing than the fact that several Bible college students were atheists or agnostics was Webber’s response. He asked them what they wanted him to teach and allowed them to guide him in a “search for a more profound and deeper meaning in life” by “tuning into the questions of meaning asked by the artists of our generation.” Pathetically, he even says, “I can’t say we came to adequate conclusions” (p. 28).

What he did not do is question these students’ salvation and try to lead them to Christ, which should have been the very first thing he did.

Once-for-all personal regeneration is absolutely foundational to “experiencing God,” but it is glaring in its absence in Webber’s writings. What we have instead is an emphasis on sacramental terminology.

“... the sacrament ... is a means through which Christ encounters us savingly” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, pp. 50, 51).

“He who saved me at the cross continues to extend his salvation to me through the simple and concrete signs of bread and wine” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 51).

“In the Eucharist I feel both saved again and compelled to live in the Eucharistic way. Both justification and sanctification are communicated to me” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 84).

“Baptism is the spiritual rite of conscious and intentional union with Jesus ... and reception of the Holy Spirit ...” (The Divine Embrace, p. 67).

“When baptism is enacted in faith, the spirit of God performs, ascribes, and accomplishes the very meaning of baptism--a forgiveness of our old identity is made real, and a new identity with Jesus is actualized” (The Divine Embrace, p. 152).

Webber even warns that it is possible to “overstress conversion.” He describes how that in 1983 Jon Braun of the Evangelical Orthodox Church spoke to Webber’s class at Wheaton about his pilgrimage into Orthodoxy.

“He was speaking about his upbringing in a Christian home and the fact that as a young person he had always believed but had had no dramatic experience of salvation. His parents, anxious for him to have a dramatic conversion experience, began to push him toward a decision. ‘This,’ he said soberly, ‘actually pushed me out of the church and made me think for a temporary period of time that I was an unbeliever.’ He then went on to say that placing too much emphasis on a dateable experience of salvation can be dangerous if we do not take into account that many who grow up in Christian homes grow into faith without such an experience” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 76).

Jesus said that salvation is something you are supernaturally born into, not something you grow into. Webber should have encouraged parents who want their children to have a clear new birth experience, but instead he casts aspersion on such a thing and even says that it might be dangerous. To say that “I have always believed” is an unscriptural testimony. You might not know the exact date, but you certainly should know when and where it happened and how that it clearly changed your life (2 Corinthians 5:17). You should be able to testify how that you acknowledged your sin against God and repented of it and put your faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is the gospel, and called upon Him for salvation (1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Romans 10:12-13; Acts 20:21). That is the only type of “conversion” that is described in the New Testament.

Webber says that “a dramatic experience of the saving reality of Christ is not to be denied or minimized” (p. 76), but he does deny and minimize it by indicating that there are other ways of salvation such as growing into faith and sacramentalism and by confusing justification with sanctification.

Lack of clarity about personal salvation is a foundational error of the emerging church.

Rejection of Separatism

Webber’s first step to ecumenism was in rejecting the biblical doctrine of separation. He describes how that at Bob Jones University he heard the accusation that “Billy Graham is the greatest tool of the devil in the twentieth century” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 70). They warned that Graham was flirting with modernism and compromising the gospel through cooperative evangelism, which is absolutely true, but Webber rejected that argument in his heart.

He mislabels the call for separation from disobedient compromisers like Graham as “second degree separation.” In fact, it is not second degree but first! The Bible warns God’s people to “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17). That is exactly what Billy Graham has done throughout his ecumenical career. He has taught a generation of evangelicals to downplay doctrine and to fellowship with heretics, and that is directly contrary to the doctrine that we learned from the apostles. Paul exalted doctrine and taught us to be very strict about it (1 Timothy 1:3) and he condemned heretics in the boldest, plainest manner (e.g., 1 Timothy 1:18-20; 2 Timothy 2:16-18).

Rejection of a Pure Church

Another thing that occurred when Webber was at Bible College was his rejection of the doctrine of a pure church.

“Why, I wondered, were we always so busy defining the perimeters in which truth and a right relationship to God were accurately defined? Was it really possible, I wondered, to have a pure church? The more I thought about this the more I felt that to be truly pure was an impossibility. ... How can anyone except God himself be pure and uncontaminated from false belief, ethical error, and incomplete judgment? For me the so-called concept of the purity of the church was a strait-jacket that made me increasingly uncomfortable” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 71).

His question is answered plainly and simply in Scripture. Paul wrote to the church of Corinth and reproved and corrected them for their sins and errors. He urged them to be pure. He instructed them put the fornicator out of their midst (1 Corinthians 5) and to deal with the false teachers (2 Corinthians 11). Paul said:

“Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8).

It is God’s will that the churches be pure, and even though we don’t live up to this in a perfect manner in this present world, that must always be the goal. We are to continually purge out the old leaven.

The doctrine of a pure church is not a strait-jacket for those who love Christ and want to please Him. Christ addressed seven of the churches in Asia in Revelation 2-3 and He reproved them for their sin and errors and called upon them to repent. He warned that He would reject those that did not repent (Revelation 2:5). This is the standard for the entire church age. It is not the will of Christ that we ever grow complacent about sin and error in the churches.

The doctrine of a pure church is only a strait-jacket to those who want to be careless about doctrine for the sake of pursuing an ecumenical agenda.

Attending the Wrong Schools

Though he was raised in fundamental Baptist doctrine, Webber pursued theological graduate training in non-fundamentalist and non-Baptist schools (Reformed, Lutheran, Episcopal). This is a perfect recipe for going out of the right way. While attending Protestant seminaries he rejected the Baptist faith and became a Protestant. That is not a surprise!

And it was at these seminaries, as we shall see, that Webber was taught about ecumenism and sacramentalism.

It was at these seminaries, too, where he also learned to think and write and speak in a complicated, philosophical manner. He writes far over the head of the ordinary Christian. His books could not help the simple village people in Africa that his parents helped by preaching simple Bible truth. He has complicated the simplicity of the faith (2 Corinthians 11:3). He forgot that God has revealed His truth to babes (Mat. 11:25), that God has chosen to confound the wise of the world through the simple preaching of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:17-29).

Falling in Love with Calvin

First Webber fell in love with John Calvin.

“I was particularly attracted to John Calvin. ... At the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia. I studied under Robert K. Rudolf, a master teacher and a walking encyclopedia of Calvinist theology. By his magnetic personality and his deep devotion to logically consistent truths I was soon drawn into the teaching of John Calvin” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 60).

Calvin came out of Rome, but he clung to many of Rome’s errors, including infant baptism, sacramentalism, the priesthood, church statism, and amillennialism. He did not understand properly the doctrine of salvation or the church or Bible prophecy, among others. Calvin did not have a personal testimony of salvation other than his infant baptism and he was an avowed enemy of Baptists. He imprisoned them and put them to death, burning one of them at the stake. Calvin’s allegorical interpretation of prophecy does away with the imminency of the return of Christ, which is a very important doctrine and has a great impact on Christian living.

To fall in love with Calvin is a definite step away from the simple New Testament Christian faith and church and a definite step toward Rome.

Studying the Church Fathers

Another stepping stone toward ecumenism was the study of the Church Fathers. Many of those who have converted to Rome have testified that the Church Fathers helped them in this venture. In reality, most of the so-called church fathers of the early centuries were tainted with heresies such as sacramentalism, sanctification through ascetism, infant baptism, sacerdotalism (priestcraft), hierarchicalism, inquisitionalism, and Mariolatry. They represent a gradual falling away from the apostolic faith and a preparation for the formation of the Roman Catholic Church. (See the article “Who Are the Church Fathers” at the Way of Life web site.)

Webber said that he stopped looking back on church history in a “judgmental manner” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, pp. 61, 62). That was a great error, because the Bible says we are to “prove all things” (1 Thess. 5:21).

Attending an Ecumenical Prayer Fellowship

Another turning point in Webber’s life occurred in 1965 when he attended an ecumenical prayer community, invited by one of his seminary professors. Benedictine monks formed half of the group. Instead of obeying Romans 16:17 and 1 Corinthians 15:33 and many other Scriptures, Webber agreed to attend. He says, “As time went on my prejudices against the Roman Catholics began to fall by the wayside. I had encountered real people who were deeply committed to Christ and his church” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 64). Dedicated Roman Catholics are obviously real people who are committed to Christ, but what Christ? Rome teaches that the consecrated wafer is Christ. And they are obviously committed to the “church,” but not the church that we see in the Bible.

Over the course of the next two years Webber’s thinking completely changed (The Divine Embrace, pp. 199, 200).

In October 1972, he preached a sermon at Wheaton College entitled “The Tragedy of the Reformation.”

The Mystical Mass

Having become sympathetic to Roman Catholicism, he disobeyed God’s Word to separate from heresy and attended a Catholic Mass where he had a life-changing mystical experience. This occurred at a Catholic retreat center. He said he was “surprised by joy” and “never had an experience like that in my life” and “was surely the richer for it” (Signs and Wonders, 1992, p. 5). At another Mass at St. Michael’s Church in Wheaton, Webber said he experienced “something deeper than anything else I had been through” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 39).

The Mass is at the heart of Rome’s occultic mysticism, and many converts to and sympathizers with Rome have testified that the Mass had a part in breaking down their resistance.

Lou Ann Elwell, counselor of students at Wheaton College, is quoted by Webber as saying, “In the sacrament of the Eucharist I feel close to the Lord, almost like he’s saying, ‘I’m here’” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 43).

David DuPlessis, who was instrumental in breaking down the wall of separation between Pentecostals and Rome, described an experience he had during Mass at the Vatican. He said that his heart broke and he literally wept during the performance of the Mass at a session of the Second Vatican Council. By this mystical experience he was purged entirely from suspicion about Catholic doctrine and thereafter he could readily accept Catholic priests as brothers in Christ without any judgmentalism (A Man Called Mr. Pentecost, pp. 215, 216). It was certainly not the Spirit of Truth that met DuPlessis in the Mass and taught him not to judge doctrine and practice.

Webber developed a craving for sacramentalism. He says: “I felt a need for visible and tangible symbols that I could touch, feel, and experience with my senses. This need is met in the reality of Christ presented to me through the sacraments” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 15).

Instead of being satisfied with faith in God’s Word, Webber wanted signs and symbols. He wanted a physical experience. But the Bible says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Faith comes by God’s Word (Romans 10:17). It is the “evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Webber joined the Anglican Church, but some of his former students have followed the sacramental path he blazed all the way to Mother Rome.

Contemplative Practices

Another thing that brought Webber into a radical ecumenical philosophy was his involvement with the Catholic contemplative practices, such as centering prayer and the Jesus Prayer. He recommends resting the chin on the chest and gazing at the area of the heart and repeating the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”) “again and again.” He says, “I feel the presence of Christ through this prayer” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 83). Mysticism is an attempt to experience God, and it is never satisfied with a faith walk based on God’s Word. Further, Christ forbade repetitious prayers (Matthew 6:7-8). When we go beyond the Bible and get involved in practices that are forbidden in Scripture, the devil is always ready to meet us in his guise as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

Anointing with Oil by a Charismatic Female Preacher

Another turning point for Webber was in 1974 when a charismatic Episcopal deaconess named Leanne Payne anointed him with oil and prayed over him and healed his memories. This occurred when he was deeply troubled over his future church affiliation.

“Starting in my pre-school years through high school, college, and seminary, we prayed through my spiritual journey, asking God for a sense of direction. I began to feel a sense of release from the past. To this day the effects of that prayer are still with me. For the confusion about my spiritual identity was laid to rest, and my feeling of being drawn into the Episcopal church was confirmed. ... For more than an hour Leanne prayed for me as I brought back to mind the wounds I had received by those who attempted to malign my faith pilgrimage and by those who sought to impede my journey into a wider, more inclusive sense of the Christian faith. After prayer, I felt free, even delivered” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, pp. 44, 45, 65).

Observe that he considered himself “wounded” by fundamentalist types who had tried to warn him about the ecumenical, sacramental direction he was going, and this Episcopal deaconess healed him of the “wounds” inflicted by those mean-spirited Biblicists. In fact, it was not wounds that they had given him but treasures. When someone cares enough to reprove us for sin and error, that is a great gift, but he rejected their kindnesses and sought healing from them through an occultic ritual that has no support in Scripture.

There is nothing like the “healing of memories” in the Bible. Christ and the apostles and prophets of the early churches taught nothing about this, and if it were as necessary as its proponents say it is, the Bible would not be silent about it.

Webber describes how that his ecumenical activities broadened his thinking and made him more tolerant and accepting of all the denominations.

Rejecting the Bible as the Sole Authority for Faith and Practice

Eventually Webber came to the place where he was no longer satisfied with the doctrine that the Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice. He was no longer satisfied with a faith walk with Christ based on Scripture. He wanted an experience that went beyond this. He had been led astray through ecumenism and sacramentalism and contemplative spirituality.

The following is a very frightful thing and is a warning for those who are tempted to flirt with ecumenism.

He said that in 1969 he was preparing a sermon for Wheaton College chapel. He decided on a two-part message. The first part would be an evaluation of contemporary culture, and the second would be the biblical answer. In the second part he wanted to answer the question, “What can we tell a world of despairing people?” (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, p. 28). His outline began with the fact that God created the world and that the world, therefore, is meaningful, that God made man in His own image, that man fell away from God, and that Christ came to redeem men from their sins. That is precisely the answer given in the first three chapters of the epistle of Romans, but suddenly Webber became dissatisfied with these foundational Bible truths.

As I continued to redefine the answers, I asked myself, ‘Webber, why don’t these answers do anything for you?’...

The next morning I dragged my tired and weary body, mind, and soul to my office. I sat there at my desk and looked at those yellow, legal-sized pages of notes. ... I said to myself, ‘Webber, you’ve got to be honest about those answers. You can’t preach that with integrity.’

I stretched my arm across the desk, picked up the sermon manuscript and separated the two parts of the sermon. ... Then, in a moment of conviction, I stood to my feet, grabbed the answer part of my sermon in both hands, and vigorously crumpled the papers. Raising my right hand and arm high above my head, I tossed those answers with all my power into the wastebasket. I dropped back into my chair and sobbed for several hours. I had thrown away my answers. I had rid myself of a system in which God was comfortably contained. ... ‘God,’ I cried, ‘where are you? Show yourself to me. Let me know that you are.’ I was met by an awful silence. But it was not an empty silence. It was the silence of mystery--a silence that closed the door on my answers and broke the system in which I had enslaved God. I wept and I wept. ...

The next day I stood before the student body and delivered the first part of my sermon. Then I closed my notebook, looked at them directly, and told them what had happened to me. I told them that the answers don’t work, that what we need is not answers about God, but God himself. And I told them how God was more real to me in his silence than he had been in my textbook answers. My God was no longer the God you could put on the blackboard or the God that was contained in a textbook, but a maverick who breaks the boxes we build for him (Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, pp. 28, 29, 30).

This is one of the saddest, most frightful testimonies I have ever read.

How unwise to say that what we need is not answers about God, but God himself. How can we possibly know God apart from the revelation He has given in Scripture? Anything beyond that is blind mysticism rather than biblical faith. We need sound doctrine based on the Bible, and we need a living walk with God through Christ based on that doctrine. Countless Bible believers have found deep satisfaction and a fruitful spirituality in this. To set the one against the other is heresy.

God has not revealed Himself in silence; He has revealed Himself in the Bible. And the Bible never exhorts us to try to experience God in silence. We are to meditate on His Word day and night (Psalm 1:3). We are to walk in fellowship with Him by praying without ceasing. Christ taught His disciples to pray by saying words, not by sitting in silence. In his epistles Paul described many of his prayers for an example to us, and they were always prayers of words. God is known by His own infallible revelation, and biblical faith is believing that revelation and knowing God through that revelation.

God is not contained in the Bible, but God is revealed in the Bible. God cannot be put on a blackboard, but God’s Word can be written on a blackboard and believed in the heart.

To accept the Bible as the sole authority for faith and practice is not enslavement; it is freedom from deception. It is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

“As I neared the middle of the book, the feeling grew in my mind that Rachel Carson was really playing loose with the facts and was also deliberately wording many sentences in such a way as to make them imply certain things without actually saying them. She was carefully omitting everything that failed to support her thesis that pesticides were bad, that industry was bad, and that any scientists who did not support her views were bad. ... I next looked up some of the references that Carson cited and quickly found that they did not support her contentions about the harm caused by pesticides. When leading scientists began to publish harsh criticisms of her methods and her allegations, it slowly dawned on me that Rachel Carson was not interested in the truth about those topics, and that I really was being duped, along with millions of other Americans” (Edwards, “The Lies of Rachel Carson,” 21st Century Science and Technology, Summer 1992).

(See also “Silent Spring at 40” by Ronald Bailey, Reason magazine, June 2002, http://reason.com/rb/rb061202.shtml.)

Rachel Carson’s environmental position won the day in many governments, not because it is based on scientific truth but because it is a lie and this dark world loves a lie, being under the dominion of the father of lies (John 8:44).

Carson dedicated her book “To Albert Schweitzer who said, ‘Man ... will end by destroying the Earth.’” In fact, man will not destroy the world; God will. The Bible believer understands this and lives his life accordingly, while the unbeliever stumbles in the darkness, knowing neither from whence he came or where he is going.

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:10-13).

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]