Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

Roadblocks LimitingChurch EffectivenessA series of four lectures given at White Lake Christian Workers' Conference, 1953by the Rev. J. G. Vos, D.D.Lecture IV. The Roadblock of Stagnation, or Regarding the Status Quo as Normal(Continued)3. The roadblock of stagnation regards the statusquo as normal.There is a constant tendency in every churchto regard the status quo as normal. In the physicaland biological sciences, what is normal is determinedby averages of a great many individuals. What isthe normal temperature of the human blood ? A bookon hygiene will tell you that it is 98.6 F. Your feverthermometer may have a little red line at that point.But did you wonder how that figure of 98.6 wasdetermined? As a matter of fact, healthy people donot all have the same temperature. And any individual varies in temperature from one time of day toanother time of day. A variation of one degree or lesswithin the 24-hour period is considered normal. Youmay have a temperature one degree higher at 3 P.M.than you had at 3 A.M., and still be perfectly healthy.How, then, did the scientists arrive at 98.6 as the"normal"temperature of the human blood? Simplyby averaging the actualtemperatures, at varioustimes of day and night, of a great number of apparently healthy people. There is nothing particularlysacred about that figure of 98.6. It is just a convenience, determined by averaging. The same is trueof people's rate of heart action, blood pressure,breathing, height, weight, and so forth. All aredetermined by averages.Regarding Averages as NormalIn social matters the tendency is to decide whatis normal by an appeal to the public by polls, questionnaires, statistics again just a matter of averages. Kinsey's notorious books on sex behaviouron this basis : what is most common isare gotten upregarded as normal.The same thing is coming to be true in religiousmatters. Issue a questionnaire, take a secret poll orballot, to find out what the majority thinks or wantsor believes. Thus Scriptural standards tend to belowered to a mere observation or "reading" of present conditions, whether in the world or in the church.Principle passes out of the picture; it comes to betreated as if it were mere convention or human custom, having onlythe authority of usage or popularapproval. Meantime what is in reality mere custom,comes to have virtually the force and influence ofprinciple. Try arranging a communion service forSabbath evening sometime, instead of Sabbath morninrrnnH oaa wJisit Viprmonaagainst all true progress in church reformation. Forthe status quo is always sinful. It is always a fallingshort of the requirements of the Word of God. It isalways something less than what God really requiresof the church. Since the status quo is sinful, it maynever be regarded with complacency, far less mayit be regarded as the ideal for the church. It is a sinto absolutize the status quo.The status quo always needs to be repented of.No matter how fine it may be, still it is sinful andneeds to be repented of. To regard the status quowith complacency is one of the great sins of theChurch in our day a sin which must grieve theHoly Spirit, and a sin which certainly prevents thechurch from making its true and proper progressin reformation according to Scripture. A churchdominated by this idea cannot really move forward.It can only stand still. It may indeed slide backwardin defection and apostasy. At best it will only movein a fixed circle, always coming back to where itstarted from.The Pattern of American Church HistoryThe churches of America, by and large, havemoved in a fixed circle through their past history.We might almost say, they have moved in a viciouscircle. The pattern has been a slump followed by arevival followed by a slump, and so on. True progressis not made. The best that can be done, it seems,is to manage to get out of one pit after another.Nothing is more prevalent than this kind of stagnation in the church. Nothing is more difficult thanto get any feature of the church's structure or activity really examined and reformed in the light ofthe Word of God.True progress means building on the foundations laid in the past. But true progress does notmean being held in check by the dead hand of theerrors and imperfections of the past. There is onlyone legitimate check on true progress, and that isthe check of Scripture itself. The true reformationof the church is a reformation on the basis of Scripture, it is a reformation within the bounds of Scripture, not a reformation beyond Scripture.God Calls us to Reform the Church in our DayAre the church's official agencies, publicationsand institutions to reflect a cross-section of opinionas it actually exists in the church, like Mark Twain's"English as she is spoke"? Or are they to take theirstand on the existing official standards of the churchand maintain that line in confronting the public ? Orare they to pioneer in denominational self-criticismon the basis of Scripture? Are they to blaze a newtrail, going forward into new territory in the light ofthe Word?(Continued on page 105)THE COVENANTER WITNESS