Theology beacon dictionary of theology
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- LIBERALISM, DEMYTHOLOGIZATION, DARWINISM.
- LITURGY (LITURGICS), WORSHIP, SACRA-MENTARIANISM, REBAPTISM.
- For Further Reading: Kagan and Havemann, Psychology: An Introduction; Rogers, On Becoming a Person; Tweedie, The Christian and the Couch
- RULE, RULER. See
- RSV).
- Sunday: The History of the Day of Rest and Worship in the Earliest
- SABBATH. See
- UNITARIANISM, TRINITY (THE HOLY), ECONOMIC TRINITY. For Further Reading: Tertullian, Against Praxeas; Lowry
- SACRAMENTS, BAPTISM, HOLY COMMUNION, BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. For Further Reading: Wiley, CT, 2:413 ff; 3:157; Curtis
- SACRAMENTS (QUAKER AND S.A. VIEWS), SACRAMENTARIANISM, BAPTISM, HOLY COMMUNION.
- 113-30. ARMOR
- SACRAMENTS, SACRAMENTARIANISM. For Further Reading: Booth, Echoes and Memories, 201-10; Brown, Sacraments: A Quaker View;
RITSCHLIANISM. This is a form of theological modernism as taught by Albrecht Benjamin Rit-schl (1822-99). It denied Christ's deity, as all modernists have done. It denied the doctrine of original sin. Ritschl said, for one thing, on original sin that it cannot be a correct teaching, for it would have meant that all humans would have been sinful to the same degree. After publications such as Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) had caused many people to think that science was going to destroy the Christian faith, Ritschl tried to divorce factual and historical matters from what is "important" in Christianity, so that science could not hurt Christianity—and to affirm Christianity's importance in the realm of values and the moral life. But Christianity is rooted in the very soil of history and facticity, and orthodox Christians feel that Ritschl's divorcement of facticity matters from values, and affirming only the values, was far too much of a sacrifice. Karl Barth (1886-1968), who emphasized such facticity matters as Christ's virgin birth and His bodily resurrection, led out in a theological movement which pretty well succeeded in discounting Ritschlianism. See LIBERALISM, DEMYTHOLOGIZATION, DARWINISM. For Further Reading: Barth, Protestant Theology in the 19th Century; Fletcher, The Moderns. J. Kenneth Grider
Both the OT and the NT reject ceremonialism as a substitute for a right heart relationship with God. The Lord delights not in sacrifices, but in a contrite and obedient heart (Ps. 40:6-8; 51:16-17; 1 Sam. 15:22). Outward ceremonies do not effect salvation (Acts 15:1, 24; 1 Cor. 1:14-17). Pure religion is not ritual, but participation in the grace of God (Rom 14:17). Ordinances, rites, and holy days are no substitute for a heart and life altogether devoted to God (1 Cor. 7:19; Gal. 5:2, 6; Col. 2:16-17). However, when the prophets condemned ritualism, they were not rejecting Temple worship with its sacrifices and offerings. They meant that when these are performed without a heart and life that corresponds with the religious profession, they are vain (Isa. 1:13-14; 1 Sam. 15:22). Rituals are not magical formulae to atone for sin. The purpose of rituals, then, is to seek to embody and convey in a form other than words the true attitude and condition of the heart toward God. The performance is designed to strengthen the resolve (Acts 2:38, 41; Luke 22:19). The NT allows few rituals: baptism and the Lord's Supper, and perhaps ordination. Circumcision was substituted by the Early Church with the rite of baptism as the NT sign of the people of God. Jesus taught that ceremonialism is not Christianity. The forms of religion, with their rules and regulations outlined in the oral traditions of His day, are neither an excuse nor a cure for breaking the commandments of God (Mark 7:7-9). With Jesus' full approval, His followers did not observe the oral traditions, which many times violated the direct commands of God (w. 9-13). However, ritualistic ceremonies may manifest a righteous heart. They help fulfill all righteousness, as in the case of Jesus in Matt. 3:15. They are fitting for us, also, not as payment for our salvation, but as a testimony to it and as an aid in reverent worship. See LITURGY (LITURGICS), WORSHIP, SACRA-MENTARIANISM, REBAPTISM. For Further Reading: "Sacraments," DC7; Wiley, CT, 3:147-52, 185; GMS, 99 ff, 179, 415 ff.
Client-centered therapy, primarily associated with Carl Rogers, tends not to hold clients responsible for their problems. But Rogers is criticized because he provides no clear guidance for dealing with difficulties. Clearly there is a happy ROMAN CATHOLICISM—RULE OF FAITH 463
medium between the directive counseling of Jay Adams and the nondirective approach of Carl Rogers. Part of the problem with Rogerian counseling is theological. Rogers believes man is inherently good. Why, then, does one suffer corruption? The answer lies in the influence of others. Believing that, patients will, of course, engage both in self-pity and hostility. It is difficult to imagine Carl Rogers raising Karl Menninger's question, "Whatever became of sin?" Rogers believes personality maladjustments result from failure to integrate all experiences into one's self-image. Acceptance of experiences good and bad is healthy; denial of experiences creates feelings and perceptions not consistent with one's self-image. Denial also makes "inconsistent" experiences threatening and divorces one from reality. These false (dishonest) perceptions persisted in, cause the building of defenses against reality (truth) and result in mounting tensions. Healthy personalities adjust to reality as it comes and therefore tend to perceive accurately. Rogers' experience taught him therapy comes in a three-step process: (1) The patient begins to accept himself as he is with his feelings, sexuality, understandings, perceptions, etc.; (2) he begins to get insight about the dynamics (reasons) underlying his behavior; (3) he gets handles for a more constructive life-style—i.e., he accepts himself as he is and learns to live out that self, to be himself. That true self expressed, Rogers believes, will behave in socially acceptable ways. The Christian theologian is not so sure; regeneration and continuing works of grace have capabilities of saving people from egocentric action associated with sin. See person (personality), pastoral counseling, integrity therapy, accountability, pelagianism, maturity.
Among Protestants, there is a general agreement that the Bible is the sole and supreme Rule of faith and conduct (2 Tim. 3:14-17). As such, the Bible marks out the territory of essential belief. Anything outside its limits cannot be imposed as an essential article of faith. Anything which contradicts it, rightly interpreted, is unorthodox and, if persisted in, is heretical. Creeds, or confessions, are derived from the Bible. They constitute the rule of faith in a secondary sense. Some people seize on certain expressions of Holy Writ and wrest them into a system which is contrary to the teaching of the Bible as a whole. This can be prevented or corrected by drawing up confessions of faith which summarize essential and orthodox belief as revealed in the Scriptures. For the Protestant, they derive their authority from the Bible, and are only valid as they are true expositions of its message. We can see the beginnings of this process of forming creeds in reference to the apostles' teaching (Acts 2:42), and in such passages of Scripture as 1 Cor. 15:1-4; Eph. 4:4-6; Phil. 2:5-11; 1 Tim. 2:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; etc. Though it cannot be historically traced back to the apostles, what is known as the Apostles' Creed is a summary of biblical doctrine. As such, it is accepted by many denominations. For theologians, the creeds of Nicea (325) and Chalcedon (451), the beginning and end of a process defining the deity and humanity of Christ and the unity of both in One Person, are a valid definition of biblical truth and, as such, a test of orthodoxy. Although the Bible is such a vast depository of truth, there is a remarkable agreement on the basic doctrines among those churches which give it the supreme place as the Rule of faith. See hermeneutics, bible, biblical authority, canon. For Further Reading: Wiley, CT, 1:185-214, esp. 201-14; Pope, A Compendium of Christian Theology, 1:33-230. jack ford 464 SABBATARIANISM s SABBATARIANISM. This refers to the Christian observance of the seventh day in conformity with the fourth commandment, or the transference of Sabbath observances to Sunday. Seventh-Day Sabbatarianism. Palestinian Jewish Christians probably continued to observe the customary Sabbath to avoid unnecessary offence and as an occasion for evangelism. But during the first two centuries the church as a whole abandoned the Sabbath in favor of worship on the Lord's Day. Following the precedent of Col. 2:16 ff and Heb. 3:7—4:11, patristic writers understood the Sabbath rest not as bodily inactivity but as spiritual and perpetual abstinence from evil works for devotion to worship and/or as the awaited eschatological Sabbath. During the third and fourth centuries the Sabbath was kept by many Christians as a memorial of creation. Significantly, however, this Christian observance was not marked by not working. After the fifth century the practice once again disappeared—only to be revived in modern times by Seventh-Day Adventists and others. Sunday Sabbatarianism. The disappearance of seventh-day Sabbatarianism was perhaps a consequence of Constantine's decree (a.d. 321) making Sunday the official Roman day of rest and the resulting tendency to regard it as "the Christian Sabbath." Until Constantine it was not possible for many Christians, because of their low socioeconomic status, to treat Sunday as a day of rest, had they desired to do so. Subsequently the unexpectedly successful state church, newly responsible for the moral life of the entire empire, reacted to the abuses of Sunday idleness by applying the fourth commandment to Sunday. Sabbatarianism was an important feature of medieval Catholic theory, if not practice, against which many early Reformers protested. The most striking development of Sabbatarianism occurred in late 16th-century English Puritanism, originally as a reaction more to the drunkenness and sordid amusements which Sunday holidays occasioned among the lower and middle classes, than to Sunday labor. Eventually nearly all the OT Sabbath regulations were applied to Sunday. This is the background of American expressions of Sabbatarianism, such as the so-called blue laws.
Despite Jesus' clear rejection of Pharisaic casuistry as applied to the Sabbath, He customarily participated in the weekly synagogue worship assembly (cf. Luke 4:16-27) and used the traditional cessation of ordinary labors afforded, not for inactivity but to act mercifully in behalf of needy men (Mark 1:29-31; 3:1-6; Luke 13:10-17; 14:1-6; John 5:2-18; 9:1-41). Paul specifically rejects the Judaizing observance of the sabbath (Gal. 4:9-11; Col. 2:16-17), for every day for the Christian is the Lord's although one day may be observed in preference to the others (Rom. 14:5-6). The widely shared view that Christianity fulfilled Judaism by no means led early Christians to diminish the importance of regular community worship (cf. Heb. 10:19-25, esp. 25) or the sanctity of the Lord's day, but instead led them to sanctify every day. This offers no support for legalistic or rigidly scrupulous expressions of Christian Sabbatarianism, but neither does it endorse the all-too-easy modern disregard for regular worship in favor of self-indulging leisure. At issue in the modem setting is not only the respect due the Lord's day, but the proper utilization of the increasing hours of leisure which are also the Lord's. On these issues Paul advises, "Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind," and, "Happy is he who has no reason to judge himself for what he approves" (Rom. 14:5, 22, RSV). See LORD'S DAY, REST (REST OF FAITH), LAW.
SABBATH—SACRAMENTS 465
Centuries of the Christian Church; Beckwith and Scott, This Is the Day; Wiley, CT, 3:143-50; GMS, 542. George Lyons SABBATH. See lords day. SABELLIANISM. This is the anti-Trinitarian teaching of the ancient Sabellius, that the Father, Son, and Spirit do not exist at the same time as three Persons in one nature (as in Trinitarianism), but as three successive ways in which the uni-personal God has manifested himself historically: first as Father, then as the Son, then as the Holy Spirit. The view is called Modalism because the three are not persons, but three successive modes or fashions in which the uni-personal God has manifested himself. It is called Monarchianism when the stress is upon the oneness in God which this antithreeness view of God makes possible. See UNITARIANISM, TRINITY (THE HOLY), ECONOMIC TRINITY. For Further Reading: Tertullian, Against Praxeas; Lowry, The Trinity and Christian Devotion; Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. J, kenneth GRIDER SACRAMENTARIANISM. This is the attachment of exaggerated importance to the sacraments. It is the tendency to link personal salvation too rigidly to the correct performance of approved sacramental rituals. The sacraments in general are seen as the primary if not sole means by which grace is mediated and received. An accentuation of the sacramentarian viewpoint can be seen in the inflexible insistence of some groups that there can be no salvation apart from immersion in water; a variation is the observance of the Lord's Supper in every worship service, or at least on every Lord's day. Some Lutherans rely on the Lord's Supper as the periodic absolution from sin; to withhold the Lord's Supper is to withhold forgiveness. In these and other ways the sacraments are thus elevated to the level of spiritual mechanics, and become a revival of Judaism within a Christian context. See SACRAMENTS, BAPTISM, HOLY COMMUNION, BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. For Further Reading: Wiley, CT, 2:413 ff; 3:157; Curtis, The Christian Faith, 425-33. RICHARD S. TAYLOR SACRAMENTS. Our word sacrament comes from the Latin sacramentum, originally applied to money deposited in a sacred place by parties involved in court proceedings. It was regarded as a pledge that the participants considered their cause good and just. It came also to signify the Roman soldier's oath of fidelity. Early Latin church fathers used the term to translate the Greek musterion, "mystery": something eminently and especially sacred. So it is the word has come to signify a sacred ordinance or rite in which the Christian believer receives blessing from God and deliberately binds himself in covenant to Him. Theologically, the term "signifies an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof" (Wiley, CT, 3:155). The Roman and Greek Catholic churches observe seven sacraments: baptism, the Lord's Supper, confirmation, penance, extreme unction, ordination, and matrimony. These sacraments, it is held, actually contain the grace they signify, and when properly administered by the priest convey grace to the soul of every person who, without mortal sin, receives them. At the opposite pole from this belief in the inherent virtue of the sacraments themselves is the Socinian view that the sacraments do not differ from any other religious rite or ceremony. Their only use, it is said, is to incite pious sentiments and give the believer an opportunity to testify to his faith. Protestant doctrine generally recognizes two sacraments: baptism and the Lord's Supper. Only these are observed because only they were instituted by Christ (Matt. 28:19; 26:26-27). Also, it is believed by some that these two have their origins in the OT rites of circumcision and the Passover. The first, a sacrament of the covenant of grace symbolizing the cutting away of sin, was replaced in the NT by baptism. The latter, symbolizing the deliverance of God's people, was replaced by the Lord's Supper. Saving grace does not come through observing the sacraments. That is received only through personal faith in Jesus Christ; but the sacraments are a source of divine blessing. "To everyone who receives the sign a seal and pledge of the invisible grace is also given; and everyone who draws near with a true heart and with full assurance of faith does, in his own person, enter into God's covenant" (Wakefield, Christian Theology, 556). Some Protestant groups do not participate in either of the sacraments. The Quakers, or Friends, and the Salvation Army are examples. The Quakers in particular hold that the visible rites and symbols distract from what the Spirit of God really wants to do for the believer. See SACRAMENTS (QUAKER AND S.A. VIEWS), SACRAMENTARIANISM, BAPTISM, HOLY COMMUNION. 466 SACRAMENTS: QUAKER AND SALVATION ARMY VIEWS—SACRIFICE For Further Reading: Wiley, CT, 3:155-74; Purkiser, ed., Exploring Our Christian Faith, 409-15; Demaray, Ba- sic Beliefs, 113-30. ARMOR D. Peisker SACRAMENTS: QUAKER AND SALVATION ARMY VIEWS. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and The Salvation Army are unique in Christendom because of their outward non-observance of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. At the ideological level, the sacramental understanding of Quakers and Salvationists is largely structured by four factors: First, the philosophical framework of the Quaker and Salvationist interpretation is a sacramental world view. Because they "take so seriously the idea that ours is a sacramental universe ... they cannot limit the notion to a particular ceremony" (Trueblood, The People Called Quakers, 138; cf. The Sacraments: the Salvationist's Viewpoint, 78). Second, inseparable from this sacramental world view is the theological focus that since Jesus came to replace shadow with substance, as the writer to the Hebrews emphasizes, why would He then institute two more ceremonies which point to spiritual reality? These two factors are crucial, for without an awareness of them the Quaker and Salvationist viewpoints are incomprehensible. Third, the philosophical framework and theological focus interact within a biblical perspective called "the prophetic tradition." In contrast to the "priestly" emphasis on ritual in the worship of God, the prophets insisted "that an inward life of conformity to the mind of God was the only condition on which His will could find expression in the outward life" (The Sacraments: the Salvationist's Viewpoint, 74). This tradition, however, does not necessarily negate ceremonies. Rather, it provides a corrective to at least two dangers inherent in ceremonial: "To think that unless the sign is there, God's Spirit will not be there .. . [and] to think that if the sign is there my spirit need not be there" (William Metcalf, The Salvationist and the Sacraments, 30). Thus, as those who identify themselves with the prophetic tradition, both Quakers and Salvationists confess that God's grace may be received apart from as well as in conjunction with the sacraments. Hence, they do not criticize those who meaningfully observe the sacraments. Fourth, Quakers and Salvationists believe that the effect of the three preceding factors makes room for a valid hermeneutical approach which enables them adequately to account for and interpret the obvious presence of baptism and the Lord's Supper in many of the NT documents. This approach involves the concept of progressive revelation: Not only is there in the NT itself a development away from and beyond the ceremonial emphasis in the OT, there is within the NT itself an apparent movement away from and beyond sacramental emphases. This may be seen in the increasing silence concerning baptism and Communion in the chronologically later writings of the NT. When baptism and the Lord's Supper are viewed within the broader, progressively revelatory context of Scripture, Quakers and Salvationists believe that we cannot say that they are necessary for salvation and/or a maturing Christian experience, nor can we substantiate that Jesus instituted them as binding and perpetual observances in the Church. As a result of this understanding of the sacraments, Quakers and Salvationists affirm that their attitude toward baptism and the Lord's Supper is positive rather than negative. This is because both movements witness to the fact that apart from the outward observance of the sacraments we may experience the realities to which they point: the baptism with the Holy Spirit and continual communion with the indwelling Christ. In this way they seek to observe the sacraments existentially, at their deepest level, rather than ceremonially. See SACRAMENTS, SACRAMENTARIANISM.
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