Standard Grade Religious Studies course
The Scottish Examination Board have issued a consultation document on their proposals for the Standard Grade Religious Studies course which is intended to replace the O-grade course next August. This document has caused some public outcry because it is apparent that the study of the Roman Catholic Church is being given priority over the National Church. All pupils taking the course would study Christianity (Unit 1), but in studying public worship, the Christian year and rites of passage, pupils will study these “in relation to the Roman Catholic tradition and at least one other example, taken from the reformed tradition.” This is another blatant example of supplantation by the Roman Catholic Church which is creeping into many areas of our national life.
Unit 2 of the same course is the study of a second religion chosen from Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. Religious Studies (the study of various religions) is gradually taking over the place of what used to be known as Religious Education, which is Christian and Protestant and involves not only study of the Protestant religion but also acts of worship.
A Single Ground for Divorce Proposed
The English and Scottish Law Commissions have both issued consultative documents in order to ascertain whether there would be public support for altering the grounds of divorce. They are suggesting possible faults with the present law which “pretends that there is one ground for divorce — irretrievable breakdown (of marriage) — whereas in reality there are five grounds for divorce — three based on matrimonial offences and two based on periods of separation.” They suggest that there is possibly too much emphasis on fault in divorce cases, that the present law may be encouraging separation and perjury, and that the periods of separation required to obtain divorce are too long. They propose cutting the Gordian knot so that there would be only one ground for divorce. The choice they propose lies with either “making the sole ground for divorce a period of separation” or “making the sole ground
for divorce the lapse of a period of time from the giving of notice of intention to divorce”(!) the latter being preferred.
The period of separation or the period of notice proposed by the Scottish Law Commission is three months! “That would be adequate to eliminate cases of impulsive divorce. . . .” “The main purpose of a period of notice is to ensure that people have time to consider their position. It is designed to prevent divorces being obtained in haste where the difficulty in the marriage is only temporary.” The Law Commission (England) are not quite so sanguine. They suggest nine to 12 months.
Annihilation supported by Evangelicals
The October 1988 Evangelical Times draws attention to the fact that Rev. John Stott, a leading evangelical Anglican, has finally gone into print rejecting the orthodox doctrine of eternal punishment of the impenitent in favour of the doctrine of annihilation. Eryl Davies, in reviewing Essentials (Hodder and Stoughton), draws attention to this and he promises to examine the subject in more detail in the next issue of Evangelical Times. Dr Davies, who wrote a book on The Wrath of God (Evangelical Press), drew attention to Stott’s doubts in an article in the Evangelical Times in January 1986 where he gives a brief history of this unorthodox view promoted by IVP, which published in 1974 J. W. Wenham’s The Goodness of God. IVP has this book currently in print under the new title The Enigma of Evil. Wenham’s was the first popular book by an evangelical author and publisher in which doubts about eternal punishment were expressed so forcefully, and in which conditional immortality was tentatively put forward as a possible and more satisfactory alternative to that of eternal punishment. Dr Davies says, “it is interesting that most of the English advocates of conditional immortality are evangelical Anglicans.”
Dr Eryl Davies is the editor of Foundations, the theological journal of the British Evangelical Council. In the Spring 1988 edition, he reviews the New Dictionary of Theology published in 1988 by IVP and which is edited by Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright, with J. I. Packer as the consulting editor. In this review he says, “Allow me one other criticism. Conditional immortality, I am sad to say, is assumed and openly advocated in some of the relevant contributions.” He refers to the articles by M. J. Harris, Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois. Harris wrote articles on Death, Resurrection and the Intermediate State. Davies accuses him of being unnecessarily brief and vague at certain
points, but respecting his article on Immortality, Davies says that Harris “openly acknowledges where his sympathies lie, concluding that the scripture teaches conditional immortality.” The article on Eschatology has been written by Stephen Travis of St John’s College, Nottingham, who believes in conditional immortality.
Opening the Door to Charismatic Teaching
Under the above title, Dr Peter Masters examines “the latter-day abandonment by Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones of orthodox Holy Spirit theology” in the current issue of the Sword and Trowel, September 1988. Dr Masters examines the teaching of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones who repudiates the reformed doctrine of the cessation of the apostolic gifts, so that this is a companion article to the article which first appeared in the Free Presbyterian Magazine, May 1987, examining Dr Lloyd-Jones’ views on second blessing teaching. Both articles demonstrate that Dr Lloyd-Jones was opening the door among Reformed people to charismatic teaching. In a trenchant article, Dr Masters draws attention to Dr Lloyd-Jones’ “dogmatism and intimidation” in reserving his “most withering and intolerant passages . . . for those most unreasonable of people — the cessationists.” He draws attention to his “misrepresentations of cessationism”. On the subject of modern day prophecies, Dr Masters charges Dr Lloyd-Jones of offering “no useful tests whatsoever” to help the church discern between true and false prophecies. On the subject of modern tongue-speaking he says, “It has to be said that the arguments advanced in this book (Prove all Things) amount to very poor reasoning and constitute a dramatically different quality of exegesis from that which we have previously been used to from the pulpit and pen of Dr Lloyd-Jones.” On the subject of modern healing and faith-healers he finds Dr Lloyd-Jones woefully inadequate. “(Dr Lloyd-Jones) is puzzled and unwilling to come down on one side or the other in connection with Kathryn Kuhlman. If, therefore, he cannot resolve the genuineness of this (rather extreme) faith-healer — even after protracted thought and consideration — how can ordinary pastors and church members?” He then goes on to paint the consequences of such uncertainty.
Dr Lloyd-Jones rejects the traditional reformed view that tongues were the gift of real languages. He considers the tongues of 1 Corinthians to be words spoken while in religious ecstasy. They were not understood by the speaker. Dr Masters goes on to refute this. However, there seems to be another very simple refutation. 1 Corinthians 14: 27 says that no more than two (or at the most, three) people were to speak in tongues at any
one meeting; and no-one at all was to speak if there was no interpreter present. This is a key to tongue speaking.
This shows that, generally, prior consultation would need to be made by the tongue speakers whether there would be an interpreter present. This suggests strongly that the tongue speaking was not spontaneous but was prearranged. Taken with the rest of 1 Corinthians 14, this suggests the tongues were foreign languages.