Article 13 - What Does It Really Mean?
ARTICLE 13 – WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN? 14 / 12 / 2010.
One item in our weekly Church Bulletin is part of a series, explaining the Church’s teaching, and currently the subjects are the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. Number 13 is brief and dismissive, apparently, of all good thoughts, impulses and deeds by non-Christians. Even our staunchly Evangelical Rector ended his quotation with the comment ”Ow!” What, then, are lay people, committed Christians, let alone non-believers, to make of this statement? The answer is complex, but, for a start, it seems to be a relic of an old controversy, dating back to C16 and C17, for it is a repetition of the views contained in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Even today there are numbers of Christians in extreme Protestant sects who believe that only good thoughts and actions by committed Christians are allowed and approved by the Almighty. How this curious doctrine found its way into the Church of England’s formal declaration of the tenets of faith, known as the Thirty-Nine Articles, is something of a mystery, but more of that later.
The record of the Old Testament in the era before the time of Christ is full of accounts of the Lord Jehovah’s relationship with the Hebrews, the Children of Israel. Clearly there were many sins and lapses, but there were also plenty of thoughts and actions which were pleasing to the Lord.That alone contradicts the central assertion in Article 13. Manifestly God did not distinguish between the thoughts and deeds of the Hebrews and those of the heathen, the Goyim, for Cyrus, the ruler who allowed and encouraged the Israelites to return from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, was no Jew, yet what he did greatly pleased the Almighty. As for the assertion, that nothing before the advent of Christ found favour with God, another
instance refutes that, the Transfiguration, the event, when Christ appeared in glory at the summit of a mountain, together with Moses and Elijah, demonstrated that some Israelites from long before Christ’s earthly lifetime knew him. Our Lord’s words, “Before Abraham was, I am,” bear witness to that.
In New Testament times, during the dispute, whether or not Gentiles (Goyim) could join the Christian Church without first becoming Jews, Peter, (then a traditionalist, opposing that relaxation of Jewish Law), had a dream, in which a number of creatures appeared, and a voice said, “Arise, Peter, take, kill and eat.” Peter replied that he could not, as those animals were to him unclean. The voice replied:”What God has provided, let no man call unclean.” When Peter awoke, he realized that the Gentiles were justified by faith, not by submitting to Jewish rules and customs. “Of a truth I perceive that the Holy Ghost is no respecter of persons,” he remarked. Pentecost, the advent of the Holy Spirit, reveals the
universality of the Lord’s love, for the workings of that spirit are vast and unknowable. “The wind blows where it lists and no one knows where it has gone.” The Spirit brings gifts, words, thoughts, impulses and deeds to believers and unbelievers alike. If they act in accordance with the same, whether or not they
recognize the Spirit as the Christian Holy Ghost, the resulting thoughts, impulses and deeds are good and meritorious, being the gifts of God. Therefore the virtuous acts of Cyrus and anyone else, whether Christian or heathen, are recognized and appreciated by the Lord. The only distinction between those of Christian believers and the rest is surely that the Lord finds it heartening that believers are acting in
accordance with their faith. Non-believers are acting, no doubt, from a variety of motives, prominent amongst which are the influences and promptings of the Holy Spirit. What the Lord has provided(including the good thoughts and deeds of non-believers)deserves respect. A well-known hymn reads:
All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, Oh, thank the Lord
For all his love.
There are human as well as material harvests.
To return to the exclusivist sentiments expressed in Article 13, the best explanation that the writer can think of, for its appearance in the group of thirty-nine is that there were many Calvinists and Puritans in England in C17 and, somehow or other, pressures and influences from that quarter succeeded in
obtaining its insertion into the Church’s credal statement. In secular life there are plenty of examples of successful insertions into a variety of documents and declarations. Religion is not exempt from such manoeuvres.
The only solution to the rather embarrassing inclusion of Article 13 in the 39 is to interpret it very broadly, as meaning that the Lord is particularly gratified when Christian believers think good thoughts and perform good deeds. Truth to tell, the Lord also takes pleasure in noting the good acts and deeds of non-believers, but only a little less so. A final comment may help: a rather dogmatic young man asked his uncle, a Kirk of Scotland Minister, what that Church now thought(in 1960) of the doctrine of Predestination. The answer was short and sharp: “Nothing.”The truth is that all Christian churches have excess doctrinal baggage; it is not only Article 13.
M.B.B.
One item in our weekly Church Bulletin is part of a series, explaining the Church’s teaching, and currently the subjects are the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. Number 13 is brief and dismissive, apparently, of all good thoughts, impulses and deeds by non-Christians. Even our staunchly Evangelical Rector ended his quotation with the comment ”Ow!” What, then, are lay people, committed Christians, let alone non-believers, to make of this statement? The answer is complex, but, for a start, it seems to be a relic of an old controversy, dating back to C16 and C17, for it is a repetition of the views contained in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Even today there are numbers of Christians in extreme Protestant sects who believe that only good thoughts and actions by committed Christians are allowed and approved by the Almighty. How this curious doctrine found its way into the Church of England’s formal declaration of the tenets of faith, known as the Thirty-Nine Articles, is something of a mystery, but more of that later.
The record of the Old Testament in the era before the time of Christ is full of accounts of the Lord Jehovah’s relationship with the Hebrews, the Children of Israel. Clearly there were many sins and lapses, but there were also plenty of thoughts and actions which were pleasing to the Lord.That alone contradicts the central assertion in Article 13. Manifestly God did not distinguish between the thoughts and deeds of the Hebrews and those of the heathen, the Goyim, for Cyrus, the ruler who allowed and encouraged the Israelites to return from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, was no Jew, yet what he did greatly pleased the Almighty. As for the assertion, that nothing before the advent of Christ found favour with God, another
instance refutes that, the Transfiguration, the event, when Christ appeared in glory at the summit of a mountain, together with Moses and Elijah, demonstrated that some Israelites from long before Christ’s earthly lifetime knew him. Our Lord’s words, “Before Abraham was, I am,” bear witness to that.
In New Testament times, during the dispute, whether or not Gentiles (Goyim) could join the Christian Church without first becoming Jews, Peter, (then a traditionalist, opposing that relaxation of Jewish Law), had a dream, in which a number of creatures appeared, and a voice said, “Arise, Peter, take, kill and eat.” Peter replied that he could not, as those animals were to him unclean. The voice replied:”What God has provided, let no man call unclean.” When Peter awoke, he realized that the Gentiles were justified by faith, not by submitting to Jewish rules and customs. “Of a truth I perceive that the Holy Ghost is no respecter of persons,” he remarked. Pentecost, the advent of the Holy Spirit, reveals the
universality of the Lord’s love, for the workings of that spirit are vast and unknowable. “The wind blows where it lists and no one knows where it has gone.” The Spirit brings gifts, words, thoughts, impulses and deeds to believers and unbelievers alike. If they act in accordance with the same, whether or not they
recognize the Spirit as the Christian Holy Ghost, the resulting thoughts, impulses and deeds are good and meritorious, being the gifts of God. Therefore the virtuous acts of Cyrus and anyone else, whether Christian or heathen, are recognized and appreciated by the Lord. The only distinction between those of Christian believers and the rest is surely that the Lord finds it heartening that believers are acting in
accordance with their faith. Non-believers are acting, no doubt, from a variety of motives, prominent amongst which are the influences and promptings of the Holy Spirit. What the Lord has provided(including the good thoughts and deeds of non-believers)deserves respect. A well-known hymn reads:
All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, Oh, thank the Lord
For all his love.
There are human as well as material harvests.
To return to the exclusivist sentiments expressed in Article 13, the best explanation that the writer can think of, for its appearance in the group of thirty-nine is that there were many Calvinists and Puritans in England in C17 and, somehow or other, pressures and influences from that quarter succeeded in
obtaining its insertion into the Church’s credal statement. In secular life there are plenty of examples of successful insertions into a variety of documents and declarations. Religion is not exempt from such manoeuvres.
The only solution to the rather embarrassing inclusion of Article 13 in the 39 is to interpret it very broadly, as meaning that the Lord is particularly gratified when Christian believers think good thoughts and perform good deeds. Truth to tell, the Lord also takes pleasure in noting the good acts and deeds of non-believers, but only a little less so. A final comment may help: a rather dogmatic young man asked his uncle, a Kirk of Scotland Minister, what that Church now thought(in 1960) of the doctrine of Predestination. The answer was short and sharp: “Nothing.”The truth is that all Christian churches have excess doctrinal baggage; it is not only Article 13.
M.B.B.
Labels: Religious Items.
posted by Michael Buck at 3:12 AM
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