Complaint Against Sprague Deserves Fair Hearing
by James Gibson
Old heresies never
die. They just take on new names and find new advocates in each succeeding
generation. As the twentieth century comes to a close, one of the first and most
destructive of all ancient heresies has found a home in The United Methodist Church
through the generous hospitality of one of our newest bishops.
C. Joseph Sprague, episcopal leader of the Northern Illinois Area, has lately been
espousing a Christology which rings hollow to the ears of the orthodox. Two public
statements by Sprague, made shortly after his election to the episcopacy, ought to be
cause for great concern within the Church:
Jesus was a great historical figure. He was a teacher, a social prophet and the
founder of a movement.
Yet Jesus didn't believe himself to be the messiah or the son of God. It is important
to separate the historical Jesus from the Jesus presented by the writers of the New
Testament.
Jesus' father, Joseph, apparently died before Jesus' public life. Jesus was a
"religious seeker" who focused on God and not himself. It was the church
that made Jesus a messiah.
--Bishop C. Joseph Sprague, quoted in The Kane County Chronicle,
December 20, 1996
My theological position, especially the Christology I espouse and which drives my life
and ministry, is of the relational (as opposed to the substantial) tradition, which has a
rich, valued place in the history of Christian thought. Essentially, when it comes
to Jesus, I believe that Jesus was fully human (how else could he be humankind's Savior?)
who in his radical and complete trust in and commitment to the God he called 'Abba",
experienced such at one-momentness with God that he revealed in and through himself the
very heart, the essential nature of God. Thus he was fully God, fully human--not by some
trans-human altering of his genetic code, but by relationship with God, Neighbor and Self.
--Bishop C. Joseph Sprague in the N. Illinois Reporter, May 1997,
responding to questions about the above quote.
The bishop's statements about the deity of Jesus Christ are now the subject of a formal complaint
filed against him by the Reverend Carson Daniel Lauffer of Prophetstown,
Illinois. While some even in the evangelical community have questioned the
appropriateness of filing charges at this time, Lauffer's complaint has merit and ought
not be dismissed lightly. It calls the bishop to task for espousing an opinion which
not only strikes at the root of the Christian faith, but indeed cuts through to its very
heart.
What Bishop Sprague refers to as "relational Christology," sounds very much
like what the Church has historically referred to as Arianism. This
teaching was at the root of one of the first and deepest controversies within the Church
following the legal recognition of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine.
Philip Schaff (History of the Christian Church, Volume III, Eerdmans, 1994, page
618) describes the main contentions involved in the controversy:
The Arian controversy relates primarily to the deity of Christ, but in its course it
touches also the deity of the Holy Ghost, and embraces therefore the whole mystery of the
Holy Trinity and the incarnation of God, which is the very centre of the Christian
revelation. The dogma of the Trinity came up not by itself in abstract form, but in
inseparable connection with the doctrine of the deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost. If
this latter doctrine is true, the Trinity follows by logical necessity, the biblical
monotheism being presumed; in other words: If God is one, and if Christ and the Holy
Ghost are distinct from the Father and yet participate in the divine substance, God must
be triune. Though there are in the Holy Scriptures themselves few texts which
directly prove the Trinity, and the name Trinity is wholly wanting in them, this doctrine
is taught with all the greater force in a living form from Genesis to Revelation by the
main facts of the revelation of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, besides being
indirectly involved in the deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost.
Also from Schaff (pages 619-20) comes this description of the roots of the controversy:
The roots of the Arian controversy are to be found partly in the contradictory elements
of the christology [sic] of the great Origen, which reflect the crude condition of the
Christian mind in the third century; partly in the antagonism between the Alexandrian and
the Antiochan theology. Origen, on the one hand, attributed to Christ eternity and
other divine attributes which logically lead to the orthodox doctrine of the identity of
substance; so that he was vindicated even by Athanasius, the two Cappadocian Gregories,
and Basil. But, on the other hand, in his zeal for the personal distinctions in the
Godhead, he taught with equal clearness a separateness of essence between the Father and
the Son, and the subordination of the Son, as a second or secondary God beneath the
Father, and thus furnished a starting point for the Arian heresy. The eternal
generation of the Son from the will of the Father was, with Origen, the communication of a
divine but secondary substance, and this idea, in the hands of the less devout and
profound Arius, who with his more rigid logic could admit no intermediate being between
God and the creature, deteriorated to the notion of the primal creature.
Bishop Sprague's contention notwithstanding, Arianism, by whatever name he may choose
to call it, does not hold "a rich, valued place in the history of Christian
thought." On the contrary, it is a position which, whenever and wherever it has
reared its ugly head, has caused division, contention and controversy within the Body of
Christ. Its presence within the Ancient Church precipitated the calling of the
Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. At that gathering, the bishops and presbyters in
attendance adopted the original form of what has become known as the Nicene Creed.
Included in that statement was the following summation of the Church's rejection of the
Arian position:
And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that
before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he
is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or
subject to change or conversion--all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church
anathematizes them. [Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 14,
"The Seven Ecumenical Councils," Hendrickson Publishers, 1994.]
Furthermore, the present form of the Nicene Creed continues to maintain the
"substantial tradition" as the accepted, orthodox position:
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the
Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one
Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our
salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he
suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the
Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no
end. [The Nicene Creed (UMH 880)]
It is also clear from Scripture that Jesus' divine Sonship was more than a mere
relationship developed over time:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:1-3).
[Jesus said,] "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the
glory I had with you before the world began" (John 17:5,
emphasis added).
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being
in very nature God, did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above
every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father." (Philippians 2:5-11, emphasis added)
Bishop Sprague's position is also contradictory to The Articles of Religion of The
Methodist Church and The Confession of Faith of The Evangelical United Brethren
Church:
The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with
the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and
perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and the Manhood, were joined together in one
person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly
suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a
sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men. [Articles of
Religion of The Methodist Church, Article II, "Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was
Made Very Man"]
We believe in Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, in whom the divine and human
natures are perfectly and inseparably united. He is the eternal Word made flesh, the
only begotten Son of the Father, born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy
Spirit. As ministering Servant, he lived, suffered and died on the cross. He
was buried, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to be with the Father, from whence
he shall return. He is eternal Savior and Mediator, who intercedes for us, and by him all
men will be judged. [The Confession of Faith of The Evangelical United Brethren
Church, Article II--"Jesus Christ"]
"Who is Jesus Christ?" is the question at the very heart of the Christian
faith. The answer, as attested in Scripture and Tradition, is that Jesus is the Messiah,
the one and only eternal Son of God, fully human and fully divine, God made
incarnate in human flesh. This is not a matter of opinion, but of divine
revelation. To deny this in favor of a position long repudiated by the Church is the
textbook definition of heresy, undermining the very foundation of the Christian
faith. Bishop Sprague owes the Church, which has entrusted him with so important a
leadership responsibility, a full and honest explanation of his disturbing public
statements. Therefore, the complaint against him must be given a fair and open
hearing. If nothing else, a debate over so central an issue as the deity of Jesus
Christ will give a healthy shock to a denomination which has, for decades, sought to avoid
discussion of basic Christian doctrines.
James A. Gibson jagibsn@ibm.net
Marshallville United Methodist Church
Marshallville, Georgia
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