(3) Julius Wellhausen – Close The Book!!
Born – 1844
Died – 1918
Fruit – German Higher Criticism
Until perhaps the middle of the last century if a person in the West called himself “religious”..it really meant something. It was well-accepted back then that the bible was authoritative, the government was to be respected, order in society was to be kept. It did not stay that way for too long though as the idea of God “being in the midst of it all, and that he had revealed himself in His inspired, infallible Word, slipped away from the unsuspecting churches of those days.
Religious liberalism WAS BORN! Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you the mother of religious liberalism; Julius Wellhausen.
It is important to remember that before Wellhausen came on the scene, the bible was generally accepted as the revealed, true, and inerrant Word of God. Christians everywhere believed that all of scripture was given by inspiration of God. It was God breathed, therefore dependable.
What Wellhausen did flipped this whole idea on its head. He started arguing that human reason is dependable and insisted that it is the bible itself that could not be trusted, and just like how Satan placed the seeds of doubt into the mind of Eve, concerning God’s Word, Wellhausen had successfully instilled the seeds of doubt onto unsuspecting churches.
His reasoning was secular, but a world which had not prepared itself for such attacks, could not seem to shake the doubts. Wellhausen’s ideas that the Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy) were not penned by Moses, rather by a number of writers, stuck! If the Genesis account is just an illustration of certain truth, how could we be sure that it indeed was God who inspired these words?? Adam and Eve? Are they just a figment of mythology? The questions began to run.
Wellhausen’s landmark book “Prolegomena to the History of Israel” 1882 called for a new understanding of the nature of the revelation of God in the bible. The cold winds of change began to blow through the churches, the schools, and the homes of Europe. The lack of trust in God grew and it has continued to blow until present day. “Christianity ceased to be a religion based on the divine, rather became a set of composite religious views anchored in human reason” Breese writes in his book. Such was the change and the deadly results that Wellhausen rightly deserves his place in this list of men who rule the world from their grave, Higher Criticism has a face.
It is interesting to note that at this time, Darwinian thought and Marxist theories were rife in the world including the theological seminars. What Wellhausen did in his writings and in his “Hypothesis of the Pentateuch” was to take God and spiritual things out of the bible. Through this door, subsequent liberal scholars have added and expanded their own interpretation of biblical truth.
Liberalism like a flame engulfed Europe and made its way to the old line denominational churches, colleges and the seminaries of the American eastern seaboard.
Liberalistic arguments are relatively simple and generally follow lines like these:
1) Because the body of man has evolved (Darwinist thought) we must then agree that the brain, the mind of man has evolved as well
2) Because God is a God of love, we must do away with the archaic concept of original sin. Sin is not a violation of the law of an offended God. God cannot be offended.
3) As a solution to the problems of mankind, then, must we not hold to salvation by education? Man does not need forgivingness and redemption; he needs enlightenment
Etc….the arguments along these line were convincing to many, herein lies the the fruits of Wellhausen’s work, churches lost their faith, and the bible……just became…..a book!
There would be one defence to this liberalistic fire though at this time, and that came in the form of the “fundamentalist movement” young fundamentalist preachers saw the tide of liberalism sweeping through America and rose up to thunder out from hundreds of pulpits. New churches were built, new denominations formed, and great tabernacles were attended by sometimes thousands of people in the major cities of the East and Midwest.
The purpose was to bring the people back to the book, and the God of the book.
The foundation of these churches were on these principles:
1) The inerrancy of scripture
2) The deity of Christ
3) The finished work of the cross
4) The salvation by grace alone
5) The return of Christ
It is now the case that fundamentalism has, to a great extent, been succeeded by evangelicalism. Evangelicalism to some extent is a watered down version of fundamentalist teachings. An evangelical is, as they say the son of a fundamentalist i.e. conservative…without really being conservative
There is so much more I could say about the sweep of liberalism, but the summary of Breese’s writings is sufficient
“The idea that rationalism is superior to revelation is still with us today. The contest between these polarities grows hotter, suggesting that this contest may be the final battle of human history”
But in every nation these words still stand true from the Word of God.
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” Psalm 33:12
The Seed, The Melanin, The Saviour! 