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Chafer, Ryrie,
Pentecost, Thieme, Hodges, Bright,
Hession, Grubb, Torrey,
Gordon, Simpson,
Tozer, Moody,
Murray
MR. NORMAN P. GRUBB
Miles J. Stanford
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INTRODUCTION -- A British missionary in
Belgian Congo under the leadership of his father-in-law, C.T. Studd, Norman
Grubb became head of the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade at the death of
Studd in 1931. For some thirty years he led WEC, first in London and later in
the States. He has written a number of books on the Christian life which
contain much that is good, although we cannot recommend them for the following
reasons.
CHRISTIAN LIFE TEACHING -- Mr. Grubb's main books are based upon the identification truths of Romans 6-8, with such titles as The Law of Faith, The Liberating Secret, The Deep Things of God, and God Unlimited. Despite his knowledge of identification, however, he does not apply the Cross in the life of the believer, nor does he teach the process of spiritual growth. And for him the "old man" becomes the "new man," with the heart purified. Wesleyan Arminianism.
TEACHING EMPHASIS -- Similar to Dr. Chafer and identical with Dr. Hession, Mr. Grubb stresses confession as the answer to sin in the life of the Christian. His keynote is "holiness by faith." No place is given to the principle of time concerning spiritual growth.
CONDITIONS -- His conditions for holiness of life and power for service are, "Believe, affirm, appropriate--and you are there"!
CONCLUSION -- Since Norman Grubb is an outstanding missionary statesman with worldwide influence through both the spoken and written word, we will give a brief explanation as to why he teaches what he does, and why he associates with those he does.
DR. FRANK BUCHMAN -- In the early 1920's Mr. Grubb was forcibly impressed by Dr. Buchman and his Oxford Group "life changers." His startling statement concerning the movement was, "To my mind, though I never had close personal contact with them, this was the greatest move of God's Spirit in the twenties and thirties of our century." Such an encomium for those who are anti-doctrinal and specialize in sensitivity training-type groups!
KESWICK CONVENTION -- Later, Norman Grubb became interested in the Keswick (silent "w") message of identification, and attended the English conventions a number of times. Improved impression!
MR. C.T. STUDD -- Mr. Grubb was also profoundly influenced by the missionary pioneer, Studd, whom he described as a "thorough-going Arminian." Through this relationship he came to take a "middle line" concerning eternal security. While sure of his own security, he nevertheless wrote, "Forward to perfection, or backward to apostasy."
Mr. Grubb's books also reveal that he believes tongues and healing are gifts of the Spirit for today. Although not "thorough-going," he is basically Arminian; he is certainly not Calvinistic, nor dispensational.
CHRISTIAN LITERATURE CRUSADE -- CLC is the literature arm of WEC, and now their catalog and bookstores offer healing, tongues and demonism material from such sources as Bethany Fellowship (Minneapolis, Minn.), and Logos International Fellowship (Plainfield, N.J.). Avoid these publishers! In his stance concerning these errors, Mr. Grubb could do nothing to deter or rectify this charismatic trend, and he may well have contributed to it. There is no middle ground.
MYSTICISM -- At the age of forty, and after having directed WEC in London for four years, Norman Grubb experienced a "spiritual breakdown." This was partially a result of studying William James' books, which brought him to the place of doubting the existence of God. After a year of inactivity he began to study such mystical (and heretical) writer as Jacob Boehme, John of the Cross, Santa Teresa, Plotinus, and Angelus Silesius,
JACOB BOEHME -- Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831 - 1891) founded the Theosophical Society of America upon Indian (Hindu) philosophy and the theosophical system of Jacob Boehme.
It was mainly through the writings of Boehme that Mr. Grubb came to the belief that the entire universe consists of God's myriad forms of Self-manifestation. Not that everything is God (pantheism), but that God manifests Himself through everything (panentheism). This seems to be "the key to everything" for him, which enables him to believe and to fellowship on so broad a scale.
NEO-ORTHODOXY -- Mr. Grubb highly esteems such authors as Bonhoeffer, Brunner, Barth, and the eccentric mystic, Kierkegaard (father of Neo-orthodoxy), upon whose writings he "continuously feeds." As a result he is able to write, "Only the truth which edifies is the truth for you." "We have to gather together all the certainty we can about a thing, but in the end we have to move from uncertainty. At the moment of faith, I have to leap into the unknown. From the center of my personality I have to make a deliberate choice, a leap into the dark." (Any "leap" toward God would he a leap into the light! --mjs.)
REVIVALISM -- Mr. Grubb visited the East Africa Rwanda "revival" at the time Roy Hession was also there as an observer. Like Dr. Hession, he absorbed the message of "confession" as the answer to sin in the life of the believer. He noted the similarity of this movement to that of Frank Buchman. In 1950, shortly after the Hessions wrote The Calvary Road (the Rwanda message), Norman Grubb produced a similar booklet entitled Continuous Revival.
FAITH AT WORK -- When Mr. Grubb relinquished his leadership of WEC and became its International Secretary-at-large, he commenced his close association with the Faith at Work organization, and has continued to minister in their ranks for the past fifteen years or so.
CAMPS FARTHEST OUT -- This semi-metaphysical movement is even more errant than the above, yet Mr. Grubb enjoys fellowship at their far-out camps, and even recommends the strange writings of CFO leaders such as founder Glenn Clark, Starr Daily, and Rufus Moseley.
From the foregoing it is not difficult to see why Mr. Grubb would gravitate to these levels of fellowship and ministry. Nor is it hard to see that these aberrant groups "use" our brother in an effort to gain a modicum of religious respectability in the eyes of prospective adherents. Looseness in doctrine and fellowship on the part of leaders results in spiritual harm to their followers.
"A broad path is not a broad heart, but a broad conscience." "Take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak" (I Cor. 8:9).
FAITH AT WORK -- An understanding of the background and development of a movement such as Faith at Work will enable us to see why it is the way it is. This in turn will guide us in our evaluation of the writings and leadership under the aegis of FAW.
In 1908 the Lutheran minister, Frank Buchman launched his "First Century Christian Fellowship" in Pennsylvania. Essentially a ministry to campus men, it fell far short of being a true Christian fellowship. "Golden Rule Group" would have been closer to the facts.
The activity consisted chiefly of weekend "house parties," featuring sensitivity training-type "group fellowship" for the confession of sin and sharing of religious experiences. Their self-realization goals consist of Robert E. Speer's four absolutes drawn from the Sermon on the Mount: absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute love, and absolute unselfishness.
In 1920 Buchman was joined by Sam Shoemaker, who five years later became rector of New York's Calvary Episcopal Church. In 1928 the movement was re-named the Oxford Group, although it had no official connection with England's Oxford University. In 1938 the present name, Moral Re-Armament (MRA), was adopted.
Dr. Shoemaker severed his association with Dr. Buchman in 1941 on the basis that MRA was too far removed from Christianity. Later on the FAW enterprise emerged, receiving its name from Calvary Church's magazine of the same title. The movement's leadership and constituency were derived from the magazine's editorial board and subscribers.
While Dr. Buchman led MRA on from "life changers" to "world changers" (One Worlders), Dr. Shoemaker, with the assistance of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, guided FAW into the role of "church changing" along ecumenical lines. Although the goals are dissimilar, the operational mechanism of the two groups remains identical: group therapy featuring confession of sins, coupled with the non-doctrinal sharing of experiences.
According to pattern, MRA is presently in decline; this time it may be demise. For ten or fifteen years the organization is up and doing, primarily in high-level government, business, social and theatrical circles; then it seems to drop from sight and sound for a period of time, only to reappear with a new name, new financial backing (angels), and renewed effort to bring the nations into ore-world peace and purity.
In contrast, FAW has steadily moved forward through the years. Faith at Work magazine continues to be their central organ of outreach, with some 30,000 subscriptions at present. Their main "church-changing" activity is carried on by group "teams," lay men and women who take over liberal churches on weekends to share experiences and establish new groups.
The method consists of team members telling of their "change," followed by gathering the congregation into small groups for a "therapeutic sharing of personal problems." Interspersed throughout the weekend are workshops for training in "self-discovery," "self-actualization," and "Koinonia sharing," i.e., "a marriage-like group relationship in which there is total openness and freedom to be yourself, where you can share with each other your pain and sorrow as well as your hopes and dreams without fear of condemnation, and to support each other in perfect love."
Psychological manipulation is the dominant procedure utilized. As Dr. Shoemaker put it, "Get changed, got together, get going!" Fifty years ago Dr. Chafer warned of this very thing: "The trend today is to substitute philosophy, psychology, and sociology for theology. This may be somewhat accounted for, by the fact that Biblical doctrine is a revelation, whereas the substitutes are within the range of the thinking of the natural man."
Since the one rule of the invading teams is, "No doctrine," the main thrust of FAW is largely confined to churches in such liberal denominations as American Baptist, Congregational, Covenant, Episcopal, Anglican, United Brethren, Lutheran, Methodist, and United Presbyterian. Their unorthodoxy, both in technique and theology, is unacceptable in sound fundamental churches. May it ever be so!
A recent and more formidable feature of FAW's "church-changing" tactics is the extensive "National Clergy Conference on the Emerging Church." These huge "human potential workshops" are held from time to time in the larger cities across the country. An attempt is made to interpersonally condition hundreds of clergymen "to be themselves... to he open, perfectly honest, transparent, vulnerable, liberated from the fear of failure," and to "celebrate life for a new kind of clergy and a new kind of church." Similar confrontations are organized for the laity. Of the numerous FAW personnel who lead these seminars, we will consider but four.
THE REV. BRUCE LARSON -- Until recently president of FAW, Mr. Larson continues to be one of their conference leaders. Ordained in the liberal United Presbyterian denomination, he holds the M.A. in Psychology from Boston University.
He has written a number of "life-changing" books entitled Dare to Live Now, Setting Men Free, Living on the Growing Edge, and Ask Me to Dance. In this last book Mr. Larson states that he has been strongly influenced by such neo-orthodox liberals as Barth, Brunner, Niebuhr, and Tillich. He also goes so far as to recommend the writings of Freud, Jung, and Adler, commending the Freudians and Roman Catholics for the light they have thrown on the dynamics and therapy of confession. He endorses the Sensitivity Training Centers throughout the country, such as Eselen, and the National Training Laboratories.
MR. KEITH MILLER -- Although a layman in the Episcopal Church, Mr. Miller is a highly trained disciple of the ecumenical philosophy professor, Dr. Elton Trueblood. He has been instrumental in forming many "confess and share" groups in Episcopal parishes and elsewhere. As a leader in FAW conferences he resorts to rank "group dynamic" tactics, such as inciting the participants to "do your own thing, express your hostilities, love, scream, laugh, cry, swear, touch, and hug and kiss" if necessary.
Mr. Miller's several best-selling books promulgate psychological techniques and approaches, bearing the titles of The Taste of New Wine, A Second Touch, Habitation of Dragons, and The Becomers. All feature the "absolute honesty" of MRA and FAW, so essential to their group therapy. Other characteristics of his writings include the disparagement of doctrine, and the vagueness concerning his salvation. The first book mentioned above is listed in the Congressional Record of June 10, 1969, as one of the three textbooks used to promote Sensitivity Training in this country.
THE REV. LLOYD OGILVIE -- Ordained in the United Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Ogilvie is pastor of the tongues-ridden Hollywood Presbyterian Church. As a seasoned "grouper" he says, "All through the years I've had a 'fish-or-cut-bait group' to whom I've been accountable; where at least once a week I've had to log in and say
how I was feeling, where I was in my marriage and in my sex life, with my money, with my kids, with my job, with my everyday life."
THE REV. LYMAM COLEMAN -- A featured FAW conference leader, Mr. Coleman is in the liberal American Baptist Church. Titles such as The Coffee House Itch, Acts Alive, Kaleidoscope, Growth by Groups, and Dialogue grace his books. Mr. Coleman's present FAW role is that of leading nation-wide "Serendipity Workshops" for training church youth leadership. (Serendipity: "An apparent aptitude for making fortunate discoveries accidentally." --Webster).
Amidst the baleful influence of psychedelic light, sound, and color, he "trains" youth leaders in "How To: Get in touch with yourself, affirm your strengths, be a 'self-actualized' person, build small group interpersonal relationships, encounter biblical truth on a feeling level, relate Scripture to group process, experiment in Bible study by using new 'sensitivity' techniques."
The most recent development of these Conferences on the Emerging Church is FAW's "festivals of Hope." These conclaves to "celebrate the New Christian Renaissance" are staffed by such leaders as the above and Mary Ann Finch, worship director for a Franciscan Retreat Center; Father John Powell, Loyola University; Charlie Shedd, author; Dr. Bob Munger, Fuller Seminary; Dr. Martin Marty, University of Chicago Divinity School; Dr. Elton Trueblood, Earlham College; Cuthbert Bardsley, Bishop of Coventry, England; and Mrs. Cynthia Wedel, sensitivity training expert with Nat'l Training Laboratories and former president of the National Council of Churches. Yes, FAW is very proud of its ecumenicity!
Other names linked with FAW past and present are, E. Stanley Jones, Abraham Vereide, Catherine Marshall, Eugenia Price, Rosalind Rinker, Norman Vincent Peale, Gert Behanna, Eleanor Searle Whitney, Corrie ten Boom, Louis Evans, Jr., Karl Olssen, Frank Laubach, Agnes Sanford, Ralph and Cecil Osborne, Bob Walker, Paul Tournier, and, sadly enough, Norman Grubb!
A final word of warning concerning this dangerous movement. There is a linkup between FAW and Word, Inc. (Waco, Texas), publishers and producers of the books written and the training material used by FAW leaders.
"Creative Resources" is one sensitivity training-type program offered by Word, Inc., that is getting into sound but unwary church youth groups. The material consists of a quarterly publication, Scan, and a series of cassettes. This highly geared program places young people under the "do your thing" psycho-drama techniques of Keith Miller, Bruce Larson, Lloyd Ogilvie, Elton Trueblood, Lyman Coleman, Martin Marty, and others. Beware!