Book of the Month/December 2015

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If you were to try to sum up the significant contributions of Anglican theologian Richard Hooker in the words of a Broadway musical, you could do no better than to point to the lyrics of Gershwin’s It Ain’t Necessarily So — referring of course to the chorus and not the verses. Now I am not sure why you would want to do it that way, but if you were, that would be the way to do it. Hooker’s central contribution, in my view, was to answer “the precisionists” of his day with a learned retort that it is not really that simple.Littlejohn.RichardHooker.Littlejohn.RichardHooker.47351

This companion to Hooker’s life and work by Brad Littlejohn is fascinating, learned, straightforward, well-written, engaging, and balanced. The title is Richard Hooker: a Companion to His Life and Work. I really enjoyed it, and the point of this review is that you or someone you love should enjoy it as well. I understand Christmas is coming up.

Because of the historical importance that England came to occupy in the centuries after the Reformation, it became important for some later anachronistic Anglicans to project a “neither fish nor fowl” Anglicanism back on the period of the Reformation. But Littlejohn does a marvelous job showing how Hooker and company considered themselves, quite accurately, to be simply Reformed theologians within a broad Protestant consensus. The Reformation was not a denominational affair — it was an essential and huge part of the history of the culture of the West. The point of this book could be summarized as arguing that just as Luther belongs to more than the Lutherans, so Hooker belongs to more than the Anglicans. The Reformation was a huge river, not a consortium of mountain brooks.

The chapter on Hooker as polemicist was particularly good. Hooker had his own unique style of theological reasoning that governed the structure of his Laws as a whole, and even worked down into the syntax of his sentences. What you might have initially thought was a tedious run-on sentence turned out by the end to be the wind-up to a haymaker.

The first part of this book deals with Hooker as myth, Hooker as man, and Hooker as his book (Laws). The second analyzes Hooker as Protestant, as polemicist, as a philosopher, and as a pastor. The last third of this companion surveys certain key doctrines — Scripture, law, the Church, and liturgy and sacraments.

As a Puritan myself, I appreciated the distinctions that Littlejohn made among Hooker’s opponents, even though there are a number of points where I would agree with (some of) them over against Hooker. Not all the Presbyterians were “precisionists,” against whom Hooker easily carried the day. C.S. Lewis points out in his book English Literature in the 16th Century that it is in Thomas Cartwright that we first encounter the Puritan of common caricature, and Cartwright was one of Hooker’s main opponents.
While reading this book, I also noticed that many of the qualifications that the early Presbyterians needed to make were in fact made by the time of the Westminster Confession. In other words, if you were feeling impish, Hooker could be considered an honorary ex officio member of an early Westminster editorial committee, for which we should all thank him.

Littlejohn is fair-minded in his handling of all such disputes, and where the Puritans had a point he is not afraid to acknowledge it. Where they demanded too much, insisting on jure divino authorization for every detail of their whole project, down into the nooks and crannies, Littlejohn points out what Hooker pointed out, which is that such exegesis cutteth no ice.

The problem was that a number of the early English Presbyterians adopted a form of reasoning that shows up later in Baptist hermeneutics, or among the strict regulativists. That is, that unless something is expressly authorized by Scripture, then it is forbidden by Scripture. The problem is found in that pesky word expressly. We have no express warrant for infant baptism, for worship on Sunday, for women taking communion, for pianos in worship, for stated clerks, etc. If you insist on express warrant for everything, you either wind up doing hardly anything at all, or stretching multiple texts quite thin in order to get your “express” warrant. It was the latter approach that the precisionists adopted, and was a classic case of overreach.

But all Protestants must be regulativists of some stripe, and I much prefer the formulation of it provided by Hughes Oliphant Old, when he says that “worship must be according to Scripture.” That’s the way you do it.

This short book by Littlejohn is really valuable in all the issues related to this that it makes you think through. As a convinced (jure divino) Presbyterian and as someone who is also convinced by Hooker’s cautious and conservative approach to all reform, I commend the careful approach to ecclesiastical reform, with Hooker as one of our models. Reformation is not revolution. A friend recently pointed out that some radical elements of the Reformation had all the pastoral instincts of the Khmer Rouge, and standing against them was a necessity. You don’t want to turn anything over to those who are in the grip of an idea. But neither do you want to leave the ship of the church with the status quo johnnies, who never met a barnacle they didn’t love. So we should not just look at Hooker’s positions, but also at his process. In other words, for the Reformation in England to have allowed the precisionists to bulldoze everything in order to build a glorious New City would have been beyond destructive. The only thing we can be certain of is that there would have been no glorious new anything.

I let slip that I was a jure divino presbyterian, so I should say something briefly about that. In a debate with express warrant presbyterians, who were rummaging in the New Testament for their express justifications, someone of Hooker’s abilities could just roll their socks down and pull their kirtles over their heads. But if we are allowed to bring in the Old Testament (as we all must do with baptism), appealing to the government of the synagogues, the nature of the Sanhedrin, and so on, the picture changes dramatically. At the same time, my sympathies would still have been with Hooker over against the men with the bulldozers. But that’s all right — postmillennialists can afford to be patient. A time is coming when the whole church will gather in the general assembly (Heb. 12:23). A little joke there. Well, mostly a joke.

It is also worth pointing out that a downstream Hookerian approach in our day will be profoundly conservative about different institutions, particularly for Americans. If we learn our lessons rightly, we can invoke Hooker while defending something he would never have defended. But to pursue that right now would take me too far afield.

Back to Littlejohn’s work. Well-written, well-done. The main value of the book is, I believe, in getting narrow and truncated Reformed Christians to see just how big their tradition actually is.

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Steve Rowe
Steve Rowe
8 years ago

Cats and Dog living together, another post I really like what is this world coming to?

Jack Bradley
Jack Bradley
8 years ago

Douglas, I do appreciate the sentiment of your identifying as “a convinced (jure divino) Presbyterian”, however, (to be guilty of strictness) under Presbyterian government, the local church is not the final ruling body, as it is in the CREC constitution: “The local session is not judicially bound by the recommendation of presbytery.” Under Presbyterianism a decision of the presbytery is not merely advisory, it is authoritative. Local sessions are judicially bound by the decisions presbyteries and presbyteries are judicially bound by the decisions of the General Assembly. A Confederation/Communion is, without question, an improvement over pure independency. However, a confederation… Read more »

PerfectHold
PerfectHold
8 years ago
Reply to  Douglas Wilson

So you’ve inched over to an episcopal model, which is nice.

katecho
katecho
8 years ago
Reply to  PerfectHold

Not quite. The CREC doesn’t have bishops ruling above the local church. Spiritual authority over a group of local churches is not invested in certain high-ranking individuals, as individuals (a CEO model). Rather spiritual authority over a group of local churches is invested in a body of overseers (like a board or a council) that is made up of representatives from the local churches themselves. The appeal for counsel and arbitration is to a body (presbytery), not to an individual overseer (a bishop).

Malachi
Malachi
8 years ago
Reply to  katecho

“We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We’re taking turns to act as a sort of executive-officer-for-the-week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority, in the case of more major…”

PerfectHold
PerfectHold
8 years ago
Reply to  katecho

So not one bishop but a group.
They don’t have a Paul, per se, but a Jerusalem committee.

Still episcopalish, don’t you think?

katecho
katecho
8 years ago
Reply to  PerfectHold

I don’t think that there is much that is episcopalish about it. Appeal and submission to a greater representative body, rather than to a greater individual is precisely what makes it presbyterian, and not episcopal.

PerfectHold
PerfectHold
8 years ago
Reply to  katecho

Then is episcopalishness a subcategory of presbyness, or vice versa, in your book? I’m seeing episcopal = a local body’s oversight & authority (if it’s biblical) vested in a man &/or men that oversee one or more congregations. I’m seeing presbyterian = local committee oversight & authority that may or may not have associations & oversight from an outside-the-local-body group. I’m seeing the difference = presbyterianism is a form of episcopacy that is by committee / plurality of elders at both the local level and across multiple congregations. Episcopacy is typically seen as a ruling elder locally, supervised by a… Read more »

katecho
katecho
8 years ago
Reply to  PerfectHold

Episcopal is where a group of local churches have outside oversight from, and submission to, an individual (a bishop). Presbyterian is where a group of local churches have outside oversight from, and submission to, a group of representatives from other churches (a presbytery). PerfectHold wrote: I’m seeing presbyterian = local committee oversight & authority that may or may not have associations & oversight from an outside-the-local-body group. No, a presbytery is not a local body. A presbytery is composed of representatives from outside churches, for accountability and greater objective distance. A presbytery is what a local church appeals to, and… Read more »

Jack Bradley
Jack Bradley
8 years ago
Reply to  Douglas Wilson

Yes, a provision every denomination has the right to exercise.

katecho
katecho
8 years ago
Reply to  Jack Bradley

Congregational polity implies independent and autonomous local rule, without appeal to any higher structure of oversight. Usually, local decisions are made directly by some kind of congregational democratic vote, rather than rule by a representative session of local elders in consultation with the congregation. Perhaps there are some CRE churches that come from an explicitly congregational model of local democratic decision making, but I’m not aware of them. The most common model I’m aware of is local session rule, representing the wishes of the congregation, but not subject to a simple democratic vote from the congregation. A congregational heart of… Read more »

Jack Bradley
Jack Bradley
8 years ago

“bound by the decision of presbyteries”

PerfectHold
PerfectHold
8 years ago
Reply to  Jack Bradley

Thanks for clarifying — and feel free to jump in there above and edit that part directly.

Jack Bradley
Jack Bradley
8 years ago
Reply to  PerfectHold

I didn’t know it is possible to edit. How would I do that?

PerfectHold
PerfectHold
8 years ago
Reply to  Jack Bradley

Maybe pop back to your comment, under which should be ” * Edit * Reply * Share” list, maybe, hopefully …

katecho
katecho
8 years ago
Reply to  PerfectHold

I think the “edit” option is only available for those who have registered and logged in with a Disqus account.

ashv
ashv
8 years ago

My favourite retort to the overly-scrupulous strict regulativists was when it was pointed out that the Scriptures nowhere stated what the pastor should wear during the worship service, therefore by the regulative principle, he should not wear anything at all.

Nord357
Nord357
8 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Now that right there, thats funny!!

Valerie (Kyriosity)
8 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Isaiah 20…

PerfectHold
PerfectHold
8 years ago

“worship must be according to Scripture” vs worship in accord with Scripture

“According to” implies a written precedent for worship — something Scripture itself doesn’t require for all folks everywhere.
Else Abel would have been scorched.

BRB
BRB
8 years ago

If we can nominate books, I’d like to request that you review a book that Amazon just banned because it contains too much truth. It’s called Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, and it’s highly recommended by Henry Makow, a Jewish Christian (and inventor of the popular game Scruples). http://henrymakow.com/2015/11/nobody-died-at-sandy-hook.html

Rick Davis
Rick Davis
8 years ago
Reply to  BRB

Well why not a book explaining how 9/11 was an inside job, or how we never went to the moon, or how JFK was killed by Jimmy Hoffa and LBJ, or how there’s a downed UFO at Roswell, or how there are canals and statues on Mars, or how world politics are really being controlled by the Illuminati led by the Elvis who is really the Comte de St. Germain from their hidden underground city in Denver? The possibilities are endless!

BRB
BRB
8 years ago
Reply to  Rick Davis

You could’ve saved yourself a lot of typing if you’d just written “Hi, I’m Rick Davis, and I’m a bedwetting male feminazi who can’t handle the truth.”

Evan
Evan
8 years ago
Reply to  BRB

I don’t think this is true of Rick Davis, but the way you worded that comment made me laugh. A lot. Thank you for the Wednesday morning humor.

One more question, since having two disqus accounts seems to be all the rage these days; you wouldn’t happen to be Gregory McDivitt by any chance would you?

BRB
BRB
8 years ago
Reply to  Evan

No. Is he someone who also speaks out against the Sandy Hook Deception?

Evan
Evan
8 years ago
Reply to  BRB

” Is he someone who also speaks out against the Sandy Hook Deception?”

Well now, that is an interesting question.

Rick Davis
Rick Davis
8 years ago
Reply to  BRB

How about this?
I’m Rick Davis and I teach Logic. :)

Evan
Evan
8 years ago
Reply to  Rick Davis

Are you saying you don’t wet the bed?

Rick Davis
Rick Davis
8 years ago
Reply to  Evan

Only when I’ve been intimidated by having my eyes opened to the vast NWO/Jewish conspiracy to control the world.

Evan
Evan
8 years ago
Reply to  Rick Davis

well said. :)

jillybean
jillybean
8 years ago
Reply to  Rick Davis

Excuse me, but I think you are overlooking the fact that the CIA invented crack and imported it into the inner cities, that our government created AIDS in a lab, that the cure for cancer is being suppressed by Big Pharma, and the late Queen Mother arranged for the murder of Princess Diana.

Christopher Casey
Christopher Casey
8 years ago
Reply to  BRB

I feel like this might be relevent here. Just replace George Martin with Doug Wilson. http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html?m=1

repeater75
repeater75
8 years ago

I take exception to the characterization of those having a “strict interpretation of the RPW” (How can it be otherwise in light of Deut 12:32? If it isn’t it is simply the Normative Principle of Luther.) as requiring strictly “express warrant.” As a Reformed Presbyterian (i.e. of the Covenanter tradition), we simply follow what the WCF itself says on the subject which in Chapter 1 gives us the very helpful statement about both “good and necessary consequences” and of circumstances to which we can apply, “good ole Christian Common Sense”: WCF 1.6 The whole counsel of God concerning all things… Read more »

PerfectHold
PerfectHold
8 years ago
Reply to  repeater75

“The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary … is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”

Hi there. What do you suppose is the point of having these “necessary things” written down?
What means necessary in this context?
Without these things written such as they were, what is the necessary consequence of their absence?