Five Sermon Illustrations from Church History
For Dwight A. Honeycutt
L1112: Survey of Christianity 1517 - Present
Spring, 2001

Chris A. Foreman, Box 780 / May 1, 2001


ILLUSTRATION ONE

Subject/Theme Possibilities:

modern apologetics, the essence of Christianity, denominational disagreements


Text of the Illustration:

C. S. Lewis was the premier Christian apologist of the 20th Century. As a college professor, he appealed to both the intellectual and the common person. Here he provides insight into disputes between Christian denominations.

"Oddly enough, you cannot even conclude, from my silence on disputed points, either that I think them important or that I think them unimportant. For this is itself one of the disputed points. One of the things Christians are disagreed about is the importance of their agreements. When two Christians of different denominations start arguing, it is usually not long before one asks whether such-and-such a point "really matters" and the other replies: "Matter? Why it's absolutely essential."


Historical Context of the Illustration:

Clive Staples Lewis was born in 1899 and for many years was professor of medieval and renaissance literature at Cambridge University. After his conversion to Christianity in the late 1920s, Lewis wrote numerous popular books, including Screwtape Letters, the Narnia Tales and the space trilogy of Out of the Silent Planet, Paralandra, and That Hideous Strength. C.S. Lewis always presents a strongly held and clearly thought-out interpretation of life. Readers of Lewis are sure that, whatever their belief system, that religion means something extremely serious, demanding the entire energy of the mind. The illustration above was first spoken on the air in 1943 and then published as a separate book in The Case for Christianity. Since his death in 1963, his following and reputation continue to grow.


Source of the Illustration:

Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. (New York: The MacMillian Company, 1960), 8.


Analysis:

This illustration comes from a primary source.

ILLUSTRATION TWO

Subject/Theme Possibilities:

religious liberty, freedom of conscience, separation of church and state.


Text of the Illustration:

Roger Williams was years ahead of his time. Here are his words as spokesman for religious liberty in a book called The Bloudy Tennent.
"… First. That the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of protestants and papists, split in wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. Secondly. Pregnant scriptures and arguments are throughout the work proposed against the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience. … Fifthly. All civil states, with their officers of justice, in their respective constitutions and administrations, are proved essentially civil and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual, or Christian state and worship. … Eighthly. God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity, sooner or later, is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls."


Historical Context of the Illustration:

Roger Williams (c.1603-1684) is remembered primarily as a spokesman for religious liberty and as founder of the earliest Baptist church in America at Providence, Rhode Island in 1639. Although he remained a Baptist for only a short time, Williams helped shape continuing Baptist life in America. He helped form the concepts of religious liberty and separation of church and state as held by Baptists in America today. At the time they were written, these words of Williams were considered radical. Quoted above are his first, second, fifth and eighth of eleven bullet statements in favor of religious liberty.


Source of the Illustration:

McBeth, H. Leon, editor. A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage. (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1990), 83.


Analysis:

This illustration comes from a primary source.

ILLUSTRATION THREE

Subject/Theme Possibilities:

our existence, proofs of God, philosophy and religion


Text of the Illustration:

Descartes' Cogito-Sum (I think therefore I am) is the beginning point of modern philosophy. This commentary on Descartes argues that the Cogito-Sum was of secondary importance to Descartes.

The Cogito-Sum is almost universally regarded as the pivotal doctrine within the Cartesian system - wrongly, as I believe I have shown. Descartes' central conception is that of the existence of God, whereas the existence of self is, in a sense, merely the first certainty Descartes chooses to reveal. … By reshaping the concept of God in this way Descartes so changed it that the Deity, instead of being a hindrance to free research and science, became its symbol, its promoter. For not what the Bible reveals, or what the theologians God has allowed man to know but all that man by his natural intelligence can find out he was from now on free to discover. Thereby, Descartes made certainty independent of revelation and the Church of his time and placed science above theology.


Historical Context of the Illustration:

It is difficult to draw the line between reformation theologians and reformation philosophers. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) has been called the father of modern philosophy - perhaps a parallel to Martin Luther. His greatness is undisputed even today, in spite of the fact that his has become somewhat "unfashionable". Although looked upon as primarily a philosopher, the "religion" of Descartes was a distinct break from the prevailing Aristotelian -Thomistic "religion" of previous centuries. His was the first thorough-going metaphysical solution to the great intellectual problems of his age which centered around the conflicts between traditional Christianity and the new physical and mathematical sciences-problems about God, immortality, the nature of man and the importance of reason.


Source of the Illustration:

Grayeff, Felix. Descartes. (London: Philip Goodall, 1977), 19, 23.


Analysis:

This illustration comes from a Secondary source.

ILLUSTRATION FOUR

Subject/Theme Possibilities:

bringing the church into the modern age, reform, moving toward the common people


Text of the Illustration:

Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council in 1963. This council "opened the windows of the Vatican and let in some air" as the pope said himself. Quoted below are articles 51 and 54.
51. "The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly so that a richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God's word …"
52. "A suitable place may be allotted to the vernacular in Masses which are celebrated with the people, especially in the readings and in the common prayer…"


Historical Context of the Illustration:

1963 was a watershed year for the Catholic Church. This was the year the Second Vatican Council. So monumental was this council that when one speaks of Catholic practice and doctrine usually the words "pre-Vatican II" or "post-Vatican II" are essential. Prior to Vatican II, Catholics were not encouraged to read their Bibles. It was not that Bible reading was forbidden, but that mass and catechism were seen as sufficient for the Catholic lay person. Article 51 above reverses this tradition calling for the "lavish" reading of scripture. Prior to Vatican II, the Catholic mass was typically celebrated in Church Latin. Most Catholics did not understand a word of the service. Article 52 above "permitted" the use of the vernacular along with Latin, and within a few years, Latin masses were no more. As the instigator of these changes, Pope John XXIII is either the hero or villain of 20th century Catholicism.


Source of the Illustration:

Bettenson, Henry and Chris Maunder, eds. Documents of the Christian Church, 3d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 360.


Analysis:

This illustration comes from a primary source.

ILLUSTRATION FIVE

Subject/Theme Possibilities:

cheap grace, discipleship, resistance to tyranny.


Text of the Illustration:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived during a time when it was difficult to be a true Christian. During the Nazi era, Christians in Germany sought out "cheap grace". This is a sample of what Bohnoeffer had to say:
Cheap Grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. … Cheap Grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. … Cheap Grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confessions, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. … Costly Grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.


Historical Context of the Illustration:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906. He studied in Berlin and New York City. He left the safety of America to return to Germany and continue his public repudiation of the Nazis, which led to his arrest in 1943. Linked to the group of conspirators whose attempted assassination of Hitler failed, he was hanged in April 1945. In the instance of Bonhoeffer, we know that the cost of discipleship was death. We know that grace for him was not cheap but that grace was as costly as life.


Source of the Illustration:

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. (NY, Touchstone, 1995), 43, 44, 45.


Analysis:

This illustration comes from a primary source.