The World's Christians. Douglas Jacobsen

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American Puritan preacher, humans need to recognize that they are “sinners in the hands of an angry God” before they can appreciate the breadth of God’s grace. Meeting God on those terms can be terrifying.

Voices of World Christianity 3.1 Fanny Crosby and Protestant Hymnody

       Frances Jane van Alstyne (1820–1915), who is better known by the name Fanny Crosby, is the most prolific hymn writer of all time. She was a Baptist, but her songs appealed to Protestants of all stripes. Crosby was blind from infancy and served briefly as a lobbyist for the sightless in Washington, DC, but her lifelong vocation was writing. She composed her first hymn in 1844 and during the next six decades she penned 8,000 more. Her poems and song lyrics became so popular that some publishers used aliases (including Henrietta E. Blair, Ellen Dare, Grace Lindsey, Wilson Meade, and Hope Tryaway) to make it appear that they were drawing from a wider base of writers. While Crosby’s hymns touch on many different subjects, the believer’s emotional connection with God was especially prominent. That theme is evident in two of her most popular songs, which are excerpted here.

      Excerpt from “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine” (1873):

      (verse one) Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

      O what a foretaste of glory divine!

      Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

      Born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.

      (chorus) This is my story, this is my song

      Praising my Savior all the day long.

      (verse two) Perfect submission, perfect delight

      Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;

      Angels descending bring from above

      Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

      Excerpt from “I Am Thine, O Lord” (1875):

      (verse one) I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice,

      And it told thy love to me;

      But I long to rise in the arms of faith,

      And be closer drawn to thee.

      (chorus) Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,

      To the cross where thou hast died;

      Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord

      To thy precious bleeding side.

      (verse three) O, the pure delight of a single hour

      That before thy throne I spend,

      When I kneel in prayer, and with thee, my God,

      I commune as friend with friend.

      Hymns for Praise and Worship (Nappanee, IN: Evangel Press, 1984).

      Protestants define sin in many different ways – as an expression of the innate egoism of human beings, as a transgression of God’s moral law, as a failure to act when action is required – but, however sin is defined, most Protestants use legal language to describe the result. People are “guilty” before God and that guilt must be addressed before a new and positive relationship with God can begin. Christ is sometimes described as humanity’s advocate in the court of heaven, pleading with God to forgive people’s sins based on the fact that Christ’s own death paid the full legal penalty for human sin.

Protestants are divided on the question of precisely who gets to be saved. One view, closely associated with the Reformed or Calvinist tradition, is predestination, which says God chooses some people for eternal salvation, while damning others to hell. This was the majority view for the first century or two of the Protestant movement, largely because predestination underscores the belief that salvation is a pure gift from God with no element of human choice or volition involved. Faith – believing and trusting in God – was necessary to obtain salvation, but faith itself was seen as a gift that God only gave to some. Over time, however, many Protestants came to view predestination as being out of synch with their vision of God as a God of love. They argued that because of that love God offers salvation to everyone, and it is then each person’s choice to accept or reject that offer. This alternative view was first articulated by the Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius (1560–1609), and it has been called Arminianism ever since. The great majority of Protestants in the world today affirm this Arminian or “free will” understanding of salvation, but a third option is gaining ground. That third option is universalism, and it combines predestination’s emphasis on God’s choice with Arminianism’s vision of God as love. According to this view, God by God’s own choice will eventually redeem everyone from sin and grant them eternal life. Whether they like it or not, everyone will eventually be saved.

Voices of World Christianity 3.2 Martin Luther on Faith

       Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a German Catholic monk who broke with the Catholic Church and helped to launch the Protestant movement. Luther lived in Wittenberg, Germany where he taught at the local university. In the fall of 1517, he posted 95 Theses (academic assertions) on the door of the university church, inviting debate about several crucial ideas related to Catholic theology. His critique of the Catholic Church was not well received, and he was soon excommunicated by the Pope. Instead of being silenced by this act, Luther pushed forward, and his writings eventually nurtured a whole new Protestant religious option for Christians across Europe. Luther’s key insight was that salvation was obtained by faith alone without any human effort. The following excerpt, composed thirty‐five years after the 95 Theses, still exudes the confidence and joy Luther experienced when he first received this insight.

      Excerpt from the Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans (1552):

       Faith is not that human illusion and dream that some people think it is. When they hear and talk a lot about faith and yet see that no moral improvement and no good works result from it, they fall into error and say, “Faith is not enough. You must do works if you want to be virtuous and get to heaven.” The result is that, when they hear the Gospel, they stumble and make for themselves with their own powers a concept in their hearts which … is a human fabrication and thought and not an experience of the heart, it accomplishes nothing, and there follows no improvement…

       Faith is a work of God in us, which changes us and brings us to birth anew from God. It kills the old Adam, makes us completely different people in heart, mind, senses, and all our powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. What a living, creative, active powerful thing is faith! It is impossible that faith ever stop doing good. Faith doesn’t ask whether good works are to be done, but, before it is asked, it has done them. It is always active. Whoever doesn’t do such works is without faith; he gropes and searches about him for faith and good works but doesn’t know what faith or good works are…

      Faith

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