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’REVELATION KNOWLEDGE’ AND KNOWLEDGE OF REVELATION:

THE FAITH MOVEMENT AND THE QUESTION OF HERESY

Thomas Smail, Andrew Walker and Nigel Wright

C.S. Lewis Centre, King’s College, University of London
Cornwall House Annexe, Waterloo Road, London SE1 8TX

Introduction
Our theological approach to the charismatic movement over the years
has been eirenic and polemical. If we have looked for correctives, bal-
ance and reflective criticism within the renewal, this has not been con-
ducted in a spirit of witch-hunting nor with inquisitorial menace. However,
what sets the parameters2within which eirenic and polemical theology
can properly function, and what determines the rightness of our method,
is the same as that which determined the nature of eirenic and polemical
theology in the early Christian church. And that ’what’, that ’something’,
we can best describe as ’the dogmatic core&dquo; of Christian faith.

At the heart of theology there is a non-negotiable centre of dogmatic

truth, an unmovable residue of authoritative doctrine. We can properly
call it apostolic faith. The Apostle Paul tells us that he came by it

1. See in particular our book Charismatic Renewal: The Search for a Theology
(London: SPCK, 1993). This paper is itself a marginal adaption of an additional
chapter in the American edition of this book, The Love of Power or the Power of
Love (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1994).
2. From the point of view of systematic theology it could be said that theology
has four tasks: eirenics, polemics, apologetics and dogmatics. Eirenical and polemical
theology are disputes internal to Christian faith and apologetics is the defence and pro-
motion of Christianity to those outside the church. While dogmatics are concerned with
the explication and elucidation of orthodox doctrine, eirenics and polemics are more
typically reserved for theological issues of great importance (theologuemena) but not
necessarily dogmatic ones. Nevertheless, when dogmatic issues are at stake in the
church we can properly say that polemical theology (often of an astringent nature) is
necessary.
3. We are grateful to Michael Beggs of King’s College, London for suggesting
to us the notion of the dogmatic core.
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’through the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Gal. 1.12).4 Peter insists that
’we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to
you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-
witnesses of His majesty’ (2 Pet. 1.16).
The essential truths of the received apostolic tradition were distilled by
the early church into Christian charters or creeds (the Nicene
Constantinopolitan creed of 381 CE being the most ecumenical and
authoritative). The apostolic faith in the creed contains what we might
call ’knowledge of revelation’-non-negotiable truths gleaned from the
Bible, or dogmas concerning the nature of God, the Trinity, the person
and work of Christ, and the church. It is only when theology contradicts
the basic core truths of creedal Christianity that we can properly use the
word ’heresy’ to describe it.’
If we turn to the modern charismatic movement and measure it
against this creedal Christianity we cannot really agree with the general
tenor of MacArthur’s book,6 which considers charismatic Christianity to
be more heretical than orthodox. On the contrary, we think it worth
asserting that on the whole from the origins of classical Pentecostalism
to the present-day renewal there has been no significant deviation of the
charismatic movement from what we earlier called ’the dogmatic core’
of Christian theology.’ Perhaps the Christology of William Branham and
indeed the whole ’Latter Rain’ theology of the late 1940s is problematic.
But today the greatest concern must surely be reserved for the Faith
Movement.

The Faith Movement as Heresy

Here we believe that we need to move beyond eirenical approaches to

the sharp end of polemical theology, for the central question facing us in
the Faith Movement is not whether its proponents operate with an
unacceptable hermeneutics (which they do), nor even whether the whole
4. All biblical quotations in this paper are from the New King James Version.
5. The fact, for example, that the Nicene Creed says of Jesus that ’He was
begotten not made’ is precisely because Arius, a presbyter of the East, had claimed
that Jesus as God’s Son was only semi-divine—inferior to God because he was
subsequent to or made by the Father.
6. J. MacArthur, Jr, Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992).
7. Though since the early days there have been movements of universalism,
trinitarian modalism and baptismal practices which have insisted on a ’Jesus only’
formula.