Rustin E. Brian - Jacob Arminius: The Man from Oudewater

The Man from Oudewater

Rustin E. Brian

T he completion of this book was dependent upon many good friends whom I would be remiss not to thank. First thanks go to Tom Findlay who upon learning that I wanted to study Arminiuss theology, amassed a veritable library of rare, old, and quite valuable books to help in my work. Tom did not live to see this books completion, but he is alive on every page. Special thanks also go to Point Loma Nazarene University and to Mark Mann for both allowing me to present (and more importantly to learn) at the Rethinking Arminius Conference in 2012 , and for hosting my family during the summer of 2014 at the Wesleyan Center on campus. Over half of this book was written at PLNU. Thanks also to Lydia Heberling, and to the rest of the summer scholars and PLNU faculty and staff that assisted me and discussed Arminius with methanks! This book was also written at several other locations, including the home of my parents, Randy and Barbara Brian, my in-laws, Bryan and Laura Ellis, the church where I am fortunate enough to serve as pastor, Renton Church of the Nazarene, and the library at Seattle Pacific University. Thank you also to Preston Goff, Mark Mann, and Cody Stauffer who were kind enough to read portions of the working manuscript and offer advice. Thank you to my family, to my beautiful, kind, strong, and patient wife, Lauren; my fiery, passionate, and bold little girl, Lily; and my big, happy, and growing boy, Rowan. Thanks for dealing with conferences, deadlines, and the almost constant need to go and write. You are a blessing to me in ways I can never describe. Thank you. Finally, thank you to my publisher, Cascade Books, for taking yet another chance on this young scholar. Specifically, thanks to Christian Amondson for your help and for believing in this project.

Chapter

The Man behind the Adjective

T his book is written from a Wesleyan and catholic, and therefore an Arminian, perspective. I was not always a Wesleyan, though. Like many North Americans from the United States, my young faith was a strange amalgamation of fundamentalism and civil religion. When pushed, my theology typically drew upon what I now know to be Calvinistic categories of the Baptist persuasion, as well as woefully inadequate eschatologyor the doctrine of last things. It was not until my late teenage years that I encountered Wesleyan theology. I quickly and fully embraced it. It was then that I began to hear talk of Wesleyan-Arminian theology. But who was this Arminius character? The best answer I could give at the time was that he believed in free will. In a very real way, then, Arminius was, for me, simply the mysterious source of a modifying adjective.

Perhaps I was just a poor student, but my ignorance of Arminius held sway all the way through doctoral studies. In fact, it was only during a year spent at the University of Aberdeen, a Scottish Institution with highly Reformed sensibilities, that I encountered regular discussions regarding Arminius. In that setting, Arminius (and therefore Wesley) was commonly viewed as being either semi- or fully-Pelagian. My attempts to counter such critiques led me to realize that I knew nothing, really, about Arminius: both the man and his theology. It is my belief that, though the specifics of my experiences are unique, the overall condition of knowledgeor more accurately, lack of knowledgeabout Arminius, is all too common in so-called Wesleyan-Arminian circles. This is unfortuante, for Arminius provides a rich and powerful theological backdrop that renders Wesleys pastoral and homiletical theology all the more profound. In a very real way, Arminius provides the rigorous systematic theology necessary for Wesleys theology. Thus, while it is appropriate to use Arminiuss name adjectivally to modify Wesleyan theology, it is more appropriate to say that Wesleys theology depends upon Arminiuss theology, and is to its very core thoroughly Arminian.

It is appropriate that in the eighteenth century Wesley sought for religious renewal within the Anglican Church, and ended up changing the entire world, for Arminius did something quite similar in the sixteenth century. Arminius lived at a turbulent time of world-changing and destructive religious tension. He grew up and was trained in the midst of constant theological battles between Reformation Protestants and Counter-Reformation Roman Catholics. Additionally, he saw firsthand the all-too-real effects of the theopolitical colonizing efforts of the Spanish Inquisition. His hometown of Oudewater, for example, was completely destroyed. Those who did not flee were brutally massacred by Spanish Catholics in 1575 . Amidst such a brutal reality, Arminius refused to toe the major party lines. Rather, he dove deeply into Scripture, and stood firmly on what he found there. In particular, Arminius was convinced that much of the theology of the day made God out to be the author of evil, something Arminius worked tirelessly to reject. Engaging the work of Arminius, therefore, can be a dangerous thing. He challenged the categories of thought held so firmly by many of Christs followers in ways that always seemed to invite controversy. Arminius himself was constantly scrutinized for his theological beliefs and teachings. This was particularly true of his time as a professor. Though his theology spread like wild fire, Arminians faced that same scrutiny as well, for both Calvinistic Reformed theology and Roman Catholic theology continued to, for the most part, serve as the theology of choice for those in power in Europe.