Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Lectures on Keswick Theology

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I posted on this in March 2008, but I’m highlighting it again since these lectures on Keswick theology summarize my book Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology.

Detroit Baptist Theology Seminary is hosting the following resources from the lecture series I presented there in 2008:

  1. Handout. This five-page PDF ends with diagrams of major views on sanctification.
  2. Power Point presentation as a PDF. This collection of eighty slides is filled with pictures of the forerunners, proponents, and successors of Keswick theology.
  3. MP3s. About three hours of lectures:

Update on 8/23/2017: My latest book attempts to survey and analyze “let go and let God” theology:

No Quick Fix

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Fly by the Instruments

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I flew for the first time yesterday. I’ve flown as a passenger in commercial airplanes countless times, but this was my first time to fly as a pilot in the captain’s seat.

Skip Goss, president of Skill Aviation, graciously offered to take me up. (He was in my group at Exploring Christianity earlier this year, and we have some mutual friends who are learning to fly at his prestigious flight school.)

We started off in Waukegan going south along Lake Michigan, circled Trinity’s campus a few times, and then continued south along Lake Michigan. We circled various parts of downtown Chicago and flew next to the Sears Tower. Viewing Chicago aerially from such a low elevation was amazing. We stopped for lunch at the Schaumburg airport, and we circled over Trinity’s campus again on our way back to Waukegan. This time I called Jenni at our campus apartment from a cell phone, and we waved at each other! My favorite part was flying about 150 mph just above the surface of Lake Michigan and seeing the massive lake-front homes.

Skip is a master-teacher, and since he invited questions about aircraft and flying, I pelted him with questions. Among other things, I confirmed that spatial disorientation is a relatively rare condition but one that every pilot must be prepared for. I keep thinking about a penetrating analogy that Jon Bloom shared on the Desiring God blog in December 2007: “What I Learned in a Spiritual Storm.”

  • Bloom explains that when a pilot experiences spatial disorientation in a storm, he must fly by the instruments. He must trust the instruments.
  • When we experience spatial disorientation in a spiritual storm, we too must fly by the instruments (i.e., God’s word). We must trust the instruments. The right response to evil and suffering is to affirm what God says in the Bible—even if we can’t exhaustively explain every facet of it—and trust him.

Read the whole thing.

Related: The Logical and Emotional Problems of Evil

Website Redesigned

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Many thanks to Phil Gons for redesigning AndyNaselli.com over the last two months. (Those who subscribe to this blog via RSS feed, email, or Twitter may want to visit the site to see the new design.)

In addition to the blog, every page is redesigned with updated content:

God has gifted Phil with superb analytical and technical skills. He’s a gifted exegete and theologian as well as a technological wizard. And I’m grateful that he’s patient, too, because I regularly ask him for advice about exegesis, theology, and technology! If you don’t already subscribe to his blog, I’d highly recommend you do so via RSS feed, email, or Twitter. It’s called “Thoughts on Theology and Technology” and organized as follows:

What Is Hell?

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I’ve been studying the doctrine of hell recently to prepare to write a short article on the topic, and this is the finest overview of this difficult doctrine that I’ve read:

Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson. What Is Hell? Basics of the Faith Series. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010. 36 pp. [Amazon | WTS Books]

Here’s an outline of this little book:

1. Would a loving God really send good people to hell?

Answer: That’s “the wrong question, and it leads people to wrong answers. The right question, the one that Paul answers in Romans, is, ‘How can a loving and just God declare the guilty to be right with him?’ Or, ‘How can those who deserve hell go to heaven?'” (p. 10).

2. What does the Bible teach about hell?

Preface

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Here is my preface to Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology.

* * * * * * *

It is not much of a recommendation when all you can say is that this teaching may help you if you do not take its details too seriously. It is utterly damning to have to say, as in this case I think we must, that if you do take its details seriously, it will tend not to help you but to destroy you.

That’s what J. I. Packer wrote about a teaching that has destroyed many people and continues to destroy more today. It nearly destroyed me.

Trying to “Let Go and Let God” in High School and Bible College

When I shared my Christian “testimony” in my high school and early college years, I would say something like this: “I was saved when I was eight years old, and I surrendered to Christ when I was thirteen.” By “saved,” I meant that Jesus became my Savior and that I became a Christian. By “surrendered,” I meant that I finally gave full control of my life to Jesus as my Master and yielded to do whatever he wanted me to do. [Read more…] about Preface

Tom Schreiner’s Foreword

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Here is Tom Schreiner’s foreword to Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology.

* * * * * * *

I became a Christian when I was seventeen years old, and the first theology I knew was Keswick theology. I read many books and heard numerous sermons that exhorted me to “let go and let God,” to live the victorious Christian life, to surrender absolutely and completely to the Lord, to live in unbroken victory for significant periods of time, to live as a spiritual Christian instead of a carnal Christian. I read Hannah Whitall Smith, Charles Trumbull, Andrew Murray, Watchmen Nee, Major Ian Thomas, John Hunter, etc. My youth pastor, who discipled me and taught me the rudiments of the Christian faith, gave a steady diet of Keswick teaching as well. When I attended seminary, at my youth pastor’s suggestion, I attended a church that promulgated Keswick theology because I was convinced that those who did not share such a theology were less biblical.

Let me be quick to say how much I learned from Keswick theology. It upholds the Scriptures as the authoritative and inerrant word of God. It highlights the majesty and beauty of Christ. It embraces and rejoices in orthodox Christian theology. Most important, it takes the Holy Spirit seriously. Christians can and should live in a way that pleases God through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a theological cipher; his presence is vital and energizing so that believers can triumph over the flesh.
[Read more…] about Tom Schreiner’s Foreword