Chuck Swindoll: Reformation Revisionism
In The Grace Awakening, his magnum opus, Dr. Charles R. (Chuck) Swindoll presents himself as fanning the flame of “the torch of freedom” as originally held by protestant Reformers like Martin Luther. In this he convinces his followers that by trusting him and his teaching in The Grace Awakening that they are in line with the historic Reformation teachings of grace and faith alone. Swindoll wrote:
Human achievement must accompany sincere faith before you can be certain of your salvation. We continue to hear that “different gospel” to this day and it is a lie. It is heresy. It is antithetical to the true message that lit the spark to the Reformation: Sola Fide - faith alone. (The Grace Awakening, p.86).
When the sixteenth-century European Reformers brandished the torch of freedom and stood against the religious legalists of their era, grace was the battle cry…a walk of faith without fear of eternal damnation (The Grace Awakening, p. xiv).
Dr. Swindoll is right, the “spark that lit the reformation,” was Sola Fide or faith alone. The Reformers, however, did not explain their terms as does Dr. Swindoll. You see, his understanding of grace insists, that “regardless of how you choose to live, you can’t live so bad that God says to you, ‘you’re no longer mine’” (Shedding Light On Our Dark Side, tape sld 1A). Swindoll’s preconception regarding the ultimate salvation of even the most profligate obligates him to eliminate the Reformation (and biblical) marriage of works to genuine faith.
In essence, Dr. Swindoll aligns himself with the Reformers and leaves the uninformed reader with the idea that his views on grace and faith are the same as those of the Reformers, which they are not. Contrary to Swindoll, Luther taught that works or “human achievement,” as Swindoll says, go hand in hand with genuine, saving faith. Consider Luther’s teaching:
“Faith must of course be sincere. It must be a faith that does good works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith. Thus the Apostle bars the way of hypocrites to the kingdom of God…To believe, “If faith justifies without works, let us not work,” is to despise the grace of God. Idle faith is not justifying faith. In this terse manner Paul presents the whole life of a Christian. Inside it consists in faith towards God, outside in love towards our fellows” (Luther, Commentary On Galatians).
R.C. Sproul, in his book Faith Alone, wrote: “The Reformers saw saving faith as necessarily, inevitably, and immediately yielding the fruit of works. Martin Luther insisted that the faith that justifies is a fides viva, a vital and living faith that yields the fruit of works.” Contrary to this, Chuck Swindoll believes it is a lie and another gospel to insist that works must accompany genuine faith. And he does this as though he were speaking for the Reformers!
Plainly, Chuck Swindoll leads the uninformed reader to view The Grace Awakening as book recovering the lost truths of the Reformation from the devious hands of present-day legalists who have corrupted them. When the truth is that Luther himself aggressively argued against the conception of grace and faith extolled in Swindoll’s book.
Like those who rewrite history to bolster their agendas, Chuck Swindoll has changed the history of the Reformation to coincide with his views. Does Swindoll teach that “justifying faith is a vital faith that necessarily yields the fruit of works” as did Luther? Does Swindoll insist that “whoever doesn’t do good works is without faith,” as did the Reformers? No he doesn’t, rather, Chuck Swindoll teaches the opposite: that there is no external proof of salvation or spirituality and that it is heresy to maintain that works must accompany faith. And he does this in the name of Reformation teaching! Is this not dishonest? How can this be anything short of historical revisionism?
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