Thursday, September 10, 2020

Ruth McHaffie on Divine Inspiration being Imputed to John Thomas by Himself and Other Early Christadelphians

 

I have studied in some detail the Christadelphian movement since late-2011. I have written a number of articles addressing their theology, particular their rejection of the personal pre-existence of Jesus and their denial of the ontological existence of Satan and Demons. See:

 

Listing of Articles on Christadelphian Issues

 

Interestingly, notwithstanding the belief that John Thomas was raised up passively, not actively by God, both Thomas and later Christadelphians imputed to him a greater level of inspiration. As the late Ruth McHaffie, herself a Christadelphian, noted:

 

Divine inspiration, as such, has never been claimed for John Thomas. Nevertheless, it has been concluded that he had that “singularly constituted brain” which he was able to apply “to the study of the holy oracles” and thereby recovered “the long-lost treasure of gospel truth” (The Christadelphian, 1871, p. 114). It has been decided that there was “a providence in the whole course pursued by Dr. Thomas from the time he set out to find the truth till he discovered it in its entirety . . . “ (The Christadelphian, 1894, p. 146). In addition, he himself considered that “the spirit of life from the Deity” had “entered into the witnesses for gospel truth” at the time of his immersion in 1847 (John Thomas, Eureka, 1861-1869, Vol. II, p. 671). And these claims are tantamount to concluding that it was divine inspiration which enabled him (as assessed by Robert Roberts) to “truly be called” “Paul of the nineteenth century” (The Christadelphian, 1871, p. 114). But time has proved that many of his conclusions, his expectations of the order and nature of future events together with his totally erroneous dating, have proved him to be as fallible as many of those whose conclusions he so arrogantly derided. (Ruth McHaffie, Reformation and Renewal: Life and Progression of Thought in the Christadelphian Community during the Twentieth Century [2014], 177)

 

Interestingly, Thomas would not be welcomed in the modern Christadelphian movement (at least those that use the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith, the largest body of Christadelphia). As McHaffie noted:

 

Although he has been credited with brilliant understanding of Bible interpretation as compared with any in “the churches”, yet he was never baptized into the “whole counsel of God” as now understood. For a number of years following his baptism, he believed that the dead would be raised immortal (in 1866, he wrote in Anastasis [p. 25] “Seventeen years ago, I believed that ‘the dead are raised incorruptible,’ and taught that truth in ELPIS ISRAEL”). Robert Roberts decided that belief in “immortal emergence” (as it came to be called) was seriously erroneous. He claimed, “It abolishes an element of the truth of the gospel, and thus becomes an evil to be resisted with determination and steadfastness” (The ambassador, 1867, p. 214). Believing in it was “to wrongly divide the word of truth, and exclude a first principle of the gospel of our salvation” (The Christadelphian, 1889, p. 32). Nevertheless, he was unwilling to count belief in “immortal emergence” as grounds for disfellowship. Nor did he think that those holding to it at the time of baptism required reimmersion. It was, as both he and John Thomas regarded it, “an enlargement of knowledge”. Any other decision would of course, have abrogated the efficacy of our pioneer’s baptism as well as that of other dedicated 19th century followers, some of whom died while still holding to “erroneous” and “evil” a belief.

 

As time went on after Roberts’ death, anyone admitting to believing in immediate immortality at the resurrection, by then, as now, a Doctrine to be Rejected (Sec. 17), was liable to disfellowship, and it was affirmed in The Christadelphian that “one believing in immortal emergence denies a first principle of resurrection and judgment” (1921, p.163). (Ibid., 177-78)