Dangers in the Doctrine of Perfection

Olive Wyon points out some dangers if we deviate from the Christ-life in her study of Francois Fenelon's Christian Perfection, John Wesley's Christian Perfection, and Evelyn Underhill's The Spiritual Life in her book Teachings Toward Christian Perfection:

"Wesley was well aware of the dangers that attended his teaching on perfection for sometimes it was misunderstood or exaggerated during his lifetime, as well as later. Wesley warns us against some of these dangers.

"One of the first is 'enthusiasm.' Here he used the word in the eighteenth-century sense. He did not mean what we mean nowadays by this term. Then it meant a fanatical and unbalanced zeal . . . extravagance and excitement in religious matters, leading too often to delusions, springing from an overheated imagination. Wesley tried, wisely and firmly, to deal with such phenomena which frequently occur in a religious awakening . . .

"Wesley firmly points out the other dangers allied to this spirit of false zeal as pride, self-righteousness, censoriousness leading to disunity in the church and among Christian brethren. Finally, he warns his readers against two other perils:

"SOLIFIDIANISM: the doctrine that faith alone is necessary for justification, no 'works' being needed (on which the Epistle of James speaks so strongly). Wesley admonishes Methodists thus:

Our call is to declare the whole counsel of God and to prophesy according to the analogy of faith. The written Word treats of the whole and every particular branch of righteousness, descending to its minutest branches: as to be sober, courteous, diligent, patient, to honor all men.

. . . as "by works faith is made perfect," so the completing or destroying the work of faith, and enjoying the favor or suffering the displeasure of God, greatly depends on every single act of obedience or disobedience. . . . Beware of desiring anything but God.

"ANTINOMIANISM: a general term for the view that Christians are by grace set free from observing any moral law--a doctrine which has often worked havoc in the life of the church and is indeed a deadly danger to all Christian life. In answer to this doctrine Wesley says:

Let this be our voice: "I prize Thy commandments above gold or precious stones. O, what love have I unto Thy law! all the day long is my study in it."

"Some modern 'holiness movements' exaggerate or misinterpret Wesley's teachings and are sometimes described as 'Perfectionism.' It is important to note that this perfectionist tendency has appeared repeatedly in the course of church history, long before the eighteenth century. For instance, there were the Beghards in the Netherlands in the twelfth century. The movement to which they belonged sprang out of a revival, and its aims were high and pure. But some of the members fell into the error of thinking they were perfect and claiming that 'actions normally regarded as sinful are not sinful in the perfect.' They then threw off all restraints; men and women lived together and practiced nudism. In the sixteenth century, again, among the Anabaptists there was a sect which called itself '"the holy and Sinless Baptists,' who claimed that the soul was not responsible (in given circumstances) for the sins of the body.

"In the nineteenth century, in the United States as well as elsewhere, this tendency often reappeared. These errors were all the more difficult to deal with because they grew up in circles where there was no external authority to deal with them unless they actually broke the moral law. A wise and devout Quaker woman, Mrs. Whitall Smith, was well aware of these dangers and tried to warn against them. She often met and talked with such people. Of one man--who had gone very far astray--she said: 'One of the most saintly men I ever met. . . . Never was there a saintlier man to begin with, and never was there a more pitiful fall. . . . All the fanatics I have ever known have been at the same time the most devoted of Christians, and have fallen into their fanaticisms along the paths of the most entire consecration to the Lord, and the most absolute faith in His guidance.' Such people always said to her, when she tried to reason with them, 'But, Mrs. Smith, what am I to do? These inward voices come to me in my most solemn and sacred moments.'

"Why do such things happen? The longing for holiness is divinely implanted. Where then do we go wrong? Usually because on some vital point we become fanatical, or one-sided, or unbalanced. This means that we have separated what God has joined together. Holiness is 'wholeness,' and we have no right to sever ourselves from the visible church in excessive individualism, nor to speak and think and act as if the soul were severed from the body. It is the whole personality which is to be consecrated to God."