It belongs to the very nature of biblical
Christianity that it inspires towards critical thinking and research. Criticism
is not to be directed against the Bible, but against wrong interpretations of
the Bible, against superstitious beliefs and against all antichristian
propaganda and religious tendencies that hamper true intellectual advancement.
A “Christianity” that teaches a mystical surrender of one’s intellect to alien
forces of the unseen is thoroughly unchristian. God has created man with an
intellect in order to enable him together with the power of the Holy Spirit to
understand general and specific revelation and come to a personal and
well-defined covenant relationship through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not a
mystic, universal-cosmic figure appearing in all religions, but the exact
representation of the Particular, Personal and Living God on one hand and of
man restored in the image of God on the other hand. The Holy Spirit is not a
hypnotizing force but a person of the triune God that gains the more territory
in a person’s life, the more that person consciously seeks to do God’s will
(John 14, 15-17; Acts 5, 32). Christianity is specific and historical, not
mystical and ambiguous. If Christianity is to guard these characteristics that
make it the only genuine way to the only Real God, it is to be Protestant.
Christianity that is not Protestant will cease to be Christianity and
Protestantism that ceases to be Protestant ceases to be Christian. Protestantism
implies “protesting” against the leavens of religion, phariseeism and
saducheeism. A Church that no longer purges the leavens of false religion (1.
Cor. 5, 7), ultimately becomes a house of demons. This “purging of leavens”
necessitates constant God-seeking humble theological research (apologetics,
missiology, etc.). Protestantism needs to be consolidated in a continual effort
of self-purging, repentance and dogmatic formulation.