Interview with Wayne Grudem

At the conclusion of the Together on a Mission conference in Brighton in July 2006, Nigel had the opportunity of interviewing Wayne Grudem, who is based in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, before he rushed off to London for another appointment.

NR: Wayne, please tell me about your childhood.town in the Midwest?

WG: I grew up in a Christian home in Wisconsin with two younger brothers. I made a profession of faith at the age of twelve and, from an early age, loved reading the Bible.

NR: Did you sense a call to full- time ministry as a child?

WG: No, I wanted to go into politics. I went to Harvard as an undergraduate, majored in economics and then expected to go to Law School.

NR: What caused you to change direction?

WG: I was president of the Harvard Radcliffe Christian Fellowship and on the board of the collegiate club at Park Street Church in Boston. The pastor was a leading figure in American evangelicalism. Through his expository sermons and the leadership roles I had among students, God convinced me that I should become a pastor. I finished my major in economics and then took two years in Hebrew and a year of Greek at Harvard.

After graduating, I went to Fuller Seminary and then to Westminster Seminary. That was 1970/71.

NR: Had you met Margaret at this stage?

WG: We met when I was thirteen and she was twelve! I thought she was cute and a lot of fun then, and I still do!

NR: Childhood sweethearts! When did you get married?

WG: We had dated off and on in high school and, although she had other boyfriends, I ‘won out’. We married at the end of my third year at Harvard.

NR: Do you have children?

WG: We have three sons. Elliot, 32, is married to Kacey. He is pastor of a Presbyterian church in North Carolina. Oliver, 29, is married to Sarah. He is a graphic and web designer, working in Minnesota. Sarah is a professional harpist. Alexander, 26, was a theatre major but is currently working in the mental healthcare field. Both Alexander and Oliver go to John Piper’s church in Minneapolis.

NR: What did you do when you left seminary?

WG: After Westminster, I entered a PhD programme in New Testament in Cambridge, England. My dissertation was on ‘The Gift of Prophecy in First Corinthians.’ While there, I had an opportunity to teach one summer on Christian ethics. It was my first teaching experience and I really enjoyed it.

At the end of my PhD work I taught theology for four years at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

NR: Would you have called yourself a Charismatic at this stage?

WG: While a freshman at Harvard, a friend took me to a Charismatic Renewal Group at Yale. They worshipped together and I felt a strong sense of God’s presence. They asked if I wanted to be baptised in the Holy Spirit. I said I would think about it! When I got back to Harvard I repented of all known sins, re-committed my life to Christ and asked Jesus to baptise me in the Holy Spirit. Immediately, there was a strong sense of the presence of God rushing over me and I began spontaneously speaking in tongues.

That was a significant turning point. I continue to speak in tongues as a personal prayer language to this day and find it very helpful in my own Christian life.

NR: How do you see the gift of prophecy operating as a gift to the church today?

WG: There is fairly widespread support for understanding the gift of prophecy as I described in my book, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Kingsway, UK and Crossway, USA).

From time to time God reveals things to us. When we speak them out in a group of God’s people the apostle Paul would call that ‘prophecy’. I think it happens much more often than people realise. When people talk about the Lord directing them, they can tell endless stories of mistakes and abuses but the antidote for abuse is wise use, and teaching and encouragement about gifts in the church.

NR: In recent history there have been seasons in the life of the church; the Pentecostal movement a hundred years ago, the Charismatic movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s, then Restoration, Renewal and so on. Do you have any comments on the kind of ebb and flow of such seasons?

WG: Through the history of the church there have been outpourings of the Holy Spirit in very unusual ways, often with miraculous conversions, healings, casting out of demons and prophecies. I would love to see such outpourings of the Holy Spirit in our lifetime. My expectation is that it will happen. The needs of the world are great and we need revival among God’s people and for unbelievers to be converted by the tens of thousands.

NR: John Wimber carried such a desire and passion for revival. Can you tell us about your friendship with John, who meant so much to us in the UK?

WG: 1988 marked the beginning of the friendship that meant so much to me and Margaret. We were part of the Vineyard movement in two churches in Evanston, Illinois and then one we helped to start in Mundelein, Illinois from 1989 to 1994. Those were very good days!

NR: What particular influence did he have on you and your family?

WG: A remarkable awareness of the presence of God in praying for and ministering to people. The Holy Spirit often answered John Wimber’s prayers in remarkable ways.

Once, Margaret and I had been out on some errands and we got into a rather heated argument. We were simply mad at each other! As we walked back into the house, there on the kitchen table was a huge bouquet of flowers. The note on it said, ‘Margaret, you chose the right husband! Love John.’ He had sent it two days earlier. Margaret stood there with her mouth open; we were both happy. I phoned and asked him why he had sent it. ‘I don’t know. The Lord just told me to do that!’

NR: He was, indeed, a wonderful man, so obedient, so humble. Let’s move on to your writing. Why did you write Systematic Theology?

WG: When I taught theology at the Bethel College I used Berkhof’s Systematic Theology as the assigned text. Berkhof has untranslated words and phrases in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, French and, I think, Dutch. It was just too much for most students. It is an amazingly good book but difficult for students without a theological background today. Also, it had very little personal application. The Bible never taught theology without application to life so why should we teach theology without it? I began developing my own set of lecture outlines which grew into Systematic Theology (IVP, UK and Zondervan, USA). There are well over 250,000 in print. I am so thankful that the Lord is using the book as I tried to write in a way that would be accessible to ordinary Christians.

NR: You were, I think, on the translation oversight committee for the English Standard Version?

WG: I had used the Revised Standard Version of 1952 and 1971 for about thirty years. It was an excellent translation but never gained complete acceptance among Evangelicals. The translation included some liberal elements.

In 1989 or 90, the New Revised Standard Version came out. I was hopeful that it would be an improvement. However, it made me mad! For instance, they had changed about 4,000 references to man, father, brother, son and ‘he/him/his’ to gender neutral words. I was deeply troubled by that. I had tried to use the NIV but it had a tendency to a paraphrase or dynamic equivalence in a number of places. I just didn’t find it suitable for teaching theology. Though there were many good translations on the market, we thought there might be opportunity to have a translation that would seek to combine the accuracy of the New American Standard Bible with the clarity of the NIV. John Piper and I talked to Crossway Books and got an agreement from the copyright holders for the RSV to do a substantial revision.

Three British scholars and nine Americans worked for three years and changed about 70,000 words of the Revised Standard Version, about 8% of the text. We are very thankful for the reception that it has received.

NR: You are, also, well known for your stance on Biblical manhood and womanhood and have written Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (Multnomah). What caused you to write that book?

WG: In the mid 1970s, an increasing number of books
and articles were promoting an evangelical feminist agenda. I kept reading that the word ‘head’ in Ephesians 5:23, meant ‘source’ and not a ‘person in authority’, where the Bible says, ‘For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church’. It depended on claims about the meaning of the Greek word, kephale. I looked up 2,336 examples outside the New Testament from Homer in the 8th Century B.C. to authors in the 4th Century A.D. I found nearly 50 examples where kephale (or head) referred to someone in leadership or authority and no examples where it applied to a person as a ‘source without authority’ or something like that. Moreover, it seems foolish! I am not the ‘source’ of my wife! Of course, Christ is the ‘head over the church’ and has authority over it.

John Piper and I talked about the need for a collection of essays by evangelical scholars. That led to the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Multnomah) and the foundation of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (www.cbmw.org).

NR: Have these initiatives achieved what you hoped?

WG: There is still a lot of controversy in the church but in the last 20 years the complementarian viewpoint of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has increasingly been winning the exegetical argument. New research in grammar, meanings of ancient words and interpretations of Scripture have very significantly endorsed the complementarian position. However, under the pressures of the culture many churches have capitulated to an egalitarian position and have women as pastors and elders. I think it is a terrible mistake. It is going to result in increasing feminisation of the churches and driving men away. Ultimately, there will be a decline of churches into a much more liberal view of Scripture in many other areas.

Several major denominations have reaffirmed a strong complementarian position. You cannot now be ordained in the Southern Baptist Convention without holding a complementarian view. The Presbyterian Church in America, also, holds this position. I am encouraged by Newfrontiers and your strong stance in this area, which I think is Biblical.

I think the vast majority of the Bible-believing churches will eventually adopt a complementarian position. Those who do not, will increasingly slide down a slippery slope that, first, allows the appointment of women elders, second, denies male headship in marriage and third begins to deny anything uniquely masculine about men except for our physical differences. Fourth, it begins to call God ‘Mother’, which egalitarians in the United States actively promote now and, fifth, it involves the increasing endorsement of the legitimacy of homosexuality. The last stage is the endorsement of homosexual marriage and the appointment of homosexuals to ordained positions and leadership in the church. This is already tearing some denominations apart.

Nigel, I have detailed that slide down the slippery slope in a very new book, Evangelical Feminism – a new path to Liberalism? (Crossway, 2006). I document and quote 25 different ways in which egalitarian arguments deny or undermine the authority of Scripture and lead towards liberalism. We have to stand together against the trends in the rest of the church that is compromising so rapidly with the rest of the culture.

NR: What do you hold in your heart as the hope for the church in our generation and future generations?

WG: That Christians would turn again to much more and full obedience to the Word of God and then see an outpouring of God’s increased blessing on the church. According to Romans 11, there is going to be a massive conversion of the Jewish people to Christ before he returns. I am hopeful there will also be increasing numbers of Muslims turning to Christ.

Nigel, I see signs of it. Every evangelical work I know is growing; churches are growing and I am very thankful for this.

NR: Is this true both in the USA and worldwide?

WG: Statistical evidence from the US Centre for World Mission shows that since about 1950 there has been a growth of the church from 3% of the world population to over 12% today. A lot of that is in Charismatic and Pentecostal groups. So, it is an exciting time to be alive!

NR: Would you say that the British church, which in church history has been significant in mission work, has a particular contribution, or are those days past?

WG: I do not think they are past at all! The amazing contributions to the church worldwide are remarkable. For instance, the Bible in English, the wonderful Protestant theology from the 39 articles in the Church of England, the Book of Common Prayer, the theology of the Puritans and the Westminster Confession of Faith, the writings of the Scottish Reformers and the founding of our own country, the United States, all owe more to the United Kingdom than to any other nation. I think Christianity in the USA owes more to influence from Christianity in the UK than any other nation. The spread of the English language and the British tradition of law and education that spread through the worldwide British Empire have resulted in great benefit to the world and still do today.

I think that is going to continue. I mentioned this to Terry Virgo with tears in my eyes as I felt something of the Holy Spirit’s presence in saying this. I don’t think when God brings revival that He is going to pass over the United Kingdom with all that wonderful history of worldwide influence in the spread of the gospel, and then also for defending the world against Nazi tyranny and the incredible price that was paid. I do not think God is going to forget all of that.

NR: Thank you, Wayne, for these words of encouragement! What would you see as our contribution as a movement of churches?

WG: I am so thankful for the health, strength and love for God and the combination of genuine profound worship and a commitment to consistent Bible teaching that I see in Newfrontiers. I just want to encourage you to keep doing those things and to keep growing. There is definitely a need to continue deep and extensive training for your future leaders. To sustain the strength of any movement of churches requires a large number of pastors who are well trained in Greek and Hebrew and can teach themselves from the original languages, and who are well trained in theology and know the history of doctrine to guard their churches from making the mistakes of the past.

I think Terry’s own training in this regard has been an excellent model for leaders in the movement in that he has done the hard work of the theological training.

NR: Thank you so much, Wayne, for sharing some of the things on your heart.