The Lampstand Magazine — Promoting Factual Errors on Behalf of Clean-flesh

The Lampstand magazine, in its March-April 2008 issue, spends roughly 24 pages of the magazine on the subject of the atonement. These articles are set forth under the title "Feature — 50th Anniversary of Reunion in Australia". As such, the magazine did not focus specifically on the Scriptural teaching of the atonement, but rather gave a series of mostly historical presentations mixing historical claims with doctrinal advocacy. No one could object to an article or articles which give an accurate accounting of history in Australia. But what The Lampstand published were a number of just-so stories — accounts which present a very inaccurate picture not only of the history of the truth in Australia, but inaccurate (and selective) representations of the writings of John Thomas and Robert Roberts.

Here are the atonement related titles from the issue:

  1. Seven Good Reasons Why You Should "Bother With" the Unity Agreement - Michael Edgecombe
  2. History of the Shield and Central Fellowships in Australia - Geoff Henstock
  3. Attempts at Reunion in Australia — The Victorian and New South Wales Committees - David Kingston
  4. Events Leading up to the Visit of Brother John Carter - Barry Williams
  5. Brother John Carter — A Man for That Time - Jim Rosser
  6. Brother Carter's Addresses - Alan Bundesen
  7. Significance and Meaning of the Cooper-Carter Addendum - John Martin
  8. What Brother Carter Found in Australia - Keith Pearson
  9. Doctrine Extremes — 'Clean Flesh' and 'Andrewism' - Des Manser
  10. The Unity Book — Fellowship Clauses - Rob Thiele
  11. Continuing Difficulties — the Old Paths Fellowship - Carl Parry
  12. The Blessings and Fruits of Unit and Ecclesial Peace - Brian Luke
  13. A Notable Exposition — The Atonement - by John Carter
  14. The AACE and the Australian Unity Basis of Fellowship

Marking an Important Event or A Fresh Push for Consolidation in Australia?

The first thing I would note is that while the articles in this issue are set forth as marking the "50th Anniversary of Reunion in Australia" I believe the articles serve another purpose, a purpose which the editor of The Lampstand would surely admit: to consolidate the Australian ecclesias in what The Lampstand editor claims is historical truth on the atonement. This would not only strengthen The Lampstand's position in Australia but worldwide.

I also believe that this issue represents the next stage in attempting to reverse the movement which was led by H.P. Mansfield through the Logos magazine. It was the Logos movement that overcame The Shield, the clean-flesh, movement in Australia. The Lampstand seeks to reverse the situation and, if it can, obliterate the doctrine of the atonement as promoted by Logos during the life of H. P. Mansfield. A number of the articles promote the idea that if you don't see the atonement like The Lampstand presents it, then you should be disfellowshipped.

The leading article is:

This article's main points are listed as:

"God cares deeply about unity"
"Disunity is one of the strongest arguments against the truth of the Gospel"
"Unity matters deeply in practice—ask the North Americans"
"The Unity Agreement links us into the family of God worldwide"
"The Unity Agreement promotes ecclesial peace through a shared understanding of Scripture"
"The Unity Agreement is very helpful in understanding how we can be saved from sin and death; and in keeping out teachings that would undermine our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ"
"The Unity Agreement is not an inspired document, but it does stand in the tradition of the apostles as a valuable bequest from the past"

This article, written by Michael Edgecombe, a clean-flesh advocate himself, really lays out the seriousness of the unity The Lampstand would promote. First and foremost, God cares deeply about unity. Michael claims that disunity harms advocacy of the truth. This is an interesting claim in light of what pioneer Christadelphians taught concerning controversy: that controversy was useful in overthrowing "the devil". Michael says the Australian Unity Agreement "is very helpful in understanding how we can be saved from sin and death". He also says, it keeps "out teachings that would undermine our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ". Since we have something of a catalog in the AUB of what teachings were rejected, this claim give us more of a glimpse into the thinking of Michael than anything else. And if all that isn't enough, while the Australian Unity Agreement isn't inspired, "it does stand in the tradition of the apostles"! These words suggest those of the apostle:

"Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."

If Michael's claims were all unqualifiedly true one would have to conclude that the Australian Unity Agreement falls just short of Holy Writ in its importance as God deeply wants unity in His Body and The Australian Unity Agreement unqualifiedly upholds His Word.

We then move to Des Manser's article

This article promotes fictions convenient to the agenda of The Lampstand.

  1. To start with, brother Manser quotes brother Roberts saying something that brother Roberts never said. I'll show how brother Roberts is quoted by Des Manser and then what brother Roberts actually said later.
  2. Then brother Manser presents a modern day cleaned up version of clean-flesh — one that The Lampstand can disown.
  3. Finally brother Manser misrepresents J. J. Andrew's teachings in a way that makes one particular Gospel truth — the fundamental teaching that clean-flesh denies, which bro. Manser failed to mention in the section on "clean-flesh" — look like it is "Andrewism". This is what clean-flesh in Australia has been doing for nearly 100 years. So it's nothing new. The only thing fresh is the push that The Lampstand magazine is now making to redefine "sin in the flesh" as Andrewism.

The article entitled

then appears. This article reminds the readership of the requirement of upholding the "One Faith":

"Where any brethren depart from any element of the One Faith, either in doctrine or practice, they shall be dealt with according to the Apostolic precept and that extreme action would be ecclesial disfellowship of the offender"

The Lampstand is not content to celebrate 50 years of "unity". They want to make sure that readers understand how important unity is to God, that they have a basis of unity that is somewhere just below Holy Writ (holding it up they would claim), and they have rules that need to be upheld. This brings us to the article...

First notice the name of the article, "Continuing Difficulties". The title indicates that whatever the problems were with Old Paths, Central continues to be disturbed by the at least some of the same problems. The article confirms this at the end:

Carl Parry - Clean-Flesh Advocate
The Lampstand, March-April 2008, p. 83

"Some of these incorrect teachings... emerge every now and then in our own midst"... Everyone who understands the issues knows who The Lampstand is referring to: Anyone who really believes that two acceptations of the word 'sin' means two acceptations: 1) transgression and 2) flesh/body/physical human nature/sin in the flesh. It wasn't that long ago that Brian Luke, Jim Luke and John Martin published a video claiming that J. J. Andrew's teaching on physical nature was "The position of Berean, Old Paths, and Unamended fellowships" and not historical central teaching.

If you've bought into the lie that one acceptation is transgression and the other is figurative/nothing but a metonymy -- that is, that Jesus condemned a figure of speech in his body by hanging on the tree; or if you've substituted the "inclination to sin" or "proneness to sin" (the effect; TERMS WHICH ARE GENERALLY CONSTRUED AS MORAL) for the flesh (the cause) then you pose no threat to the latter day — the final — Apostasy represented by The Lampstand. One wonders how The Lampstand can honestly talk about the "sense of clarity that Brother Carter demonstrated 50 years ago" when brother Carters works are selectively quoted.

 

The Lampstand Does Not Accurately Define Clean-Flesh or Andrewism — Also, Posthumous Teachings of the Pioneers Now Published in The Lampstand

The article entitled

is based on historical errors perpetrated on the real Christadelphian community by clean-flesh teachers who "crept in unawares". Brother Manser starts off by telling us brother Robert made a pertinent point:

 

If You Can't Find It In The Pioneers They Just Make It Up!
The Lampstand, March-April 2008, p. 80

 

Brother Roberts never said that. The unqualified claim that "invented phrases contain invented fallacies" sounded so illogical that I had to look the phrase up to see its context. I strongly suspected it was, at best, taken out of context. This quote is an invention of either Des Manser or the Editor of The Lampstand. You'll note in the image below that the original quote from brother Roberts says,

"those invented phrases, I will shew, contain invented fallacies"

The image above shows that The Lampstand quote just deletes everything shown in brackets:

"[those] invented phrases[, I will shew,] contain invented fallacies"

and The Lampstand did not add in an ellipsis to show they had edited the quote. Even with the ellipsis brother Roberts was referring to THOSE invented phrases of Edward Turney, not just any "invented phrases". And so what The Lampstand (what we should call the latter day Shield magazine) magazine represents brother Roberts as saying is, in fact, something he never said.

Every English phrase in existence had to be "invented" by someone and if every phrase which does not occur in the Bible contains invented fallacies then words can never clearly express anything without also expressing fallacies. Worse, even every phrase in the English Bible was invented for no inspired word was ever delivered in English! And oddly, in light of brother Manser's claim, it was brother Roberts who, if he didn't invent the term "clean flesh", used it freely, though not as term containing invented fallacies, but as a term descriptive of a particular error. That error was that flesh (pinch yourself if you don't think its physical) was free of the defilement called 'sin'; a principle of corruption hereditarily passed down from generation to generation.

Yet that phrase, "clean flesh" finds itself in the list of "invented phrases" which must contain "invented fallacies" — and is denounced posthumously by brother Roberts, Des Manser and The Lampstand! It is all the more remarkable, really, in light of the fact that The Lampstand wants its readership to believe that they stand against Clean flesh!

What brother Roberts actually said was:

What brother Roberts Actually Said

That is, Edward Turney was employing "artificial and carnal language" ("those invented phrases") which, as brother Roberts saw, contained fallacies, fallacies brother Roberts would expose. This is just another case of how clean-flesh advocates employ the pioneer writings. If clean-flesh advocates cannot find the pioneers saying what they want them to say, the clean-flesh advocates just delete enough words in a sentence till the newly invented phrase says what they want. A fallacy, indeed! And the editing was not even noted, as usual.

Furthermore if The Lampstand believes the posthumous pertinent points it publishes under the name of Robert Roberts, it must admit that the Australian Unity Book contains "unscriptural phrases" and "invented phrases" and therefore "invented fallacies". This being the case, they have nothing to enforce when it comes to fellowship. Or does The Lampstand prefer to apply "pertinent principles" only against those they disagree with?

The Convenient (For Modern Clean-Flesh) Definition of Clean-Flesh

Brother Manser then goes on to allegedly describe what the clean-flesh teaching was. He writes that

"Brother Edward Turney 'renounced' his past beliefs in a pamphlet The Sacrifice of Christ and his published '32 questions'. Hence this controversy is often called the 'Renunciationist controversy'." (Des Manser, p. 80)

First, Edward Turney did not renounce "his past beliefs in a pamphlet." Edward Turney renounced a specific belief in a lecture which was then published in a pamphlet titled The Sacrifice of Christ.

Unfortunately for the readership of The Lampstand brother Manser never tells us specifically what belief Edward Turney renounced. Brother Manser states that Turney "denied that Adam's descendant's inherit the inclinations to sin teaching that subsequent sins are a matter of deliberate choice". Well, let us turn to the hard facts of history:

"What have we now? Edward Turney, filled with rage at the Editor’s private rebuke of his carnal ways, wreaks his vengeance by renouncing an important element of the truth; declares that for fifteen years he preached it without understanding it; puts forth all his strength to subvert the brotherhood, fails, except with a few, and now goes to Edinburgh, and makes overtures to the Dowieites, who he knows will eagerly accept any alliance against those who have incurred their hatred for the truth’s sake." (The Christadelphian, 1874, p. 386)

What will “the dear old man’s” surprise be when he gets up, to find that Edward Turney, one of his strongest personal admirers, two years after his death, publicly “renounced” his teaching on a vital element of the Mystery of Godliness, and before a large audience in Birmingham, in 1873, sought to create the impression that he was a trimmer of words under the influence of “rocks ahead?” (The Christadelphian, 1873, p. 452)

What was that "vital element", that "important element" which The Lampstand is deathly silent on?

"I have renounced the Papal myth of 'sin in the flesh' by which Mr. Roberts is yet bewitched, hence his utter ignorance of the matter and bland contradiction of himself when dealing with the subject." (Edward Turney, The Sacrifice of Christ, Aug 28, 1873)

Why did Edward Turney need to renounce the doctrine of "sin in the flesh" in August 1873? Because in roughly January of 1873 Edward Turney had published a book containing a paragraph which plainly taught what Edward Turney had, prior to August 1873, believed concerning "sin in the flesh". To introduce it, let me use the same introduction as it appears in The Christadelphian, 1874, p. 127:

"The following paragraph from Diabolism, having reference to the destruction of the devil, may appropriately be introduced here; the fact of its having been labeled by its author with the word 'renounce' does not in any way impair its truthfulness:"

What Edward Turney Renounced
from Diabolism by Edward Turney
What Turney Renounced

This book was published and endorsed by Robert Roberts.

If The Lampstand magazine is really the foe of clean flesh, as they want readers to believe, then The Lampstand needs to publish and endorse the paragraph which Edward Turney published, and later renounced!

And while they are at it, they can explain, without the use of metaphysics, how "flesh and blood", "sinful body", "human nature", "sin's flesh" is not a physical thing!

"IT IS UNDENIABLE THEN, THAT SIN WAS AN ELEMENT IN THE FLESH OF THE SON OF GOD, UNLESS WE HAD RATHER TAKE THE APOSTACY THAN PAUL FOR OUR GUIDE IN THE MATTER."

 

The Lampstand Does Not Define Andrewism Properly Either

Brother Manser then goes on to define Andrewism

JJA According to Des Manser

Notice that, according to Des Manser and The Lampstand magazine, "physical sin" is "Andrewism". Brother Manser is, again, wrong. The Lampstand magazine is perpetrating a historical fiction on the Christadelphian community — a fiction which has been promoted by the clean-flesh element in Australia for roughly 100 years now. J J. Andrew's teaching was that a legal defilement called "Adamic Condemnation" (a term he redefined from its original usage in 1874) had to be removed to allow for a resurrection from the grave. That was the basis for the rest of his arguments including alienation. This is clear from the debate:

269.—[Andrew] I beg your pardon. When it becomes holy [at baptism; see #265], is not "sin in the flesh" which defiled it the subject of justification ?—[Roberts] No. 'Sin in the flesh' is physical; justification from that is by the change that is to come at another stage, viz., at the resurrection. Justification is moral first, physical afterwards.
270.—[Andrew] I am speaking about the moral. Is not 'sin in the flesh' the subject of justification in a moral or legal sense (I think legal is better)?-—[Roberts] You are mixing up two terms. 'Sin in the flesh' is a physical attribute, forgiveness is a moral relation. Do not confound the two things.

J. J. Andrew complains about The Christadelphian not recognizing this "legal guilt, condemnation, or defilement":

JJA Complains About The Christadelphian
J. J. Andrew, The Sanctuary Keeper, vol. 1, page 112

 

The Lampstand and Atleast Some of Its Authors Agree With John Bell

The following comes from The Christadelphian, 1931, p. 415 and was designed by C. C. Walker to demonstrate the error of John Bell. PLEASE NOTE the allegations against John Bell are some of the very doctrinal errors now advocated by The Lampstand and some of its authors.

Lampstand Doctrines Agree With John Bell's
The Christadelphian, 1931, p. 415

 

One other question that The Lampstand might wish to answer: Is it The Lampstand position that C. C. Walker was an Andrewite? Comparing the allegations made by C. C. Walker against John Bell with claims made in The Lampstand, one would have to conclude The Lampstand editor and some of its authors believe brother Walker was an Andrewite... And for the record, the above material does not occur in the "heat of battle" but in reflection on the teachings of John Bell after his death.

 

Conclusion

The magazine really isn't worth much other than as a rallying point for those suffering from a historical knowledge deficit. There are a number of other articles that display an agenda driven magazine. For example, instead of getting an accurate history of those who became known as "The Shield", readers are given a tidied version of the history including comments about the early "harmonious relationship" between The Christadelphian and The Shield [for how long did this relationship last? using the author's assumptions that things were actually as he presents, how long did that last? less than one year!?].

We are told that when "differences about the nature and sacrifice of Christ" (eg. heresies) arose, along with "divergent approaches to ecclesial life and fellowship" (eg. open fellowship advocates like CPW) that Australian ecclesias "tended to align with one or other of the magazines partly on the basis of the style of the editor with which they felt most comfortable." Is that really the most important thing in the truth, to feel comfortable with the style of the editor whose magazine you subscribe to? Apparently to The Lampstand. Why let things like doctrinal positions get in the way?! Without the details of the differences that arose or the use of words like "heresy" and "walking disorderly", no one is offended by the history set forth in The Lampstand. No use offending those who heart still rests in The Shield movement. The Lampstand history paints everything in the subtlest terms which would arouse no one's suspicions that bad things were going on, so that by the time the article makes it to "Reunion" the reader concludes that the division was unnecessary and now that we don't have have to choose between one editor's style or another, we can all just savor the "unity" we have today!

But the greater sin is in The Lampstand's historical misrepresentations of 'clean-flesh' and 'Andrewism'. Instead of telling us specifically what Turney renounced, we are given a reinterpretation of what Turney renounced — one that suits the writers of The Lampstand who, along with Edward Turney, reject the doctrine of "sin in the flesh" as taught by Edward Turney till August 1873. This is 1873 brothers and sisters. TWENTY YEARS BEFORE "ANDREWISM"! In fact bro Andrew was brother Roberts' closest ally in fighting "clean flesh". But The Lampstand has no time for inconvenient details such as that.

Instead of getting an accurate representation of the teachings of J. J. Andrew, readers are given the modern-day clean-flesh, historically inaccurate, version; instead of getting an accurate accounting of what John Thomas and Robert Roberts taught about "two acceptations of sin" readers are given a reinterpretation of what Elpis Israel teaches, along with selective quoting. The word metonymy is used, of course, without explanation, and The Lampstand denies "sin in the flesh" is the diabolos, the second acceptation of sin, flesh (as used in the term clean-flesh), the body of sin.

When it's all said and done, The Lampstand magazine is still what it has been since its inception: an advocate for selective reading of the Australian Unity Book and an advocate for Harry Fry's form of clean flesh. Only now that John Knowles is no longer at the helm, the aggressive errorists in Australia who have been promoting clean flesh have decided to renew the push against the doctrine of "sin in the flesh" while it is called day. The "package" of articles were, I grant, skillfully crafted, but I have submitted to interested readers a few historical proofs that the authors and editor of The Lampstand are engaged in promoting historical errors on behalf of the clean-flesh heresy. Those who have "sold their birthright" for the style of an editor, the approval of their fellows, or a mess of popularity will regret it in due time.

the Andrew Bogey in 1987
John Ullman, Logos, 1987, p. 336