Tag: Christian Individualism

Christian Individualism: a sneak-peek at the cover!

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What I love about this cover—designed by Kevin Stone at the direction of Atmosphere Press’s art director Ronaldo Alves—is that it pits an abstract “ism” against two images, taken 60 or so years apart (1921-1981?), of a concrete historical individual. By itself, the former might trigger a yawn, but not the pix. “Who’s this?” is immediately followed by “What the heck is ‘Christian individualism’?”

The portraits’ similar orientation is fortunate. The earlier photo’s shadowy air brings out the later one’s brightness. I had feared having to settle for a cold, academic look, or a goofy, on-the-nose “religious” one. No, Kevin got it right: a warm, chocolatey hue (throughout the wraparound cover) showing a man in his element (his study and his studio), a man I knew and whose story I tell in the book.

There is yet no launch date, but at last we have a vivid symbol of what will be set out into the world in (God willing) the first half of 2026.  Between now and then I will explore issues that the book could only touch on, specifically “what it means to embrace Christian Individualism in a world where most people, even most Christians, see things differently.” (From the “Acknowledgements” of Christian Individualism: The Maverick Biblical Workmanship of Otis Q. Sellers, forthcoming 2026.)

Stay tuned!

Marking seven years, clarifying this site’s future course

This site was launched on October 3, 2018, seven years ago this month. In the future, I will focus on next year’s (God willing) publication of Christian Individualism and dedicate its posts to developing my understanding of Christian Individualism.

That understanding is not necessarily shared by anyone else, not even those who, like me, agree with the Biblical ecclesiology and eschatology of Otis Q. Sellers and the Word of Truth Ministry he founded in 1936. (Search his name on this site.)  Sellers didn’t found, lead, or belong to a “denomination,” and neither do I. I’m a sinner saved by grace. Period.

Overall, I’m pleased with this site’s more than 300 mini-essays, many being ancestors of book chapters. Now, however, in the time left to me, I will more sharply define the course of this site. It won’t be devoid of politics, history, and philosophy, but I will interpret all things, including those topics, through the lens of Scripture. I will ask those who disagree what their lenses are.

There will be more apologetics, that is, the defense of the Gospel. That will require making clear what I mean by that term as well as what it means to defend the hope that’s in me (1 Peter 3:15) and the peace that comes with being justified by faith and believing the Gospel (Romans 5:1). My intellectual world is centered on, revolves around, that.

I will give Christ the pre-eminence He’s always been due. Not C. L. R. James. Not Herbert Aptheker. Not Susanne Langer. Been there; done that. I will box up my books on, say, the history of communism and crack open more on the history of Christians living in the Dispensation of Grace, a.k.a. “church history.”

The logline of this site has been, “Helping you navigate this dispensation’s last days (2 Tim. 3; Eph. 3:2). I will do a better job of living up to that implicit promise.

Religionless Christianity: the afterword to “Christian Individualism”

Moody Bible College student Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992), in 1921.

Below is a draft of the afterword to Christian Individualism: The Maverick Biblical Workmanship of Otis Q. Sellers, the title of a book-length (103K-word) manuscript I hope to publish in 2025. A search of <Otis Q. Sellers> on this site, which I invite you to do, will return many hits. The book chapters that will, once published, precede this afterword originated as posts; familiarity with them, however, while helpful, is not necessary. Standing apart from them, it is (I hope) intelligible enough to stimulate interest in the larger work. It’s long as posts go, but I’m hungry for feedback. Comments are welcome! So, print it out, or send it to your e-reader, or scan it ocularly.

Does this have anything to do with Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Not directly, but see the fourth reference note.

I wish my visitors a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2025!

Anthony G. Flood

* * *

Allow me first to clarify something that might bother many of you upon reading the title. What Sellers called his walk in Jesus Christ seems to express a contradiction in terms. If Christianity is one of the world’s “great religions,” there couldn’t be a religionless version of it, right?

Wrong. 

What Is Religion?

For one thing, “Christianity” refers to nothing in the God-breathed Scriptures. Reading Acts 11:26, we learn that Jesus’ disciples were first called “Christians” in first-century Antioch (present-day Antakya in southern Turkey). But nothing then corresponded to the abstraction “Christianity,” religious or otherwise.

Being justified by faith, we have peace with God (εἰρήνην πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, pros ton Theon ) through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). That faith is neither a true nor false religion. We are the blessed ones against whom God will not count our sins (Romans 4:8). What religion can give the peace that comes with knowing that?

The only religion (θρησκεία, thrēskeía) that God gave anyone—that is, the only system of outward worship, ritual practices, and religious devotion, rites and rituals, prescriptions and proscriptions governing one’s relation to Him—is found in the תּוֹרָה (to-rah), commonly referred to as the Law of Moses. Continue reading “Religionless Christianity: the afterword to “Christian Individualism””

What Is Truth? Reflections on Christian Individualism.

Cover of the original 1961 publication, which Sam Marrone graciously sent me. Thanks, Sam! A.G.F.

Today is the 44th anniversary of the two-hour dinner at Lüchow’s on Manhattan’s 14th Street to which Otis Q. Sellers treated his students, yours truly included, during his visit to my city. I was fortunate to be seated next to him for this first meeting. Sam Marrone told me (April 26, 2023) that I had sat at Sellers’s left, Sam at his right. I’d love to hear from anyone else who was there that day! See the photo (from the year before, 1978) at the end of this post. A.G.F.

When entertaining a proposition, Otis Q. Sellers’s first question was: Is it true? It guided all subsequent questions. Not: “Is it the scientific, scholarly, or ecclesiastical consensus?” Consensus be damned.

He took his cue from the apostle John who, carried by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), wrote that he had no greater joy (χαρά, chara) than hearing that his children walk in the truth (τῇ ἀλήθεια, tē alētheia) (3 John 1:4). This confession invites the sure inference that John’s pleasure was analogous to God’s.

That is, seeing His children walk in the truth is a divine delight second to none.

But what is truth? That’s what Pilate asked Jesus, his divine prisoner (John 18:39).

Jesus had just affirmed to Pilate the coming of His Kingdom and therefore His Kingship (vv. 36-37) to whom he’d soon intimate the heavenly source of the earthly authority (ἐξουσίαν, exousian) he had over Him (19:11).

During His ministry Jesus had told others that He is (among other things) the truth (ἡ ἀλήθεια, hē alētheia) (John 14:6); there’s no reason to think He’d have withheld that answer from Pilate—had he but stayed for it. The challenge, however, of placating a bloodthirsty mob and keeping the office he held at Caesar’s pleasure had concentrated his mind wonderfully, and so off to the balcony of his residence he repaired.

Continue reading “What Is Truth? Reflections on Christian Individualism.”

When Otis Q. Sellers Invoked Ayn Rand: More on Christian Individualism

I recently acquired the new edition of Otis Q. Sellers’s 1961 booklet Christian Individualism: A Way of Life for the Active Believer in Jesus Christ (CI) which, to my surprise, I did not already own. [Learning of this gap in my collection, Sam Marrone, my friend and brother in Christ, graciously sent me a copy of the 3.5″ x 5.5″ original, which arrived April 10th. Thanks, Sam!—A.G.F.] The text was reset by the folks at The Word of Truth Ministry, which makes nearly all of Sellers’s writings and recorded messages available, mostly free of charge. The publication is available for sale on Amazon.

What caught my eye was his quotation of Ayn Rand (1905-1982), playwright, novelist, and philosopher of individualism.  I doubt he would have cited her on individualism (or anything else) had he known she was an enemy of Christianity.

In 1957 Rand had published Atlas Shrugged, her magnum opus, but even in 1961 she was probably best known for The Fountainhead, a 1943 novel that was made into a movie starring Gary Cooper six years later. In the year that novel came out, Rand began working on “The Moral Basis of Individualism.” A “condensed” portion (which you can read here) appeared as “The Only Path to Tomorrow” in the January 1944 issue of Reader’s Digest.[1] When he cited it, it was already 17 years old and something that would have been collected in the war-related scrap drives. I’m inclined to think he had bought it when it came out and kept it from the paper salvagers.

Continue reading “When Otis Q. Sellers Invoked Ayn Rand: More on Christian Individualism”

What is Christian Individualism?

On my Amazon author page I begin by describing myself (in the third person) as a Christian Individualist and end by referring to my study of Bible teacher Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992), a work-in-progress since 2017: “It [the prospective book] will explain what Flood means by ‘Christian Individualist,’ if anyone is interested.”

That’s too long to wait for an explanation; thus, this site. Its log line is “Helping you navigate this dispensation’s last days (2 Tim. 3; Eph. 3:2).” God’s present administration or dispensation being characterized exclusively by grace, or so goes the Sellersian thesis to which I subscribe, “Christian Individualism” stands for what is required of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ today.

And what is not required, namely, membership in a “church,” the English mistranslation of ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) that we’re apparently stuck with. Being a Christian Individualist does not prevent one from engaging in any given activity that one might associate with being a church member. Any similarity, however, is purely coincidental, for no organization today corresponds—could correspond—to what ἐκκλησία signifies in the New Testament.[1]

Continue reading “What is Christian Individualism?”