Prof. John Stackhouse Pranks the Gospel Coalition and Council of Biblical Manhood and Womahood

While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet her behind the veil.
John Taylor 


Julia R. Boone-In Honor of a Life Well-Lived

This post is dedicated to the memory of Julia Boone who is now present with the Lord!
Death: where is your victory?

Ten years ago, my husband and I began to teach a Sunday school class in a Reformed, SBC church with Mark, who, along with his wife, Joanne, would become dear friends. To be honest, I was a bit startled that Mark was so open to a woman teaching a class of both men and women. He also had a love for Scripture and was well versed in doctrine. The Boones are the most hospitable people we have ever met and we are not exaggerating. We would soon learn that Mark's mother was instrumental in his well- rounded and well-expressed Christian life.

I met Julia and began a friendship over our mutual love of church history. In the latter years of her life, she developed a curriculum to teach church history in adult Sunday school classes. However, her advancing years slowed the process. Mark and I will spend time putting the finishing touches on her material and will present it at this blog in the years to come.

Julia reminded me of many on this blog who study the Scripture, not out of duty, but out of a profound love for God and His Word. Julia asked the hard questions and sought out reasonable answers, all this in the days before the Internet made the searching easier. She was often frustrated by those in church who demonstrated a lack of understanding of the Bible and it became her life goal to teach and inspire others. She published a book called “Getting to Know Your Bible” which is still being used in Sunday school classes.

Today, I want to remember Julia who passed away at the end of last week. She loved our blog and I am convinced would have started one herself if it had been invented just a bit sooner. Julia believed in expanding the role of women in the church and encouraged me to continue that good fight. She was the most well-read woman I have ever met. She also carried on correspondence with many well-known Christians and particularly enjoyed her communication with Philip Yancey.

Her funeral was a wonderful testimony to her life. She was loved by her church and her family. My husband commented that it was inspiring to see family members who expressed their incredible love for her, not out of a sense of duty but out of honest witness to the lives they live today because of her.

Today’s blog post is dedicated to her memory. It is a spoof written by a well-known Christian professor. Julia had a wonderful sense of humor and I know she would have loved this post. I bet she would have immediately written Professor Stackhouse to see what his thoughts were on the role of women in the church. Now, she is asking her Savior, face to face. Please join me in thanking God for a life well lived. Here is the link to her obituary.


One of our astute readers sent us a link to a post that caused me no end of mirth. It cleverly weaves Piper, Driscoll, CBMW, Wayne Grudem and DA Carson along with a few others into the narrative. I started reading more on this blog and lost track of time. I was so impressed with his perspective on a variety of issues, I have permanently linked to his blog on our home page.

Dr Stackhouse has graciously given permission for TWW to reprint this post.

For those of you who have not heard of John Stackhouse, here is a short synopsis. Please go to here to read more about this delightful man.

“Dr Stackhouse is the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology and Culture at Regent College, an international graduate school of Christian studies in Vancouver, Canada, affiliated with the University of British Columbia.He is an advisory editor to Christianity Today and contributing editor to Books & Culture magazines, columnist for Faith Today magazine, and an occasional contributor to The National Post.

His commentary has been featured by most major North American TV networks (including ABC, NBC, PBS, CBC, CTV, and Global), by dozens of radio stations, and by print media as diverse as The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, The Atlantic Monthly, Reader’s Digest, Time, and Maxim (yes, you read that right). He has given lectures at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Yale University Divinity School, Stanford University Law School, New College, Edinburgh, and Fudan University.”

He carefully outlines his reasons why he believes he can publically criticize other Christians on his blog. In the future, when this subject comes up again, I will refer people to this cogent explanation.  Here are a few statements. Please go to this link to read more.

“ Invariably, upon such occasions, my editor or I will receive mail from Christians who denounce me for, yes, denouncing other Christians. “We shouldn’t shoot our own,” they say. Well, here’s why I sometimes do.”

“Let’s notice, also, that these criticisms are rendered without any obvious attempt to follow the recommendations of Matthew 18. So we mustn’t condemn someone for engaging in public criticism simply because he hasn’t approached the individual first privately or then with a few others. Matthew 18 is about the very particular case of someone sinning against another person personally. It isn’t a required pattern for all teachings and warnings. So Jesus and the apostles don’t always follow it, and neither do I.”

Without further ado, here is :

Gospel Coalition, Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Reveal Huge Prank April 1, 2012 Link

(AP) Deerfield, Illinois – Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) co-founders D. A. Carson and John Piper revealed today in a press conference that the CBMW and its sister (“Really, we should call it ‘brother,’” said Piper with a laugh) organization The Gospel Coalition (TGC) have in fact been massive shams meant to mobilize North American evangelicals to consider and embrace feminism and other non-traditional ideas.

“We took our cues from ‘The Daily Show’,” said Carson, grinning in front of reporters gathered at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he holds a distinguished professorship. “The way Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would square off, we thought, ‘Hey, what if some of us played the Stewart part and others of us the Colbert part? Who wants to do what?’ So we drew up a list of teams and went to work.”

The first part of the plan was to form a feminist group. The Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus had been founded in 1973, but it had become too liberal for the purpose. So a new group, Christians for Biblical Equality, was formed and staffed with a number of prominent evangelical Biblical scholars. “We were afraid the whole thing would be obvious from the beginning,” beamed Mimi Haddad, current president of the group and a regular member of Piper’s Wednesday night poker game. “I mean, we clearly had the best biblical and theological and historical arguments. It was a real challenge for the other guys,” and here she shot an admiring glance at Carson and Wayne Grudem, a former member of the poker game before he left for Arizona, “but they came through!”

The CBMW was formed shortly thereafter and produced a massive volume (“The thing’s a brick!” chortled R. Kent Hughes, former pastor of College Church in Wheaton and a member of the original council) that made waves as it was tossed into the calm pond (some might say, “stagnant slough”) of evangelical theological reflection. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood was the shot heard ’round the evangelical world, and the mock battle was on.

As a result, CBE memberships have steadily climbed, reported Haddad. “It’s been tough keeping up the pretense of a fair fight,” she said, shaking her head. “Bill Webb’s book pretty much did in the other side, with other books kinda just blowing up the rubble. When the Sexist Pigs–yeah, that’s what they called themselves in private!–came up with the new argument of a permanent subordination within the Trinity, they could get only Bruce Ware to champion it. Everyone else just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. That’s when we knew we needed to move on.”

“Yes,” said Piper, putting his arm around Mark Driscoll, “we had to pull out the Big Gun here and try to rankle a whole new generation into paying attention. I mean, the arguments have already been laid out pretty clearly on behalf of egalitarianism, but Markie here did the job of annoying people under 40 enough to actually explore the issue for themselves.”

Mention of Driscoll, pastor of the wildly successful Mars Hill congregation in Seattle, Wash., prompted the panel to disclose that The Gospel Coalition was really just a foil for the Emergent Church movement.

“We were happy to do double duty,” Carson said. “I mean, I had time on my hands. Trinity has given me this posh post, and the New Testament isn’t all that hard to figure out. So I’ve been able to write tons of books and articles ‘warning’ people” (at this point he used his fingers in the “scare quotes” gesture) “about all kinds of false doctrine. The point, of course, was to get people to think theologically for once, instead of just thinking about a Christian diet plan or listening to mindless CCM all the time.”

“I was in the same situation,” Piper volunteered. “I mean, my church pretty much runs itself by now and everybody there knows what I’m going to say each Sunday morning, so I can kinda preach on autopilot and then take the time necessary to stir up American Christians to new ideas by playing this hilarious Stephen Colbert role I love so much!”

At this point, Rob Bell stepped to the microphone. “I just want to thank these guys for boosting my career so incredibly. Without them denouncing me so often and so relentlessly–and by golly they did a hell (well, I don’t believe in that, so let me say) heck of a job–I could never have been able to escape Michigan’s winters!”

Bell embraced Driscoll, and they then turned to the audience having pulled on matching T-shirts that read, “I’m with the pastor of the real Mars Hill Church!”

Christianity Today editor Mark Galli then said a few words. “CT has always tried to lead, even manipulate, evangelicalism in America, and we’re just proud to have been part of this friendly conspiracy to wake people up to new ideas. Mark Noll told us that the nineteenth century was full of debates about every darned doctrine you can imagine, and people paid attention, sometimes riding for miles to hear a three- or four-hour debate on modes of baptism. That seemed to us to be pretty groovy, so we thought we’d better do the same thing.

“We appointed Scot McKnight as a kind of brake on the emergent guys and Tim Keller to do the same for the Gospel Coalition ‘dudes’, as they prefer to be called, and it all worked out pretty well, I think. Even I got into it from time to time. It was super-fun!”

Alas, with the recent Elephant Room debacle during which Driscoll misunderstood Piper’s hand signals from the front row and ended up being too accepting of T. D. Jakes’s obvious heresy, the leaders of the conspiracy decided to call it off and go public.

“Yeah, that oneness Pentecostalism is obviously, obviously wrong,” said Piper, with Driscoll nodding beside him. “I just had to scratch my ear at exactly the wrong time and that was the signal for Mark to back off. He almost never sees me do it, of course, so he really paid attention. My bad.”

T. D. Jakes himself spoke up and said, “It’s a great relief to have this thing over, let me tell you. It’s been very hard trying not to roll my eyes or shudder in disgust with some of the clearly erroneous things I’ve been scripted to say. But it’s done now, and I look forward to my new position as academic dean and professor of systematic theology over at Reformed Theological Seminary.”

At this point, Richard Mouw emerged from the group to applause. “Rich was really the main guy behind this scheme,” said Carson. “He quietly pulled the strings and, really, I think he deserves all the praise and all the glory for its success.”

“Well, God deserves some glory, too!” said Piper, and everyone smiled and shared hugs.

Only this reporter happened to notice the elderly J. I. Packer in the back row of the room. “Very satisfactory,” said Packer in his droll Oxonian accent. “I think Stottie would have been proud.”

 

We leave you with a video dedicated to those who are pretty darn sure that everything they say or do is just about perfect.

Lydia's Corner: Ezekiel 18:1-19:14 Hebrews 9:1-10 Psalm 106:32-48 Proverbs 27:10

Comments

Prof. John Stackhouse Pranks the Gospel Coalition and Council of Biblical Manhood and Womahood — 34 Comments

  1. “Markie here did the job of annoying people under 40 enough to actually explore the issue for themselves.”

    Well played, sir. Well played.

  2. You know, it’s all true! For way too many years I was more complementary than complimentary— but CBMW accomplished their goal by making me think more “biblically” –turning me much more egalitarian and complimentary.

  3. Ditto what Dave said. I was a “lip service” complementarian, but when challenged by some “heretical” egalitarians, I decided to brush up on my arguments by reading CBMW so I could set them straight. It was Piper’s “when giving directions to a man who is lost” anecdote where it all began to fall apart for me. The scales fell from my eyes, and I began to see holes in their arguments large enough to drive a convoy of mac trucks through.

  4. Leila
    Well put. It is becoming kookier and kookier. I just read that if a woman knows the answer to a question of theology and is asked the answer by a man, she must decline. I swear these guys must have been dinged by she woman in their past.

  5. Oh my gosh, I almost snorted with derision when I read that ‘giving directions’ story in “Reclaiming Biblical Manhood and Womanhood”. It was crazy. In one way, though, it was could be seen as quite an incredible achievement: he actually performed reducto ad absurdum on his own argument.

    No wonder CBE tore that book to shreds so easily:

    http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/response-recovering-biblical-manhood-and-womanhood

    John Piper nodded his head in agreement when he saw this video:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnFvbOwToxA

  6. Oh dear! My husband (a staunch egalitarian) and I raised our daughters to think for themselves. They even know how to give directions to the male gender. 🙂

  7. Leila
    My only question is “Did you give the men driving the truck through the hole directions? 🙂

  8. They really did kick themselves. Thanks to them so many who really studied and came to another conclusion. Their response? To become even more patriarchal to the point of being absurd and sounding like Brigham Young. Even die hard comps are put off with Driscoll who is really one of them but so in your face about it, they cannot ignore it. So they say, I am comp but what he is teaching…blah…blah. My question is where else does that doctrine have to go? They had to read heirarchy INTO Gen 1-2 to make it work for so long.

    The scripture teaches mutualism. One another’s. Even for women. W

  9. Wow – I just realized that someone I knew well at one time is one of the authors of Reclaiming Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

    In a way, I’m not surprised at the arguments (of his) that CBE critiqued, but it *is* sad to see friends stuck in this kind of thinking. The ironic thing is that afaik, he and his wife and family never really lived by the CBMW brief. They were and probably still are) pretty darned egalitarian in practice.

    But… we all (me + this author and his wife) came from a bad, BAD authoritarian shepherding group, back in the 70s, and stumbled on into another one, and so on. I hope and pray that my friends are in a better church than the ones we were part of in the past. (They saw a lot that was wrong and were not afraid to talk about it.)

  10. Edited to add: “Reclaiming…” was published in the early 1990s, and the CBE paper in response was published in 1993.

    Since then, one of the people they take issue with has been totally – and very thoroughly – discredited (George Reker; the issues are with his research on small children as well as with the hypocrisy of his personal life vs. his public claims).

    I have to wonder if some of the people who swore by “Reclaiming…” (et. al.) have had changes of mind (and heart) since it was published.

  11. I think one of the reasons that complementarians are so fixated on women as stay-at-home wives & mothers, is that women (even women such as myself who grew up with a complementarian worldview) who get into the workforce eventually realize that they are just as, if not more, capable than a man at doing whatever it is that needs to be done. At my job I both gave and took orders from both sexes, working together as a team. There was no room for ‘I can’t do this because I’m a girl’ where I worked, it was a team effort, and regardless of your gender you were part of the team. I am very grateful to my employers for giving me that challenge, and that confidence. I am just as capable as any man. More capable than some; which is why I will never in my adult life be a complementarian.

    I’m grateful that I met my husband at my workplace, and that our relationship was founded on friendship, mutual respect, and working together as a team. He has never doubted my ability to do anything.

    Sorry for the out of the blue comment… reading this just reminded me of how I used to feel “less-than” because I was a girl, and everything changed once I got my first full time job. And kicked ass at it. 😉

  12. Pingback: Prof. John Stackhouse Pranks the Gospel Coalition and Council of … |

  13. “When the Sexist Pigs–yeah, that’s what they called themselves in private!–came up with the new argument of a permanent subordination within the Trinity, they could get only Bruce Ware to champion it. Everyone else just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. That’s when we knew we needed to move on.””

    OH MY. I laughed all day over this one. So true! Poor Denny Burke tried but his heart was not in it. Piper gave it a go. They mantra’d 1 Corin 11 as the “foundation” of ESS. But, Bruce Ware was the go to guy for ESS. He ran the banner. He is the same guy who taught that unsubmissive wives “trigger” abuse. Boy was that parsed by the followers to say everything but what it said.

    Cheryl Schatz has them on her DVD women in ministry trying to pass off ESS and analyzes every word they say from scripture to show the false teaching. Think about it. They were tampering with the Trinity for their own egos!

    It is flavor of the year for this stuff. Now it is “Keys to the Kingdom” reside with your local church.

    Every single flavor is to affirm their authority twisting scripture. And every time a few flavor comes out, thousands believe it and try to “practice” it. Especially the young.

  14. According to the Psalmist, who uses the same Hebrew word translated in Genesis as “helpmate” or “helpmeet”:

    God is to the Psalmist as Eve is to Adam.

    This Biblical exegesis indicates that the comps have the relationship between men and woman wrong from a Biblical perspective. The woman is over the man, not below, as God is above the Psalmist!!!!

  15. Therefore, men who do not submit are in sin and condemned, because they are defying the created order set forth by God.

  16. I am an egalitarian and believe that patriarchy and complementarianism are heretical and contrary to the will and Word of God.

  17. Numo–

    When I left CHBC, I started reading a lot of CBE referred to me by Matt who was over at Survivors and started making comparisons to CBMW… It gave me an awful lot to consider (Discovering Biblical Equality by Fee, et al.) and resulted n my current egal belief of mutual respect, dignity, agreement, etc… ESS also is crap. The more and more I hear of weddings in that church, under those beliefs, the more I feel sorry for those women who will become stuck in such bondage and the more I love my own freedom (which may or may not include a beautiful egalitarian marriage–that also isnt an idol in the lives of its participants)… I want to marry my best friend and equal. And by goodness, I’ll be a patient girl and wait for it. Until then, life shall continue in this newfound joy and freedom and blessing, and evn then, it shall continue in like fashion.

  18. Trina

    Christians for Biblical Equality is a wonderful evangelical Christian organization that sponsors conferences, a magazine and an academic journal that publishes well written and researched articles on exegesis and culture of the scripture that supports egalitarian principles. I highly recommend it.

  19. I think people with XX and XY chromosomes can be funny, smart, and Christian. God created both. I was blessed with a mother that used the mind God gave her to good purpose. It is an honor to have one of her X’s in me. Here’s to Dee and Deb for modeling concern for hurting people that many of us with an X and Y should emulate.

  20. Mark B,

    I am so sorry about your loss. Your mother blessed many in her life with the gifts God gave her. I know this coming Mother’s Day will be especially difficult, and I will be keeping you in my prayers.

    Please give my love to your wonderful wife! She, Dee, and I need to have lunch soon.

  21. Wish I had known Mark’s mom, she sounds like a great person.

    I’m sure she’s rooting for you now, too.

  22. I wish ESS had stopped at Bruce Ware. For some reason it has become a core doctrine of Sydney Anglicans and, so I understand, is taught in their theological college as a given in the doctrine of the Trinity!

  23. Lynne
    It’s our generations little contribution to offbeat doctrine. We also have added pre mil, pretrib eschatology and young earth creationism into the mix making us a most prolific group of legalists. At least we don’t do beheadings or hangings along with our declarations.