Sometimes it's difficult to accept, to recognise one's own mistakes, but one must do it. I was guilty of overconfidence and arrogance, and I was punished for that. -Mikhail Gorbachev link
Thanks to our reader, Gavin White, I had the opportunity to read a post at The Gospel Coalition website which greatly disturbed me. There is a certain subset within the Calvinist movement, the ones we call Calvinistas, who are hell bent on diminishing any Christian that does not toe their exacting theological line. Matthew Smethurst presented a talk given by Mark Dever in Where Did All These Calvinists Come From. The post was purportedly inspired by the 7 year anniversary of Colin Hansen's 2006 Christianity Today article Young Restless and Reformed which attempted to define the resurgence of strict Calvinism amongst young people.
In 2007, Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, founder of 9Marks, outspoken Calvinista, and BFF of CJ Mahaney, proposed a series of 10 posts on the reasons for the growing Reformed movement. In honor of the 7 year celebration of Collin Hansen's post, he resurrected his thoughts on the matter and updated his original ideas. The following is his list of those people and movements that he believes contributed to the rise of Calvinism in the last decade.
- Charles Spurgeon
- Martin Lloyd Jones The Banner of Truth Trust
- Evangelism Explosion
- The inerrancy controversy
- Presbyterian Church in America
- J.I. Packer
- John MacArthur and RC Sproul
- John Piper
- Reformed Rap
- Influential parachurch ministries
-
The rise of secularism and decline of Christian nominalism
As a reminder, Mark Dever is the head of the entity that we call 'The Hotel California' movement link and link. In other words, this church is into strict discipline which can be seen as "theology our way or you will be a hostage." There appears to be little regard for those who are Christians and do not accept their obviously superior and exacting gospel™ standards. And, the more I read, the more I believe that they couldn't care less. This makes me sad because I do enjoy jolly debates with friends who think differently. There is no *jolly* in this crowd.
They listen to rap so they are obviously sensitive and cool.
This one made me smile. I leave the commentary up to our readers. Note Smethurst's obligatory nod at Dever's education.
The first time I met Dever, the stairs leading up to his study buzzed beneath my feet. Opening the door, I was startled to hear hip-hop music blaring through the speakers of an old boombox in the corner. “Hi, I’m Matt,” I shouted. I had no clue how Cambridge grads rolled.
…There are groups of young people all over the place, in less-than-healthy churches, who are being taught and equipped theologically by these artists. Even our intern program has served our church in ways we never intended. Shai Linne, Trip Lee, Brian Davis [God’s Servant], and others have given our congregation a much closer look at and acquaintance with this part of the Reformed resurgence.
The only serious Bible preaching churches near college campuses are PCA congregations.
So, Bible churches and Southern Baptist churches don't cut it in Dever's book. Wait-he is Baptist. I think this is baloney. He is speculating without data. For example, Park Street Church in Boston has a history of involvement in local colleges- MIT, Harvard, UMass, Tufts, and it is Congregational (GASP!) I attended there as a student and professional and met my husband, a student, there.
“By the late 1990s,” he recalls, you could virtually assume the “most seriously Bible-preaching and evangelistic congregations near major university campuses would not be Bible churches or Baptist churches, but PCA congregations.”
They don't trust lots of parachurch ministries.
Many of the parachurch ministries that dominated the mid-20th century evangelical landscape had either a Reformed heritage that faded (e.g., InterVarsity, Christianity Today, Southern Seminary) or none at all (e.g., Campus Crusade, various mission agencies).
This all changed due to Al Mohler who influenced seminaries and coalitions. In particular, look at the campus ministries they *trust.*
college campuses (e.g., RUF, Campus Outreach), and lay people (e.g., World) alike. All of these organizations, Dever explains, have “either explicitly or implicitly public commitments to Reformed theology,” presenting young Calvinists with “ministries they trust” and equipping them with solid resources for both their churches and themselves.
Campus Outreach has generated concerns about cult-like behavior link and has generated some concerns due to rigid expectations. We are planning to take a closer look at this group in the days to come. (CO did not appear on a cult watch list-sorry for the error)
It concerns us that InterVarsity, Christianity Today, Cru and others are deemed "meh" since they do not exclusively espouse Calvinism. Never forget it was Christianity Today that published Hansen's original post, but I guess that doesn't go far enough. They must advocate for Calvinism. You are either with them or against them. There is no middle ground for these warriors.
The rise of secularism and decline of Christian nominalism
Here is where the rubber meets the road. Dever says
This final two-pronged factor has served to “shape a theological climate in which weaker, more pale versions of Christianity fade and in which more uncut, vigorous versions thrive.” Arminian theology, Dever fears, is too frail to be helpful. “In a nominally Christian culture, Arminianism may appear to be a satisfying explanation of the problem of evil,” he admits. “But as the acids of modernity have eaten away at more and more of the Bible’s teachings and even presuppositions about God, that explanation has proven woefully insufficient to more radical critics.
This is why Dever is wrong. I am not a Calvinist. I speak to the same culture to which he speaks. Calvinists have no leg up on radical critics, and they know it. Try explaining to a critic that God only chooses some people. There are difficulties on both sides of the Arminian/Calvinist divide, all of which are exploited by pundits.
Dever's closing quote is disturbing. The rock is not Jesus Christ or even Peter's confession. The rock is Reformed theology, and with this statement he exposes the true agenda for the crowd we have dubbed Calvinistas. They deserve this moniker. Dever believes that Calvinistas are smarter, more godly, and born to lead the rest of us lesser Christians in the way of the rock™ which is Calvinism. There is little hope for unity and love within the Christian community with such pompous and arrogant beliefs. Because the Hotel California lives, you can be sure there will be more posts to come.
This world’s increasingly open and categorical denials of God and his power will likely be met not by retreats, compromises, edits, and revisions, but by awakenings and rediscoveries of the majesty and power of the true God, who reveals himself in the Bible, the God who made us and who will judge us, the God who in love pursued us even to the depths of the incarnation and the humiliation of the cross. This is Christianity straight and undiluted, and the questing, probing spirit of the rising generation has, by God’s grace, found this rock.
Figure out why the crux of the post brings this song to mind.
Lydia's Corner: Exodus 23:14-25:40 Matthew 24:29-51 Psalm 30:1-12 Proverbs 7:24-27
First?
In other news, it is Lesley’s and my 22nd wedding anniversary today.
As we have polished off between us a rather nice (though very reasonably priced) bottle of sparkling white, and as “between us” means I drank most of it, I shall not be commenting further this evening, lest I post something I later regret.
I hope this is helpful.
OK, now I’m actually going to read the above post, in the hope that it does not create a context in which my second post above turns out to be tasteless and offensive.
This is starting to look like a DDOS * attack…
Some say “Distributed Denial Of Service”… or should it be “Drunk and Disorderly On your Server”?
@ Nick Bulbeck:
🙂
OK… now I’ve read the post. Like an idiot, I will attempt a serious post whilst over the limit.
Look at this bit of the Dever quote for a moment:
the majesty and power of the true God, who reveals [present tense] himself in the Bible, the God who made [past tense] us and who will [future tense] judge us, the God who in love pursued [past tense] us even to the depths of the incarnation and the humiliation of the cross.
The only present tense is the bible.
I propose the following counter-description:
The majesty and power of the true God IS Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, who IS alive today and IS to be found dwelling in those who love him; he IS continually leading and speaking to his people, IS doing the things he has always done, and IS – as he has always been, and will always be – a King worth giving your life for.
Calvinism is the Gospel. Complementarianism is the Gospel. ESS is the Gospel. Church Membership is the Gospel. Church Discipline is the Gospel. Discipleship is the Gospel.
It would be refreshing if the Gospel Glitterati could actually articulate the Gospel and preach that without all of the other things they hang on it and hope nobody notices. It would be refreshing if they did not make the Bible all about them and the church they want to rule but rather made it about their Savior and the Lord of the church. None of them are fit for that Role, and they know all about roles.
It makes me think of all the package deals that include things that you have to pay for but do not want.
@ Nick Bulbeck:
Excellent rewrite. Perhaps a little beverage alcohol helps in the processing of such things.
Congratulations to you and Lesley. I don’t know how she puts up with Nice.
Who needs Christ when you have Calvin?
@ Nick Bulbeck: Congrats!
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Happy anniversary, Nick! Fred and Barney want to help you celebrate!
Again, who needs Christ when We Have CALVIN?
CALVIN who (as that First Things essay put it) Islamized the Reformation.
And wrote his Institutes as Hadith to the Bible’s Koran.
Add in the dogma that only the KJV is the real Bible, dictated by God in Kynge Jaymes Englyshe (like the Koran in Classical Meccan Arabic) and the Islamization is complete. Ferment a bit to let Entropy set in until you get the equivalent of Wahabi (restoring the One True Faith to its original Pure Form) and let the Jihad begin.
“There are difficulties on both sides of the Arminian/Calvinist divide, all of which are exploited by pundits.”
Too true for contradiction, Dee!
Tim wrote:
But Devers is clear here, Arminians get it wrong and the people flocking to the neo-Calvinists (proof please) proves it 🙄
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
That is really excellent. You ought to get a tad whoopsie more often.
Continuing on my above roll, the Wahabi (most extreme fringe of Sunni Islam’s most conservative branch) are also into “strict discipline” and “theology our way”. To the point that Wahabi are actively discouraged from contact with non-Wahabi as other Muslims are Apostates — after all, the others “do not accept their obviously superior and exacting Islamic observances.”
(Aside — doesn’t the extreme separation from anyone outside the group sound like “Cult” to anyone else? And the “more devout than the others”?)
And the lunatic fringe of Islam in the news these days — al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS — all trace their lineage to the Wahabi. Entropy setting in, with each movement trying to be more Islamic than the one before it.
Does anyone here see a similar dynamic at work among the Truly Reformed?
Nancy wrote:
You have no idea…
Bridget wrote:
And I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been slammed by those on the far side of Arminianism, which is why I like the balance Dee struck in pointing out the failings of those at both extremes and why I quoted that part of her post.
I know the post is about Dever’s excesses, really I do. But can’t a guy compliment the author without getting slammed for not adding: “By the way, I know this is about Dever”?
The Campus Outreach description down that “cult watch website link” had a few similarities to the group that nearly Borged me back in the Seventies. The houses “providing a communal-living environment” near the campus, the love-bombing, the calls for separation from the Other.
And the side reference to a “strategy as taught by Witness Lee”. The name “Witness Lee” sounds a lot like “Watchman Nee”, who was THE 68th Book of the Bible back then (Hal Lindsay was the 67th).
I have heard of “The Local Church” from other cult-watch sources. As far as I can tell, the one I got mixed up with in the Seventies had a different name (“Koinonia House Christian Fellowship”) and was not affiliated with any other group. This “Local Church” appears to be an expanding franchise operation.
Gram3 wrote:
Yes, but think about it. If the gospel is a set of facts to which one must give intellectual assent for salvation, where does one draw the line? There is a perverted sort of logic to their abuse of the term gospel (and if I hear that brain-dead phrase “gospel-centered” used as an adjective one more time, I think I am going to strangle someone).
Tim wrote:
There seems to be confusion. The eye roll was regarding Dever, not you. I wasn’t slamming you at all. Sorry if my point wasn’t clear.
@ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
IMO they use “gospel” as a thought-stopper. For all their talk about books and great intellects and challenging and deep doctrine, pure simple reasoning seems beyond them. I don’t get it.
Unless this is really all about religious elitism and not the Gospel and not even particularly Jesus. When I was little, the pastor and SS teachers always talked about Jesus and what he did. Now it is all about abstractions like “the Cross.” Excuse me, but that was Jesus who died on the Cross. The cross did not do anything to save me. Jesus suffered and died to save me.
I really do think they believe that they are the educated and enlightened elites, so there is no need for the Holy Spirit. *They* will teach us and lead us into all truth.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Because their ministries are related, aren’t they? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchman_Nee#Ministry
@ Bridget:
My denseness knows no bounds, Bridget. Sorry about that!
Tim wrote:
IMO the divide at Dordt was political as much as religious. As soon as religious issues become political, then they become about power. And that means the other “party” must be demonized to gain and hold power for one’s own party.
If only Mordt from Dordt could walk us through the complexities and nuances…
And these guys wonder why a lot of folks quit church…..while in college?
The Headless Unicorn has hit it…..there is too much ” worship” of Calvin and the reform theology instead of Jesus…
Sometimes I wonder if the neo-puritans read and keep up with anything but their own drivel?
In our town, even the families of the charter members of the local SBC and to a lesser extent, I believe, Presby church are now either RCC or “RCC dabblers.”
That is, what started as mildly Calvinistic churches, moderate, in the Jimmy Carter vein, have morphed to a more hard line neo-cal neo puritan strain. (Next town over they are neo-cal without the neo-puritan, and it goes better.)
And as some are openly saying, “I like the Catholic Jesus better.” Meaning they prefer a God who actually actively wants to save people, not looking for every opportunity to put their face in the dust or damn them.
Some of those, mostly young people, cross the Tiber. Some of them, across all age groups, emphatically disagree with the RCC on some liturgical points and neither attend nor join the RCC. But privately their spirituality and worship of Christ is pretty much the same as their RCC neighbors. That is to say, pietistic, devout, warm hearted, all about a rich mystery laden miracle containing beauty indulging life with Jesus. That, and a deep appreciation of and focus on His passion.
And sadly, our evangelical churches, which are pretty much all fundamentalist to begin with, continue adding layers (Calvinist, young earth, dispensational on end times, patriarchal rather than the historic form of comp they were) in order to exclude more and more people.
Rather than engaging the world with the gospel, which they (we) are failing miserably with, they are setting up excuses so they can blame the unreached ones, prove they are more spiritual than someone else, and give a ready made excuse for the failure to evangelize or for declining church attendance.
Sickening.
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
It is logical, in a sense. All these doctrines derive from the way their inerrantist interpretation of the Bible, and are all interconnected in their minds. To deny one thread is to unravel the entire rug. Therefore, despite the nominal acceptance of the category of “secondary matters”, everything they care about becomes a pillar of orthodoxy.
Gram3 wrote:
Oh Gram, now you’ve gone and made me miss Robin Williams again.
Tim wrote:
Bet I am denser than you!
From the post:
Well, as Charlton Heston once said (gritting his teeth), “…If that is the choice, then I am against you…”
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
I started laughing a bit too loudly in a church recently when they used the word.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
It should be noted that the link Dee provided for Campus Outreach is wrong and the article does NOT in fact refer to Campus Outreach at all. It is rather an article on the campus outreach methods of the Local Church, an entirely different and unconnected organization. You probably should fix this and provide a link a website that lists Campus Outreach as a cult, or else remove that portion of the article.
@ Tim:
They are related. Watchmen Nee mentored Witness Lee. However, NEITHER OF THEM HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH CAMPUS OUTREACH THE ORGANIZATION.
Gram3 wrote:
Didn’t that used to be called gnosticism?
I thought the “Rock” was Peter’s confession of faith, that Jesus is the Christ. Didn’t Reformed theology come about 1600 years later? Many harlots and publicans were saved without even thinking about predestination or free will.
I think Dever needs a reality check. The resurgence is actually on the wane. I don’t mean it is dead. But every single Christian trend is generational and that generation is aging out as they all do. Some stuff sticks and permeates the Christian culture and some of it doesn’t.
But I am talking about the followers who would identify as part of the YRR movement. It is already starting to become a financial problem for all those church plants and churches taken over.
@ Doug:
It is probably fair to say that the idea of a spiritual elite who rules over the non-elites is a gnosticky idea. The trouble with calling them gnostic is that there was so much more to the different flavors of gnosticism.
Generally I think it is a good idea to avoid people who think there is an Elite who are given the right to rule. Especially in the church!
Doug wrote:
Isn’t that the truth!
Doug wrote:
But were they saved saved? Or were they just Holy Spirit-regenerated saved?
dee wrote:
The densest substance on earth is, of course, osmium; slightly denser than iridium, and even allowing for gravitational compression (and 2 million atmospheres of pressure!), around twice as dense as the iron at the earth’s core. (If there are any macroscopic accumulations of iridium at the core, there might also be macroscopic accumulations of osmium…)
Significantly higher densities are known to have occurred, albeit on microsecond or sub-microsecond timescales, in implosion-driven weapon systems. I mention this only for completeness; but abnormally high densities have been achieved on earth.
And, of course, out in the far reaches of the universe where all kinds of exotic conditions exist, quantities of matter exist at densities billions of times higher still. The supreme champion is the singularity at the core of a black hole, the density of which is thought to be literally infinite.
The practical upshot of this is that it would be a complete waste of time trying to get a singularity to appreciate an eye-rolling graphic.
I hope this is helpful.
I’m at a loss to know why my last comment, which deals with basic physics, is in moderation… I can only guess it’s down to a particular word whose identity I can guess but on which (pace GBTC) I will not publicly speculate.
Lydia wrote:
Hmmm. What happens when the middle-aged givers and the older people who leave money to the church are gone? I’m not seeing that trend yet, but as you said, trends are generational. That will create a bit of a problem for young people who have their doctrine all buttoned up and hermetically sealed. Kids don’t follow formulas, especially after the age of 12 or so.
Gram3 wrote:
Interestingly enough, one of their own insists that they were not. They honestly believe that the true church was in darkness until their forefathers came along. But hey, in my tribe we are used to being disregarded and thought of as the “low church” (meaning “barely church”). And that is perfectly ok with us. Rock on!
Doug wrote:
Totally get that. Putting the concept into the context of Jesus’ day, it was hard to get any lower church than a Galilean synagogue. High church was filled with the Sadducees and Pharisees, and we know how that worked. He didn’t descend from heaven into the Holy of Holies either. Jesus chose people of little value in the church and in the culture. There is probably a lesson there.
This is not a statement on liturgical practice but on elitism, just to be clear what I mean about “high church” and “low church.”
Steven Crawford wrote:
You are correct about this. I mistakenly put the wrong link in the post which I have since corrected.
Steven Crawford wrote:
I have updated the post due to your thoughtful comment that made me realize my mistake. I used the wrong link. I have put a new link up instead which deals with the issue of possible cult like behavior. This is the personal opinion of one who had contact with the organization.
We will be writing about CO sometime in the next few months due to some reports that we have received from readers throughout the years. However, you seem interested in the subject. If you have any information-positive or negative-we would be happy to include your input.
Again, thank you.
Gram3 wrote:
And “Gnostic” itself was a generic term for cults who emphasized their Speshul Sekrit Knowledge known only to an Inner Ring of Illuminated Elect. (“Elect”? Hmmm….)
By definition “Gnostic” WAS a Spiritual Elite, the only ones who Really Got It Right. (Again, hmmm….)
Other than that emphasis on their Speshul Sekrit Knowledge of the One True Way, every Gnostic cult was different. These guys probably did NOT hang out together; the Cosmos cannot have two One True Ways.
Gram3 wrote:
Yeah. I catch your meaning. Mine too. Trailer trash church. Wrong side of the theological tracks church. Just an ordinary Bible church, which Dever apparently doesn’t really care for. Couldn’t care less. Makes you wonder why the local Calvinistas want to take us over tho…
linda wrote:
That’s what happens as Entropy sets in and each generation tries to one-up the one before.
A Princess Celestia is usually preferable to a Discord or Tirek.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Been playing the Gospel Glitterati Lingo drinking game, have you?
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Some of them believed some really far out things. Elitism is more than fair to pin on the Gospel Glitterati. And now it appears that we have a new elite class on the progressive end of the spectrum.
@ dee:
No problem. I work in campus ministry (The Navigators) and I do think that campus ministries should be scrutinized. Vulnerable students and high pressure organizations can harm the good work many people are doing on the campus.
dee wrote:
Checked out the corrected link. Sounds like a standard campus cult pyramid scheme, like a more cultic version of Campus Crusade and their “Multiplying Ministry”. Very high-pressure, high-commitment, going after the easy targets and making them into Borg.
However, there’s one thing that stood out to me:
They went for the “big fish”, the Greeks and Athletes; i.e. the BMOCs. (Does anyone remember “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”, where Screwtape advises to target and corrupt Celebrities — get the Celeb and you get all the followers and wanna-bes?)
A lot of campus ministries take this approach (in High School, you go after the Football Stars and Cheerleaders), and here’s the dark side to it: When you’ve been the Omega through your school career, this just locks in the idea that Christ is God of the Rich and Powerful and Beautiful, God of the Alpha Males & Females and ONLY of the Alpha Males & Females. NOT YOU. The Kingdom of God becomes just High School writ large, and you’re still the Omega on the bottom.
Gram3 wrote:
Remember Nineteen Eighty-Four? How Oceania’s INGSOC, Eurasia’s Neo-Bolshevism, and Eastasia’s Annihlation of the Self were the exact same system of Inner Party, Outer Party, and Proles, just with different names?
Doug wrote:
Isn’t that the same claim of church history as the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses? That everybody got it wrong before WE came along?
Nancy wrote:
MOST excellent, so glad you posted this, it did my thirsty heart good. Happy Anniversary!
dee wrote:
Yet no one is denser than Marty MacFly’s folks: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–OC2qe7Sw–/19936l4pb5e2ppng.png
@ Steven Crawford:
I have no clue about Campus Outreach and so was not commenting on it at all, just the connection between Nee and Lee, thanks.
Blessings on you, Steven!
linda wrote:
You can also draw the distinction between the two in attitude towards the creative and performing arts.
There is a third way to interpret the Bible: Christian Universalism or Universal Reconciliation. This belief keeps the best from Calvinistic beliefs (God is all powerful) and Arminian beliefs (God is all-loving). If you are interested in exploring the belief that God is both able and willing to save all, here is a great place to start.
Equally Shaky Ground: The Ancillary Hypotheses of Calvinism, Arminianism, and Universalism
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2013/09/equally-shaky-ground-ancillary.html
Tim wrote:
Denseness happens . . . me included!
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Yep.
I really shouldn’t say this, but the love for reformed rap by these guys is hilarious. Mainly because the Gospel Glitterati ( ™ @Gram3 Enterprises) are some of the whitest guys around. And by “white” I mean the cultural stereotype, not how someone looks.
@ Corbin:
But they have Lecrae… 😉
Does anyone else remember that time that Propaganda (another rapper) got a bunch of the YRR’s panties in a knot when he wrote a song criticizing their beloved Puritans for their slave ownership and hypocrisy?
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Let’s just say it’s been a few years since I read it, so probably time to brush up on it. The game does still seem to be the same even when the names change.
Corbin wrote:
Owen (not John) is an accomplished rapper. So there’s a whole bunch of cool right there. I’m sorry, but an older guy like Dever, regardless of race, who plays rap loud enough to shake the floor is trying too hard. Aging guys used to do dignified and respectable things like buy a convertible. Wait, is this on the wrong thread? Maybe I should post it on the Tojo thread since we are talking about aging guys trying too hard. They are all starting to run together…
Josh wrote:
I used to like him a little, he seemed genuine. When I heard that he started putting Piper into his songs, my opinion of him was lowered quite a bit.
Gram3 wrote:
You mean Strachan? I tried listening to him. Needless to say, wasn’t impressed.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
“Borged”. Epic word choice HUG! It’s a far more appropriate term than love-bombing or velcro-barring because those terms infer something positive. Everyone wants to be loved, appreciated, cared for and have attention paid to them. This would be a good thing if it weren’t for the far from innocuous underlying intent of the leaders who really just want your allegiance plus 10-20% of your gross pay. I hope “borged” catches on like #evangelicalmafia and #the15.
–
On a different note I have a question for you since you demonstrate a lot of expertise in areas involving very high intelligence. It’s not totally off-topic as this is part of an email I’m working on for Dee. How rare is it to be considered a “mathmatical genuis” or to have a true “photographic memory”? Also, how rare is it to be excessively gifted in both language and math simultaneously (left v right brain stuff)? The answers on the internet seem a bit convoluted and difficult to understand. There also seems to be conflicting data. Therefore, I’d be looking for a reliable authoritative source to reference in the email, similar to using DSM-IV when referring to mental illness. Thanks for any help you can provide.
*mathematical. Sorry I’m not that dumb – just trying to do this on a mobile device while doing something else.
Corbin wrote:
I just discovered today that Owen Strachan has blocked me from his Twitter account. I blame the Deebs for hosting my guest post pointing out that Mr. Strachan’s patriarchal “Dateship” hurts women. (I accept no responsibility for having written the article in the first place, no siree Bob!)
Gram3 wrote:
XD. Your Husband is very lucky to have you, Gram. 🙂
Tim wrote:
OH MAN!!! 🙁 You’re going to miss out on all the latest praise for Piper and Grudem!!
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
It’s also the same claim of the Crossroads Movement and the Boston Movement, precursors to the International Churches of Christ.
@ Tim:
We proudly take the blame. 🙂
Tim wrote:
So it’s been a really tough day for you, especially right after your birthday. Owen (not John) is hard to replace on a Twitter feed or however that works. Blaming The Woman is a tested tactic that I see you have mastered. I prefer Blame the Man, but to each his own, I suppose. 😉
@ Corbin:
We are very blessed to have each other!
Tim wrote:
THAT. Is awesome.
Some of the Calvinistas remind me more and more of the Mormons I brushed up against. Why? Because of how they are worshipping someone other than Jesus. In Mormonism the Mormons worship Joseph Smith or Brigham Young (though they will deny this…) where as the Calvinistas will worship John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, or John Piper.
Or if I went to Capital Hill Baptist this Sunday would I find a you’d man laying down on the alter prostrate and worshipping Jonathan Edwards.
Deebs….you want me to do another Top Secret, Need to Know Mission? If I see Mark Dever I can ask him these questions.
AND if you hear of someone being burned at the stake in Washington, D.C. you will know who that is!!
Signed
Future Servetus of Washington, D.C.
HUG….if I get burned at the stake in the Washington, D.C. area I hereby bequeath my model train collection to you. I hope you like Milwaukee Road, Northern Pacific, Great Northern, and Santa Fe! 🙂
So forgive me for asking but after what I read above I must ask…
Is John Calvin the lamb who takes away the sin of the world?
Was John Calvin crucified at Calvary?
Is John Calvin the sacrificial lamb who the Old Testament prophets said is coming to fulfill prophecy?
What does Mark Dever believe about Jesus? Curious minds want to know
Who here want to see CJ Mahaney or Mark Driscollvon Judge Judy?
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
The “Local Church” of Witness Lee (real name: Living Stream Ministry) has been a bit more quiet since they lost in their defamation lawsuit against the evangelical Christian company Harvest House Publishers.
http://harvesthousepublishers.com/corporate-statements/
They are definitely cult-like. Here’s more information on them.
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/801-living-stream-ministry-local-church-local-churches-lords-recovery
Mom!!! I want to see CJ Mahaney on Judge Judy!!
My church caters to a fairly young crowd. Last year a very fine, but very Calvinist, couple came to the pastor and volunteered to speak on the topic of complementarianism as part of a series of sermons on differing views on gender in Christianity. They expected to have everyone on their side, and were shocked by how many people in the congregation disagreed. It rocked them back on their heels. I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t leave. Thankfully they value the unity of the Body over a side issue.
Eagle wrote:
Santa Fe on my end. Thing is, you do O Scale, and that takes up a LOT of space.
Corbin wrote:
I believe the word is “Whiggas”.
Anyone else been told that Calvinism is the gospel? I have. It really is a cultish kind of thought. I have many friends who are reformed, they are far less stringent than those we see in the spotlight. We agree that exactly how God saves is a “mind of God” thing, and there is room for disagreement, as none of us have the mind and thoughts of God in all matters. The Calvinistas, hyper Calvinists, whatever you want to call them though are the ones who drive the conversation in reformed circles. Sad we see so much focus on “how” God saves, instead of who He saves us through
Janey wrote:
As I pointed out to my former pastors/elders who subscribe to patriarchy, “Why didn’t you tell us that you were shoving the extra-Biblical “doctrines of men” down our throats, men who are specifically been arrested and charged right and left with sex crimes and accused of countless sex crimes. The doctrines of boundaryless sex offenders.”
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Indeed I do HUG and so did John Adams in a letter written to Jefferson in 1817:
“Oh! Lord! Do you think that a Protestant Popedom is annihilated
in America? Do you recollect, or have you ever attended to the
ecclesiastical Strifes in Maryland Pensilvania, New York, and
every part of New England? What a mercy it is that these People
cannot whip and crop, and pillory and roast, as yet in the U.S.!
If they could they would.”
From Brooke Allen’s Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers
Michaela wrote:
I’ll bet that went over well. Ha.
Janey wrote:
I would keep your ear to the ground and your eyes wide open. Things can change quickly, especially if your pastor is open to hierarchy, which is really what the Complementarians are talking about.
Great news that it was rejected by the majority. Maybe people are waking up to how silly it all is.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Wait. I can comment on a comment by Eagle and HUG at the same time. Gramp3 has N, I love O, and once upon a time I really wanted some Z trains. Don’t know if they make them any more. They were so cute!
Janey wrote:
Oh yeah, I just got excommunicated and shunned for not bowing and scraping to them and their friend, a convicted sex offender on Megan’s List whom they said was ‘coming off Megan’s List’ of offenders and the California Attorney General called it ‘all lies’.
Jeff P wrote:
I’ve heard it a lot. I believe they attribute it to Spurgeon or another hero.
Michaela wrote:
Gotta get you in the door and settled in first. After the cookies and ice cream, they will bring out the cauliflower and cod liver oil.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
San Diego is full of them.
Calvinistas rule; Arminians drool, pride precedeth the fall. (Proverbs 16:18). These people are very haughty.
Steven Crawford said
“@ dee:
No problem. I work in campus ministry (The Navigators) and I do think that campus ministries should be scrutinized. Vulnerable students and high pressure organizations can harm the good work many people are doing on the campus.”
This truly touched my heart thank you Mr. Crawford, I appreciate this so much.
Dee and others I truly am grateful for your speaking up for the walking wounded, the abused, and the heretics like myself. You respect my eclectic pseudo posts such as incogneto basically I am Brian Darby, but I post under a few pseudo names more out of habit.But you people, Michael at PP, Spiritual sounding board and here have helped me put forward my struggles. I will agree, my struggles are clouded in emotional issues, my foggy memory which I do not fully trust and filtered through perceived and actual hurts. Much of what I have experienced is filtered through so much emotion, apologetic, etc.
Honesty demands I say this, I am a holder to the validity of the evidence that supports the theory of evolution, we reside in a rather mundane solar system in a spiral arm of a rather mundane galaxy in a local cluster and in a rather regular super cluster. We are not unique but we are in the same sentence. I think that is how God works, he takes the mundane and normal and refines it to a Holy jewel. God makes the basic, holy. I am always amazed at the power of God, His holiness and His creativity. Above all I am blown away by God and His hope. Thank you all here for giving me a voice and some real powerful healing. Thank You.
gram3
It is a Spurgeon quote. But Spurgeon never could reconcile the double predestination aspect of Calvinism in his own mind and regularly railed on the hyper-Calvinists of his day. Wonder how he’d see the Calvinism so predominant today?
@ Muff Potter:
Thanks muff! these are the founders I try to tell people about who insist we were founded as a Christian nation. they do not understand that their paradigm of a “Christian” nation was totally different than what evangelicals think of today. the last thing they wanted was a “Christian” nation as they understood that thinking from their own recent thinking.
this is my biggest beef with Reformed theology. it was systematized within a church state mentality. Yes there have been changes to account for freedoms but there is a cognitive dissonance between what it teaches and living in freedom.
brian wrote:
Darn, that’s good. And we are the ones who are blessed by your voice. It goes both ways.
Muff Potter wrote:
Awesome quote!!!
Jeff P wrote:
Yes, and even further, I have been told that comp gender roles and young earth creation are the gospel.
Janey wrote:
I am glad they stayed but I hope they don’t view your church as a fertile ground for the gospel of comp.
Eagle wrote:
Now hold on. Tulip was told she was supposed to inherit.
brian wrote:
Amen!
Is it just me or has there been some of the best posts in the comment thread?
Gram3 wrote:
It’s certainly a Nicolaitan idea.
dee wrote:
Don’t forget Pre-Trib Rapture (any minute now… any minute now…)
And Speaking in TONGUES…
Reformed Rap? That’s always killed me. 95% of these guys are honkies and, judging from Pipers “poetry” they have no real clue about verse anyhow.
Maybe if there were a Reformed Arcade Fire it would cause less cognitive dissonance.
Muff Potter wrote:
That’s what the Reconstructionist program to Take Back America and establish a REAL Christian Nation is for. The first step is Quiverfull breeding to Outbreed the Heathen and 200-year Muligenerational Faithfulness plans to prevent straying from The Cause.
Muff Potter wrote:
That’s what the Reconstructionist program to Take Back America and establish a REAL Christian Nation is for. The first step is Quiverfull breeding to Outbreed the Heathen and 200-year Muligenerational Faithfulness plans to prevent straying from The Cause.E.G. wrote:
Not “honkies”, WHIGGAS.
(Slang term for lily-white rap fanboys trying to be more Ghetto & Gangsta than the Gangstas and failing miserably.)
Oh yeah, and I’ve more than once heard these folks call Christianity Today, “Christianity Astray”.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
It seems that “Conquer, colonize, plant” has multiple meanings…
brian wrote:
You are not alone among TWWers with these views. The entry “Creationism” under the categories menu has approximately 50 posts, many with extensive comments. The YEC community vastly underestimates what our God has done in creating this universe. If you ever have a spare day or two you might want to browse this collection (if you haven’t already done so).
” I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Chirst and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the Gospel and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the Gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, u changeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the Gospel, unless we base it on the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a Gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. such a Gospel I abhor.
(A Defence of Calvinism, C H Spurgeon)
@ Muff Potter:
John Adams, being a Unitarian, who did not believe in predestination, eternal damnation, the divinity of Christ and most other things Calvinistic. ( according to Wikipedia).
brian wrote:
That is such a beautiful thought. I’m sorry you have been through so much pain, so very sorry. It may not be clear to you, but it is clear to me that God has sanctified your pain and through that given you insight into how he values little things and lifts them up. That doesn’t mean the pain was a good thing or that God wanted you to suffer. You stated it so well as only someone who has been through what you have can do. You could teach the theologians a great deal.
For what it is worth, at least as this neocal of the neopuritan variety applies to the SBC, we used to have a name for them: Judaizers.
No disrespect to Judaism meant, but both Jews and Christians knew there was a difference between the two.
Southern Baptists were often quite conservative theologically and morally without veering off into this extreme fundamentalism and extreme legalism.
The neopuritans are USING neocal theology to try and FORCE their way to the top, just as fundamentalism was corrupted to do the same in 1979.
But here is the deal: if you really believe that Jesus came to save all, that any who put their faith in Him are saved and cannot lose that salvation, that we do not have to reject science to accept the Bible, that the only spiritual authority over the church or your soul is Jesus Christ the Lord, and that church membership is for the purpose of furthering the evangelization of the world and not necessary for salvation, then these guys have no hold on us. They are paper tigers.
Beat feet, or sit on your wallet, or challenge them if they are in your church.
And don’t waste another minute letting them hold you in bondage.
Dee, Deb, would you consider with Wade’s help doing one “different” posting? One where you give out a good list of authors that teach the truth rather than this drivel? One that shows what the old SBC moderates and conservatives believed and taught before 1979? Many of those books are readily available still, and some can be read on line for free.
I have this nagging sense it is not enough to expose false teaching and evil. To be effective you also have to show the good.
Peace!
Jeff P wrote:
Honestly, I don’t know. For all their legalism, the ones I know are not hyper-Calvinists in the technical sense. I think uber-Calvinist or supra-Calvinist might fit better, because they are certain that Calvinism is *the* system that captures what God has revealed. They also go way beyond bare Calvinism and add on aspects of Gothardism and the Shepherding Movement. Mostly I believe it is a reaction against failures of previous movements or of conditions in the church that were/are not good.
Their assessment of what is not good has unfortunately caused them to make some very bad choices about how to remedy the faults in the church. They have chosen human means–rules and sanctions–to produce Spiritual fruit. The Holy Spirit has effectively been shut out and been made superfluous. They have abandoned semper reformanda because they cannot receive correction from outside the bubble of their system and their compatriots. They believe they are the elites who are the only ones who really understand. They have totally lost the plot of the Head and Body and the way the Spirit works in the body.
lydia wrote:
Absolutely true. There is no recognition of the way that traditions of church and state which were either fused or were closely cooperative in maintaining their own power have shaped their presuppositions about “the way things ought to be.” That, I believe, is why they are obsessed with authority and read everything in the Bible through that lens of human authority supposedly ordained by God. It sounds to me, the non-historian and non-English person, like the Divine Right of Kings.
I wonder what the church might look like today if the Anabaptists had not been so viciously persecuted at the start of the Reformation. What if their views had been incorporated into the church as they were later in Holland in the 17th century? Even now, the Gospel Glitterati do not recognize the contributions to theology and dismiss them as if they were all part of Meunster. Way too much thought-stopping, IMO.
formerly anonymous wrote:
Yes it is, if my understanding of that term is correct.
dee wrote:
Uh oh, this could get pugly.
Gavin White wrote:
Hmmm, I’m not convinced that the Divinity of Christ could be held to be a
Calvinistic thing. How very interesting that you slipped that one in there.
And by that I mean a Calvinist only or Calvinist distinctive. TULIPD anyone?
Gavin White wrote:
Your comment has nothing to so with what Adams’ concerns regarding church and state, which is what Muff was commenting on.
Bridget wrote:
I didn’t quite get Gavin’s comment either, but just assumed I missed something. It wasn’t just Calvinists who got the church/state relationship wrong, it was also the Church of England who locked up “unlicensed” preachers. Not seeing what Adams being Unitarian has to do with church/state separation. The church is not about worldly power. Christians can try to bring light, but not by using worldly means.
@ Bridget:
I think if you read the wiki article you will see that it did.
@ Beakerj:
That was a quote from the Wiki article. I didn’t slip anything in.
@ Nick Bulbeck:
Ha!
linda wrote:
Linda,
This is it right here. You’ve summed it up beautifully.
Gavin White wrote:
The point was not what Adams believed or disbelieved regarding the domain of religion, but rather what would not be allowed in the name of religion on these shores.
Eagle wrote:
So interesting to read model train comments amidst the theological discussions. Personally, I’m in the On30 camp, with some old HO trains that are in constant danger of getting kitbashed into something else, and a Large Scale 4-4-0 on the shelf as a piece of 3D art. So I guess I’m more of an eclectic radical in the model train world, not unlike my approach to theology. Might explain why I enjoy this blog so much.
Eagle wrote:
Wouldn’t we all and the Pied Piper and his other politburo members, also.
Neither Calvinism nor Arminianism makes covering up child abuse OK. Or makes shielding a friend from consequences of his own making at the expense of others OK. Or makes the creation of laws that bind church members but not pastors and elders OK. Or makes hiding the financial details of a ministry behind the IRS privilege of a church OK. Or makes hiding the IP contracts of pastors which may call their objectivity into question OK. Or makes doctrines like slavery and patriarchal “complementarianism” OK. Or makes worshiping celebrities OK. Or makes excusing longstanding misconduct and spiritual abuse by another leader by silence or acquiescence OK.
__
Calvinism, along with it’s many Protestant sisters has long ceased as an engine of religious reform.
—
__
Calvin’s Institutes were initially written to bring Religious reform to France. The later became the foundation, in the hands of others, as a competing state sanctioned religious system.
The framers of the American constitution wisely separated church and state. No blood was to be spilled upon American soil due to religious persecution. No state church was to be manditorarily attended or supported by it’s citizenary. No state church was to make demands upon it’s citizenry with out their private approval or personal consent.
—
@ Nick Bulbeck:
Density! Density! No escaping density! Density! Density! No escaping that for me!
Dever’s claim concerning Calvinism as the best defense against secular thought is laughable. I have delved into apologetics fairly deeply in the last few years (it helped rescue my faith from fundyland theology). Most apologists (there are a few notable exceptions) are not Calvinist simply for the fact that it is the worst system to defend against atheistic attacks. Think of how difficult it is to explain the problem of evil from a determinist point of view! And this is one of the most common objections from atheists. Calvinists’ answer would be the most distasteful to an atheist over any other possible answer.
__
Is the New Calvinist movement, which Mark Dever is a part, out to take over American Christianity?
—
@ brian: God bless you, Brian. I read your comment initially and thought I better come back to it later. I am sorry for any hurt you may experienced among conservative Christians. I come from a Christian sect that can be pretty fundamentalist and unkind.
I have never been certain that the Bible says all there is to say about creation. My only concern has always been that God was and is involved in creation no matter how it is hypothesized to have happened or continues to happen.
Yet some believe that it is critical to believe a certain way about creation to be a Christian. I am not going to get into a debate on this topic, but fundamentalists and conservative Evangelicals can place God into so much of a box that they aren’t open to God’s wonderful and ongoing creation. It didn’t end with the beginning in my opinion.
Also in this great universe we have no idea what is out there. We may not be alone in the great scheme of things. And fundamentalists of another era poured molded lead down Giordano Bruno’s throat for saying this in the 1500s.
If aliens ever visit our planet, I don’t know how fundamentalists could handle it because I have heard some say the so called Grey visitors who have abducted humans in alien abduction stories are really demons. Will fundamentalists deny truth because it clashes with their air tight doctrine, even though it appears as clear as the noses on our faces?
@ linda:
Thank you Linda. There are good books I have in my library. E Y Mullins was considered controversial by the new guard , but I like his Axioms of Religion. And there is Herschall Hobbs, another controversial pastor. I have one of his books called Fundamentals of our Faith and while conservative, it isn’t fundamentalist. I hope some of this is out there on Internet as you say. I miss the old training Union. There was so much sound doctrine that was taught during training Union.
Sopwith wrote:
Reposting because this is true. When the Constitution was put together in 1787, there had been 250+ years of religious war in Europe and this is something the Founders desperately wanted to avoid. Of course, it’s not like the US didn’t tear itself up over slavery and fight a terrible war, but it wasn’t like the Wars of Religion in Europe.
Sopwith wrote:
“First American Christianity, TOMORROW THE WORLD!”
Mark wrote:
Of which the money quote came from an Internet Monk comment thread years ago:
“There are no aliens. They are Fallen Ones come to deceive us. No, I am not a conspiracy crackhead.”
Reality cannot be permitted to deny Ideology, Comrade.
__
“Back On Da 501(c)3 Calvinesta’Religious’ Funny Farm?”
hmmm…
The New Calvinism is supposedly intended to combat the dangers of postmodernism, viewed as “a downward spiral that begins with the rejection of absolute truth, which then leads to a loss of distinctions in matters of religion and faith, and culminates in a philosophy of religious pluralism that says no faith or religion is objectively true and therefore no one can claim his or her religion is true and another is false.”
Whew!
Beginning about the time of Descartes, aparrently, God was no longer the center of truth any longer – man was. God was pushed aside, kicked to the curb, in favor of man.
(fast forward)
So proponents of New Calvinism, which Mark Dever is a part, seek to correct this.
Hense Mark Dever’s New Calvinism is the best defense against secular thought statement, I suppose.
You can’t make an 501(c)3 religious omlete without breaking a few eggs, huh?
Krunch !
Absolute truth essentially ‘becomes’ what this New Calvinism Movement says it is…
huh?
Do they get ‘off’ da farm much, do they?
*
“Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Dever that all New Calvinists are equal. He would be only too happy to let his fellow New Calvinists make decisions for themselves. But sometimes they might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should our movement be?”
🙂
“They have come to a time when no one dares speak their mind, when fierce, growling religious dogs roamed everywhere, and when you have to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to a multitude of sins…”
To think they copyright this stuff as well.
(sadface)
Sopy
__
Comic relief: 1984 revisited?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA
:~)
—
I don’t believe this has anything specifically to do with Calvinism. It is just someone spouting overblown rhetoric about the significance of their movement with a large lack of self-awareness. IME those who are significant generally have neither the time or inclination to publicise themselves in this way – overblown rhetoric is usually the sign of a movement in eclipse.
There’s a certain irony in the whole thing of course – that a movement supposedly based on a theology of God’s sovereignty throws that out of the window when it comes to examining itself. Kind of like those people who were really into the idea of ‘functional idolatry’ describing themselves via their roles on their twitter/blog sidebar (‘pastor’ ‘father’ ‘husband’).
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Yes, HUG, I do. And the thought of them gaining political power is frightening.
Gavin White wrote:
Well someone did, & it’s nonsense. You may disagree.
Gram3 wrote:
Yes, thanks for the warning. I’m hoping that good things happen. My pastor is definitely an egalitarian and is open about it.
dee wrote:
I hope not too. They worship Wayne Grudem and were shocked that I didn’t.
Janey wrote:
That is very sad, really. Maybe being around others will help them get over their idolatry of a man. Or, they may be the seed couple or two who are sent into a church. That sounds weird, but believe me, it isn’t.
Gram3 wrote:
It isn’t. It’s a standard “Coup from Within” tactic associated with the USSR during the Cold War. The “seed couple” are infiltrators who set up a Party cell and “stealth evangelize” others within the target group to the New Order. Once they have enough stealth converts (through “multiplying ministry” pyramid) they stage the Coup from Within. After which, “The rule of The Party is Forever”.
You also see this attitude in Quiverfull Reconstructionists and their Islamic equivalent as well as Young Restless and TRULY TRULY Reformed.
@ Gram3:
Thanks, I’ll talk to my pastor. We’re having a woman preach in the pulpit today. It might be the the first time for our church.
I became an egalitarian a couple years ago, thanks to N.T. Wright’s excellent paper on women’s service in the church.
@ Gram3:
I should say that my pastor too only recently (past 5 years) became convinced that the egalitarian position reflected God’s perfect creation.
Sopwith wrote:
Remember which species Orwell ethnic-cast for “those who are More Equal than others”.
Chris S wrote:
Becasue “The Party Can Do No Wrong. Ees Party Line, Comrade.”
I see an authoritarian theology in this new Calvinism that divides people: parents from children, men from woman, wealthy from poor, and I could go on. It may be the next dividing line in the ravaged Southern Baptist Convention and other evangelical denominations. This isn’t good because it is all about taking over and controlling for the sake of an ideology. I am uncertain that like many authoritarian beliefs it is easy to fight because so many are unaware of its goals, and are like frogs in a gradually heated up pot of water. Their takeover technique has been used before historically because non Calvinist culture warrior Jerry Falwell has described this technique. This is nothing new but it is just wrong. Forgive me, but would the term Christofascism be an accurate term, God forbid? I feel awful bringing up this term, because individually many of these new Calvinists may be fine people, but it is the movement I question.
This statement from “Were Did all the Calvinists Come From,” is misleading.
from 5. The inerrancy controversy
“by the Mid-1970s. American evangelicalism’s “battle for the bible” had reached its boiling point. Touching several denominations including the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Southern Baptist Convention, this controversy gave prominence to several Reformed theologians.”
While the quote is true to some extent (google seminex for a better understanding) it certainly didn’t result in a resurgence of reformed thought in the LCMS or any confessional Lutheran denomination. The author is trying, like the reformed have been doing since the death of Luther (google crypto-Calvinist), to tie the reformed church to the Lutherans. Saying that they believe the same thing, which they do not.
I also take exception to point 6. Presbyterian Church in America. The PCA, during the 1990s, allowed for good faith subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith. In fact they went so far as to say that any candidate for the office of Teaching Elder could take exception to the WCoF without having to state what article he took exception to. The PCA was not a bible believing church during the late 1990’s as evidenced by the insurgence of the Federal Vision and the PCA’s continued defense of that heretical doctrine.
@ Jonathan:
Welcome to TWW. Thank you for this insightful comment. It looks like I have some reading to do. I do know that the Neo Cal crowd have been claiming that LCMS are Reformed and I always wondered about that since i have read their statements of faith and doctrine.
Could you tell me which heresy the PCA expresses?
Mark wrote:
It’s an accurate term. Though in Totalist Ideology, obsession with Purity of Ideology, and Stealth/Salami Tactics they resemble classic Communists (i.e. “Fascism of the Left”) more than classic Fascists (“Fascism of the Right”). And linking your Fascism to a religion elevates everything to Cosmic-level Justification.
–OFF TOPIC–
Have you seen this incredible Super Bowl ad on domestic violence? It’s part of the NFL’s “No More” domestic violence campaign.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=85114404&x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=rTJT3fVv1vU
A good reminder to watch for disguised cries for help.
Dee,
The LCMS is a large denomination and may have some churches that lean more towards the reformed camp versus Lutheran. I would say those churches that lean more towards reformed are not confessional Lutheran as defined by the Book of Concord. You can find an electronic copy online here.
http://www.bookofconcord.org/
Confessional Lutherans have never been reformed. There are several key differences in the theology of the two. I can discuss it in length if you wish but just a warning it can get rather tedious.
As far as heresies in the PCA the most insidious is the Federal Vision. The Federal Vision basically takes justification by faith alone and redefines it to justification by faithful obedience alone. There is a lot of information on the subject just google “federal vision.”
The WELS and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and their conservative breakaway sects are not reformed. A little but if history might be interesting. During the later 1920’s, a predecessor of the Old American Lutheran Church, the Ohio Synod was kicked out of the Old synodical conference because some of its pastors had become Calvinist. I kind of understand where they are coming in their caution with the Reformed because in Germany Lutherans and Reformed were forced into one church by a Kaiser.
The members of this old Synodical Conference were the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the WELS, and several other smaller synods. Traditionally these confessional Lutherans and the most conservative of these (ie WELS) won’t pray or fellowship with those that don’t agree with them on all points of doctrine. It is kind of a akin to secondary separation, in my opinion. Some in the WELS are upset because of their denomination’s participation in Thrivent, a joint enterprise between the ELCA, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and the WELS. Kind of goes against fellowship rules, in their opinion. Fellowship rules is a controversy among these conservative Lutherans. It even surfaced a couple years ago when a LCMS pastor prayed at a public service with those that didn’t profess like doctrine. Love them anyway.
Gram3 wrote:
Not weird at all. Sounds a lot like the old 1956 B&W sci-fi flick and the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Jonathan wrote:
This is fascinating. i have noticed some of this sort of thinking in a significant segment of the NeoCal movement. i will do more reading. Thank you.
@ Mark:
They sound a bit like Landmark Baptists.
Muff Potter wrote:
Confession: At the end of the remake of this classic film, a human host points at a non invaded human and makes this funny screaming sound. To this day, whenever my husband and I see something really weird, we point and reenact the final scene.
@ dee: They also practice close communion like the land markers.
@ Janey:
Great commercial. Well done!!!!! I shall try to feature it in a post this week.
@ Mark:
Two weeks ago, I visited an Missouri Synod church and was told I could take communion there which I did. Are some churches within this group different in how they apply that rule?
Gram3 wrote:
Yes, absolutely. Well put.
dee wrote:
It is the tradionally belief and is in the LCMS doctrinal statement. It depends on the pastor and the church. Some LCMS are strict about close communion. In the WELS and the ELS and their breakaways, close communion would probably be close to an absolute rule.
Traditional confessional Lutheran belief in close communion is attached to a very sophisticated understanding of communion, and in traditional confessional Lutheranism those who take communion have to be in doctrinal agreement with this understanding. (Ie sacramental union) Confessional Lutheranism understanding of communion is one thing that separates them from the Reformed.
I am not a confessional Lutheran. I hope someone immensely more qualified will contribute to this discussion. I just have friends who are confessional Lutherans and have done some independent reading.
Well, ya’ll pray for us here in the hinterlands. New pastor we prayed about a couple of months ago is on the field now.
And maybe I am just paranoid, but I am concerned. Concerned that he does not see the purpose of the church is evangelization. I DO realize many see things that way.
I’m also concerned that he doesn’t refer to his ideas about the church, but rather to his “God given ideas” and that our job is to “follow his leadership.”
I mean, if you disagree with his idea, he is already setting up the idea you simply disagree with God Almighty, then. And my job? To follow Jesus Christ, not any human.
We are willing to give things a few more weeks to shake out and see exactly where this will go.
But I admit I’m finding some of this less than inspiring. And yet it may be the best available in our town.
So pray for us to exercise good discernment, please.
Confessional Lutherans believe that when the words of institution are spoken before the bread and wine, becoming the body and blood of Christ that something happens to them and that something is offered in them when they are received by are the participant. If you partake of them with faith you receive those benefits that believers are entitled to. If you receive them without faith you eat and drink damnation unto yourself. So we, as loving Christians, in good conscience can not let an unbeliever take communion because we would be responsible for their death.
As far as fellowship goes, I believe it is adiaphora. If you asked me I would pray, if for some reason I went to another church, I certainly wouldn’t take communion for the reasons above. I take a hard line on communion now more so because of my past dealing with the reformed (federal vision) than because of Lutheran doctrine.
” Confessional Lutheranism understanding of communion is one thing that separates them from the Reformed.” It is the first thing and goes back as far as the Marburg Colloquy. For Luther it was the ultimate source of comfort, something he could actually put his hands on. To Zwingli it was really nothing more than a testament of his faith and not to be taken literal.
Further differences can be read in the Saxon Articles of Visitation. Thought it wasn’t included in the Book of Concord it is a good summary of the differences between reformed and confessional Lutheran doctrine. You should be able to find a copy of it online.
Dee,
“Two weeks ago, I visited an Missouri Synod church and was told I could take communion there which I did. Are some churches within this group different in how they apply that rule?”
It can vary from church to church especially in the LCMS. When I first went to my current church, ELS, I didn’t push the issue mainly because I wanted to make sure they had it right. I came from an OPC church that was giving communion out to children and others that were in open rebellion to the gospel. Before I gather with others I want to make sure we are on the same page. I don’t want to unify under a banner with unbelievers just for he sake of ecumenicalism.
“They also practice close communion like the land markers.”
If you mean the below statement which can be found here. http://www.gotquestions.org/landmarkism-Baptist-bride.html
“landmark Baptists hold a closed communion; that is, only official members of their own local church are allowed to share in the ordinance of communion. No one, not even a Baptist, can partake of the Lord’s table away from his or her home church.”
Then no, we don’t know of such a communion.
dee wrote:
Be prepared for some reading 😉 There’s a lot of information out there and a lot of strong feelings, not just mine. 🙂
You might consider setting the stage by reading this.
http://theonomists.blogspot.com/
Also, before John Robbins died he tried to combat the FV at his blog http://www.trinityfoundation.org. Check out the archives but look at the time around the turn of the century and prior.
@ Jonathan: I started reading and developed a headache. I honestly had to turn to a readers digest version in Wikipedia. Names I did recognize in the theonomy article. Rushdoony and Gary North I have always associated with Dominion theology. They seem to me have gone out of the orbit of conservative Reformed theology. They took an idea that derived from the Van Till and fleshed it out. The Federal Vision people are doing the same, except their starting point is Meredith Kline. The question I have is how far an idea can be developed before it becomes very different in every way from its progenitor. We see this in the Neocal doctrine of ESS. The emergent church is a different animal from whatever birthed it. I am more of a practical person. Some much of this new theology is overwrought and theotretical and doesn’t carry much meaning for me. So I throw the theories away. I am a baptist, but one of federal Visions emphasis is on children participating in communion. Some may be ready for communion, but most won’t. I remember the story of when I was three years old I blurted out in church, ” can I have sandwiches and juice too?” I don’t think I was ready.
@ Jonathan: Also their view on slavery and civil rights is wrong. TWW old friend Douglas Phillips is a proponent of the federal Vision. Ugh!
@ Mark:
It is a convoluted mess. To be honest with you I quit following it 8 years ago. I’m not well versed in the more modern proponents of the FV.
I never could understand why they had such a fascination with the antebellum south. They always seemed, at least the theonomist, preoccupied with old testament law. But with southern slavery they turned a blind eye to it. It was as if all the mulattos and quadroons just magically appeared and that the old testament law preventing man stealing, which was punishable by death, didn’t exist.
Jonathan wrote:
IMO it goes back to Rushdoony who thought that social hierarchies must be maintained including order among the races and males over females. Federal Vision is the reboot of Reconstructionism. League of the South has some recon/FV members, IIRC.
Mark wrote:
Scott Clark and Michael Horton probably would wince at that. Yeah, this was a fad that started back in the 1970’s along with Gothardism and Shepherding and TV preachers and the wacky wing of charismatics and who knows what else I’ve forgotten by now or never heard about in the first place. It must have been the ambient illicit pharmaceuticals of the 1970’s or something.
Both the Gothardists and the Recon/FV emphasize laws, though IMO the Federal Visionists get their lawkeeping from the OT laws and from their own version of extreme covenant theology. The Gothardists and Shepherding folks came out of non-Reformed fundamentalism and don’t particularly care about covenant vs. non-covenant theology.
It is my opinion that the YRR legalism stems more from Gothardism and a splash of Shepherding (SGM) than Recon/Federal Vision. I don’t see Keller or Duncan who are YRR having any relationship to Federal Vision.
It’s been a long day, so I hope that makes some sense.
@ Gram3:
Gary North also tried to get dominionism spread via TBN, oddly enough, so that hybrid may still be floating around. Doug Wilson is the biggest name promoting Recon/Federal Vision. What is scary is that I’ve heard that churches in the SBC and PCA use his marriage book. So if you are PCA or SBC, you may want to check on that in your church.
@ Gram3:
Wow! I was surprised to see Meredith Kline’s name in the mix. Wikipedia isn’t always right. I always understood he was a gadfly to theonomists. He was also friend to a most unlikely theonomist named Misty Irons, a controversial, nice person, and unfriend of Gary North.
My question is how theological innovation can morph into something very different. Theological innovation is not just the domain of liberals. And is theological innovation always a good thing? Am I becoming conservative in my old age?
Mark wrote:
Let me clarify. I don’t know whether Kline was an influence on FV. I would have to look into that some more. I just think Scott Clark would balk at pinning FV on Kline. There was a lot of ferment at WTS in the 1970’s and part of that was Norm Shepherd and his view of covenant faithfulness or whatever he called it. Van Til and Greg Bahnsen were there at the time, too.
Bahnsen promoted Van Til’s presuppositionalism, and that’s a whole ‘nuther worm can entirely. Rushdoony fused Kuyper with Van Til, as I recall, and North and Bahnsen spread it via writing and speaking. Thence into the homeschool movement which Rushdoony promoted along with other theonomists, not all of whom were Reconstructionsists. Do not ask me to explain the nuances, if there are any.
@ Mark:
Maybe Shepherd took Kline’s work on covenant and ran with it in his own direction. That’s what happened with Gothard at Wheaton. Bad stuff. Grace and Faith, not by Works or “faithfulness.”
Mark wrote:
Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Gary has a lot of unfriends I’ve heard, including Rushdoony. I’m not familiar with Irons, but now I’m curious.
Gram3 wrote:
Misty is controversial because she is nice towards gay people and outspoken about it. Her husband was a pastor in the OPC and former student of Meredith Kline who went through some disciplinary flack during the early 2000’s. I believe he may have changed allegiance to the PCA. As I understand it, a theonomist faction was behind the controversy in the OPC, and Gary North has commented on Misty. Misty Irons is a blogger on the Internet.
@ Gram3:
Controversial Misty Irons.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3oFZsF1LxmU
Gavin White wrote:
Spurgeon is an interesting character – and laid the foundation stone of the Baptist church I used to go to! He also said:
‘Brethren be willing to see both sides of the shield of truth. Rise above the babyhood which cannot believe two doctrines until it sees the connecting link. Have you not two eyes, man? Must you needs put one of them out in order to see clearly? Is it impossible to you to use a spiritual stereoscope, and look at two views of truth until they melt into one, and that one becomes more real and actual because it is made up of two? Man men refuse to see more than one side of a doctrine, and persistently fight against anything which is not on its very surface consistent with their own idea. In the present case I do not find it difficult to believe faith to be at the same time the duty of man and the gift of God; and if others cannot accept the two truths, I am not responsible for their rejection of them; my duty is performed when I have honestly borne witness to them.’
This obsession with cataloguing every detail of the Reformed ‘Movement’ – remember Kevin DeYoung’s detailed chart? – smacks of hubris.
Yet in my opinion, the fact that the Neo-Cals are already documenting and archiving the Movement would imply that it’s day has come and gone. Or is going. I’m hopeful this is the case!
My former pastor worships all things 9Marks, which is why he’s now my “former” pastor. It’s a terrible sickness and I’m sick of it!!
Gram3 wrote:
I’ve tried to see if there was a natural progression from one to the other. Starting with Van Til and ending with the FV but it could be just a case of several heterodox theologies existing at the same time.
Looking back now I think it’s a matter of the reformed chickens coming home to roost. The FV and all of the other junk comes from a starting point of sovereignty versus a starting point beginning at the cross.
@ Gram3:
I had an idea while reading what you said, and I want to bounce the idea off you and/or others a bit.
One of my current favorites (NTW) keeps saying that christianity in large part has missed the central idea of Jesus’ message, and hence of what God is actually doing in the world, when we have missed the idea of the kingdom, as in ‘thy kingdom come.’ What he goes on to discuss as his understanding in this is nothing like what dominionism is saying. I am thinking that perhaps indeed we have missed the real message of the now and coming kingdom and in doing so have created a void which this genetic chimera of dominion theology as been allowed to be born and survive.
And I am thinking about what Jesus said about displaced ‘demons’ coming back with all their friends, and at the same time how that is similar to the idea they kept telling us when I was in the psych residency ‘don’t take something away from a patient unless you give them something to replace what you took,’ and so perhaps one key is that we need to not only drive out the dominionist philosophy but also replace it with a biblical concept of the kingdom.
How say you?
linda wrote:
I will, Linda. I’ve been going through something similar — finally had to leave my church and start looking for a new one. It was terribly hard, but it was also a relief.
Reader–thank you! Yes, we haven’t reached the point of walking away but are just very cautious.
Amazing how hard it is to find a simple free grace church these days!
@ Nancy:
Don’t know much about NTW because I find him difficult to read. He is possibly the one person who needs an editor more than I. But I think that his idea of the Kingdom is worth thinking about. My opinion is that the Recons have taken the idea of Covenant and made that into the unifying concept of everything. That may be where the connection with Kline comes from. That is not the traditional Reformed view of the Covenant of Grace.
So in Recon/FV land, they talk and write a lot about covenant-this and covenant-that in much the same way that the Gospel Glitterati talk about gospel-this and gospel-that. The concept is so overblown that it almost becomes meaningless because it means everything.
Now, the concept of the Kingdom has great appeal to me. As with any concept, we have to be careful about how we define it and also not let one aspect of Kingdom obscure other aspects of the Kingdom such that any one aspect of the Kingdom becomes the Kingdom itself. ISTM that the Kingdom is wherever the King is and wherever the King reigns. Since the Holy Spirit indwells every believer, that means to me that the Kingdom extends to the heart/spirit of every believer. It follows from that that the Kingdom is present wherever believers are gathered as well.
I do not believe the Kingdom is synonymous in any way with the visible church, unlike the Recons/Federal Visionists, however. They define the church as consisting of all who have been baptized. Obviously, I’m a Baptist, so that’s not how it seems to me.
Jonathan wrote:
I think the Federal Visionists got off track by an improper emphasis on the church being the inaugurated Kingdom in the sense of the visible church rather than the invisible church. It is a militant view of Christianity where the influence of the institutional church is spread via visible means including taking over secular spheres and institutions, having lots of covenant children, elevating the importance of the sacraments, hence the emphasis on paedocommunion. They use a lot of war-like imagery and their worship is structured in a militant style. I don’t mean that they intend to take over things militarily at all by that. But they have a radical post-millennial view that entails the church going out to conquer the world for Christ.
ISTM that when anyone takes one thing and makes it the Big Thing then there is the possibility that it will become the Only Thing. In this case, I can’t honestly say that I think their main problem is their view of sovereignty so much as it is their ecclesiology and their eschatology run amok. That may be due to an underemphasis on Christ and the Cross and the Resurrection or on a misunderstanding of what the Cross and Resurrection mean.
Just want to say that it is invalid, IMO, to say that God does not retain his sovereignty just because he may delegate a realm of freedom within which humans and the rest of creation operates. I think that it is false to say that the only way God retains full sovereignty is within a determinist or compatibilist framework. I don’t think it is necessary to make God into an OCPD helicopter parent. He may well be a free-range parent with all that entails. I don’t know.
Nancy wrote:
I agree with this. We tend to worship a “syllabus” Jesus of the creeds and miss the fact he ushered in a new Kingdom on earth here and now. We are to reflect that as the light of the world. Just as the Jews did not do that and were supposed to, we are not doing it either. And we do have the “ability” to do so.
what does He ask? That we be merciful,just, humble, etc.
People tend to go off track with some sort of sinless perfection bent that is unattainable to excuse a whole bunch of really bad stuff done under the guise of Christianity.
We tend to brag about what sinners we are. Why?
Gram3 wrote:
Great way to put it. Now what would that “kingdom” look like? That is where I think we miss it. would it look like Matthew 5 among believers?
Gram3 wrote:
Hee Hee. I know. I have a British friend who can turn a simple sentence into 6 paragraphs…..I recommended CS Lewis to him when we were discussing something and after he read the book he came back with, That man is too verbose! :o)
You might enjoy NTW’s videos or on podcast. He makes very interesting historical connections that are thought provoking.
Lydia wrote:
That’s an interesting question. If every believer is striving to imitate Christ and be conformed to his image, then the Kingdom subjects would begin to manifest more and more of who the King is and what he is like. In their visible communal life, the Kingdom would look more and more like a place that others would want to live and immigrate to spiritually. We are not given a set of rules to follow but an example to follow. Sadly, the question “what would Jesus do” has been bumper-stickered and trivialized. It is actually a good question that each of us should ask ourselves.
Lydia wrote:
I have a middle aged ENFP teacher lady who lives with me who does that. Her brother once remarked that she could turn a phrase into an afternoon. Her worst complaint against me is that I am always saying cut to the chase, I am losing the train of thought in the words.
I would agree about NTW to some degree, but I think the power of Lewis is as much in how he says it as in what he says.
Dallas Willard’s books provide a practical theology of the Kingdom; that is, an easily graspable theology that takes into account both the weakness and the great potential of the flesh. He was Baptist, an egalitarian, and just an all around lovely man. His work was transformative for me back when I was a “recovering Calvinist.”
@ Gram3:
very true
@ Patricia Hanlon:
I have really enjoyed his stuff. I checked him out years back when certain YRR in my midst were saying he is a heretic. Same way I found NTW. :o)
Heretics (and Lutherans) generally write a lot better too. Reformed types are more into beating you over the head with the truth.
Like – I dont think you’ll get a Reformed writer like Capon any time soon.
Ok, I couldn’t resist jumping into this one.
Regarding Federal Vision doctrine, it’s actually a minority thing in the PCA. What the big dustup was about a couple of years ago was when the Standing Judicial Commission failed to find Peter Leithart guilty after the heresy trial and acquittal within the Pacific Northwest presbytery. If Doug Wilson is the biggest name of this movement, Leithart is probably the second biggest. There was much caterwauling on certain reformed blogs in the wake of what many saw as a massive failure of church discipline based on some technicalities that are too complicated for me to go into here. Much of Leithart’s earlier work seemed to call for baptismal regeneration, in addition to possible denials of justification by faith alone, among other things. Many a time, he as well as others in the FV movement have been accused of incipient Roman Catholicism.
Ever since that conference at Auburn Avenue Presbyterian church in 2002 (where the FV movement got kicked off), the FV proponents have published and said a lot of things online that have been challenged as incompatible with various reformed confessions. Said proponents would then claim they had been misunderstood, and their detractors weren’t reading what they had said carefully enough. When challenged to state their positions in plain English so anyone could understand what they were teaching, there commenced the waffling, backtracking, tap dancing, nuancing, and claiming that they were in line with the original intent of certain Reformers, or at least their views were within the bounds of reformed orthodoxy.
Lydia wrote:
Yes, I think so. Let me throw in an idea or two from you-know-who. (And I hope I get this right. But just in case I do not I have not said in writing who I am attempting to reference. What does HUG alway say–deniability or something.) He says the completion of the kingdom is ultimately the future new heavens and new earth. He says that if we limit redemption to going to heaven when we die, though something can be said for that, it misses the larger point that we are redeemed to be those through whom God works in the world as the world itself is being redeemed (through the redeeming of individuals) since God is redeeming the world (and becoming King) through Jesus and *as* Jesus. This has nothing to do with forming our own little holy societies, this is about the greater scheme of things. He sees a great plan beginning at creation and resulting in the final redemption of creation itself with God as eventually being all-in-all. He fits all kinds of biblical things into this larger scheme of accomplishing this. I don’t know how right he is, and I am sure that I do not thoroughly understand what he is saying, but it is what makes the most sense to me, and it shines hope for me in areas where I have had no hope for decades. It starts with in the beginning God and culminates with in the end God and is massively successful on God’s terms. And from beginning to end there is redemption and the growth of the kingdom.
NJ wrote:
Leithart is the thinker, and Wilson is the public face and debater. James Jordan is also a well-known Recon/FV, and he and Leithart go way, way back. FV is definitely a minority view, but there is no way that the FV system is anything like that in the WCF. They use the same words, but the meanings and trajectory are totally different. Leithart got lucky. They now have a thinktank at Trinity House in Birmingham, IIRC.
It is interesting watching various sects over the years that there are specific roles played that can usually be identified. The Gospel Glitterati have Dever and Carson and Grudem as the thinkers, and Mohler and Duncan as the denominational operatives while Keller and Piper are the popularizers. Actually Keller fits in all those categories to some extent. That is probably true of the Emergents, but I haven’t run across them as much.
@ Nancy:
Yes. It changes how we live. Another part of it is….and this is major controversial….how we live here….what we do…will or will not transfer to the redeemed earth. That striving to be like Christ is actually more “human” as human was intended. Being evil is not human.
That is a totally different way to think of it than, oh we sinners sin. No big deal. We are just human.
Why should we continue to allow the fall to define us?. Because any other way to view it has been sold to us as sinless perfection.
I know…not a popular stance!
Jonathan wrote:
Great quote. Thanks for you insight into the FV and Theonomists and Confessional Lutheranism. I would not be offended being closed out from taking communion in a Lutheran church. It is not meant as an offense and I can respect the Confessional Lutheran understanding of communion. I have been closed at in churches before and it didn’t bother me. There have been times I have personally refused communion because my heart was not right with the Lord. Once when I refused communion a relative said I was going to the unmentionable. Confessional Lutheranism has not critic here.
@ Mark:
thanks Mark,
Sometimes I think the reason for closed communion gets lost amid peoples desire to partake in something they know to be of God.
@ lydia:
That is so well said. Evil is not human, and redeeming all things and making all things right (the process of and the eventuality of) is consistent with the intent of the creator in the first place. To say, we are forever helpless before our own evil is incorrect; we have been redeemed from our helplessness and share Christ’s victory and his righteousness in status by declaration and in experience by His power. Weakness is human limitation and we are forever limited but evil does not originate either with God or man–so says the genesis story. The introduction of sin/evil was from the serpent, and note no promise of redemption was extended to the serpent–only to the humans. But the humans were promised, and the promise was and is being fulfilled, so why would people would rather focus on the fact that they themselves did not live up to some idea of super-human perfection which God never required (He knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust.) Maybe they thought they should have been gods, and the failure to achieve that is something they cannot forgive in themselves.
All that we can be is fully human because that is what we were created to be. We have that opportunity through the fully human and fully god, god-man. Humanness is redeemed.
Bridget wrote:
We flocked. We stayed. (Just long enough for our children’s faith to be destroyed.) We left.
Yup. That proves something or other, for certain.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Nick, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated by the neo-calvinists, and I’m still groping my way toward the exit. No, I’ve exited, but I’m still stumbling around in the dark. You know how in total darkness, you get these little flashes of light generated by your brain, that are something like memories of light, rather than actual light itself? You might fumble your way towards what you thought was a source of that light, only to run up against a brick wall… or walk off a ledge.
Anyhow, I am having trouble differentiating between what you quoted from Mark Dever, and what you wrote. Could you elucidate, please? What is the difference between the two?
@ refugee:
Have you told your story here, because I would love to hear about your journey and how you discovered you had been indoctrinated.
Nick can explain his re-write better than I and what he meant, but my take from the perspective of having been in the YRR is that they have made doctrine into everything and the Bible into a doctrine manual that reveals the doctrines which will (supposedly) bring life. But actually, Christianity is a living faith in a living God-Man who is currently working and will continue to do so until he comes again. Nick made a good point once that some tend to focus so much on the Bible Words that we diminish the importance of the Incarnate Word who fulfills the written Word.
Please tell your story. It might help some folks find their way, and telling it may help you have more clarity as well.
@ refugee:
Hmm… how best to answer your question… I think it comes down to this. The bit I quoted from Dever is about the Bible, with a few abstractions about God thrown in. (To be fair to Dever, that was only one quote and he’s written a lot more; I’ve nothing in particular against him.) Whereas what I wrote was about Jesus.
To the Calvinistas, the Bible is God and God is the Bible. Which is jolly convenient, because the Bible can’t talk, right? So they get to pretend they own God because they get to interpret the Bible.
What Dever wrote: God reveals himself in the Bible (a book). Everything else either happened back in the distant past, or will happen some time off in the vague future (we don’t know when). One of the beasts in Revelation is like that (it’s in chapter 17) – it once was, now is not, and will come again. It disturbs me to see how many preachers teach about a God who’s like that. It’s easy to pretend about a God who did amazing things thousands of years before any recording technologies existed, and who one day will come back, but who is conveniently absent at the moment. That kind of God can’t be proved or disproved; and TBH, who the **** cares about a God like that?
What I wrote: God not only reveals himself but is actively on our side as Jesus, a human being like us. No book, not even the Bible, was tempted in all things the same as us, and no book understands what it is to be human. The “humiliation of the cross” was suffered by a person who could, had he chosen, have avoided it. And if he rose from the dead, then he’s with us now, and it can’t be any harder to follow him or understand him than it was for the Jews (or Roman centurions, or Syro-Phoenecian women, etc etc) of 1st-century Judea.
More could be said (as always) but am I getting more, or less, clear at this point?
@ Nick Bulbeck:
More clear. Definitely.
@ Nick Bulbeck:
Excellent!
Gram3 wrote:
Not sure I’d completely agree with your last statement. In the patriarchal homeschooling movement, some of the most legalistic people I knew were in the age category of 15-20 or so. Completely dogmatic and judgmental.
A few of these (of my acquaintance) testified in their mid- or later-20s about “finding the real Jesus” and having a relationship rather than a religion, about having lived a “christianity” within a “christian” family that might more properly be termed “churchianity” perhaps. They said they grew up thinking they were Christians, but they really weren’t.
Rather a larger number more have simply walked away from the church. Some have a kind of faith, certainly different than what they were raised in. Some go to church reluctantly, to keep peace in their families. Some seem to go to church joyfully (not the church they were raised in, but a kinder, gentler body). Some have panic attacks at the thought of church or anything to do with church. Some are angry and bitter, and of those, I know at least two who, to my sorrow, were cast out of their families for “rebelliousness” because they didn’t believe in calvinism or patriarchy anymore.
And I know teens and early-twenties folks who are into works-salvation, whether they are believers or not. They are trying to live a good life, to do good things, to have something to feel good about. I guess it beats turning to sex and drugs. There are different kinds of checklists.
Sorry, hope this doesn’t come off as contentious. At the moment I’m just thinking aloud.
Gram3 wrote:
Hey! I happen to like cauliflower! (It took some getting used to…) I still don’t much like broccoli, but I eat it.
(change “cauliflower” to “liver” or “lima beans” and I’d be in complete agreement with the sentiment)
@ refugee:
My statement was not clear. What I had in mind were the 30-something parents who think their system will make their kids OK. These parents are very sure of their theology, but they have also not experienced the teen years. They seem to think their theology is a magical shield against bad stuff happening to their kids.
Gram3 wrote:
Reality has a way of pantsing Perfect Ideology.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
So they sit the Bible on their lap, insert their hand, and the ventriloquism act begins.
Gram3 wrote:
Just as Marxist doctrines would (supposedly) bring the Perfect True-Communistic Society.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
My earliest claim to fame on the interweb was my statement that Mark Driskle is “adept at using the bible as a sock-puppet that always agrees with him”. He is not, of course, alone.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Well; I say “fame”…
@ refugee:
Pursuing the culinary tangent – have you tried roast broccoli? If not, you should – it’ll be a where-have-you-been-all-my-life? moment.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Though my image of Bible as Vent Figure (NOT ‘dummy’) has this high-impact imagery.
P.S. Never heard of ROAST broccoli — most of the time I use it in soups, stir-fried, or steamed.
Gram3 wrote:
Oh, okay, now I get it.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Roasted vegetables are the bomb. (I think I got that idiom right.)
@ refugee:
Not come across that idiom, but according to the interweb, to be the bomb is a good thing, in which case I agree!
refugee wrote:
Oh, dear goodness, you must be a pure-T hopeless heathen. There does not exist anything better than fried chicken livers engulfed by cooked onions with lima beans and okra on the side. These sell well at the local cafeterias here abouts. Also various cooked greens and corn bread sell well, just to expand the menu a tad.
Gram3 wrote:
Not exactly. I speak for myself but it is closer to Nick’s thinking than some. It is not that the Incarnate Word fulfills the written Word. It is that the Incarnate Word is the Word, and the record of that is the record of that. The written word (no capitals) is inspired as to accuracy insofar as it is inspired and insofar as we understand it, but it has not been granted divinity in any sense. To the extent that Jesus is said to have fulfilled the law and the prophets it means that He was what they were about, not that somehow they contributed to Him but rather that He was the living incarnation of what they could only talk about. That is a way different idea from what I have heard “in church” sometimes.
IMO, NIck is spot on correct in what he says and he has preached this many times. And IMO (and we all know that I am mostly always right just like everybody else) people do not want to deal with the living God, except at a distance and with some supposed mediator, because in my experience one does not come away from such an encounter the same person as before. Written words, even inspired written words, are one thing, not bad but limited. Written words have never mediated for man, but they can inform man and can be used by the Spirit. That is not the same thing. Written words about God, even true words about God, can also be used to hold God himself at a distance, can be seen as a substitute, can be used as “as close as I want to get” to God, and I think this is common among us. I think this idea is preached from a lot of pulpits and practiced by a lot of folks.
Jesus called Himself the way and truth and life. I do not see in scripture where He or any of the apostles contradicted that and declared writings about Jesus, including their own, to be on a par with that.
So let me say, not specifically to you, but just while I have the chance. God is scary. He is not “safe” in the ordinary sense. The power imbalance between Him and us is infinite. There is no equality between Him and us. He does not capitulate to our misconceptions or our self-worship or our cowardice or our whatever. But in Him and Him only there is life and truth and love. The b-i-b-l-e is no substitute for this.
And probably so say lots of us.
Nancy wrote:
This is where I am, but this is practically heretical talk to many people.
@ Nancy:
So good that we got what Nick said sorted out. Seriously, those are some good points. God cannot be tamed by our doctrines and there is no comparison between humans and God. Well said.
@ Gram3:
You are easy to talk to gram3. That is a real gift.
Well, you know, back when I wore bobby sox and saddle oxfords the baptists used to preach something very similar to what I said. They used to have what seemed to me their major focus on such as: I don’t care how many SS attendance pins you have, I don’t care how many bible verses you can quote and I sure don’t care how many seminary degrees you have, until you do business with God himself you are not a christian (or words to that effect.) But then the guys moved in with doctrine uber alles and people got hooked on the new message, that it is all about bible verses and doctrine and they started “forgetting” the rest of it. What people did not see is that it was really about control uber alles. But that was just the baptists.
Some of us (and this include me even when I was a baptist) believe that there are such things as sacraments and that some idea which includes means of grace smacks of truth and that people can “experience” God through the sacraments. That will get you thrown out of the baptists quicker than “tongues”, maybe because the see it as a greater threat?
And some folks (the pentecostals of which I am not one though I am a tad charismo-leaning) think that God can be related to as Holy Spirit in more ways than just through His explaining of scripture and/or convicting of sin (and He can be), and the doctrine people got hyper about that to the point of Johhny Mac’s extremes.
So the sacraments are “hollow ritual” and life with the Spirit is “emotional deception” and personal understanding of or research into scripture is reserved for the leadership, and then what does that leave?
It looks like a pattern to me. Nothing but the b-i-b-l-e for two reasons: first because the leadership can control what people understand about the bible and thus control the people, and second because anything beyond that just might empower the pew sitters to think they don’t require the elders for their very salvation; again about control. That sounds like 180 degrees from what I heard as a kid. And, from my belief position, it seems they have set themselves up in competition with very God himself as to who owns the sheep.
@ Nancy:
If a Baptist says that the sacraments/ordinances are hollow rituals, then they need to take a closer look at both Baptist sacramentology/ecclesiology and also the B-i-b-l-e. It is more likely that a Baptist would call participation in the sacraments by non-believers as hollow because a Baptist distinctive is participation by believers only. But that’s just why Baptists are Baptists.
Others may say that Baptists believe in hollow sacraments because Baptists deny that there is power in the sacraments themselves as things. Baptists believe that the power of the sacraments/ordinances is in the work of the Spirit in the believer’s life as believers observe the ordinances. Again, that’s just Baptists being Baptists.
It sounds like you are in a place now that fits your views better. That’s a good thing, IMO, because you can participate in faith with a good conscience.
Nancy wrote:
Where is “here abouts”?
From the mention of Okra & greens & corn bread, I would suspect somewhere in the Former Confederate States.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
urban north carolina
Gram3 wrote:
It’s been observed before on TWW that a great deal of “theology” is actually “theologian-ology” – the study of different schools of thought, each generation of which is (at least potentially) another layer further removed from God himself. In that kind of culture, discernment is abandoned and replaced with taxonomy. In other words, we don’t bother to learn to hear the Shepherd’s voice, and recognise his work – all we need to do is analyse somebody’s sermons or tweets for phrases we think we recognise, then use those as data to put them in a labelled box.
There is always, also, a risk with doctrinal statements – and with sacraments too – of their becoming artificial images that “represent God” and that therefore, insidiously, replace him. Sometimes when I read around a statement like God reveals himself through the Scriptures or God is present in the Sacrament, I can’t help feeling that Scriptures or Sacrament are a kind of Aladdin’s Lamp, into which God is imprisoned like a genie. Christian groups won’t allow God to do anything outside of their systems of control and, when he does, they curse him and call him demonic or some such. Like Jesus, of course.
Gram3 wrote:
Thinking more about this, after your clarification. (I haven’t told our story anywhere public, and not ready to yet, to answer your question elsewhere, but am still processing. Reading posts, asking questions, and responding to triggers to figure out *why* and *how* is part of that.)
Y’know, that was part of the dangerous draw of our ex-church, part of the reason we stayed so long, I think. The leading families were making it work, to all appearances. They were “doing” courtship. Their older children were marrying and setting up house and having children of their own. Their older boys were acquiring business skills, internships, even (carefully vetted) college degrees for some. They haven’t had any children try to break away. No open rebellion. My kids told me things weren’t so pretty behind the scenes, in the rare glimpses they had of the leaders’ family life. (Remember, we were kept on the fringes, never really accepted, even though we went to that church for more than two decades.) And of course, we did not realize the depth of the cruelty and merciless bullying our children suffered until after we left. (Why, oh why, did the people who witnessed it tell us only *after* we left? I’m still really angry about that.)
Because they appeared to have it all together, it took me a long time to understand that the problem was not that we were “doing it wrong” but that the whole foundation was rotten.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Would you mind expanding (or do I mean elucidating?) on that? I have a few thoughts on that topic, but would like to hear your thoughts.
refugee wrote:
(I meant the distinction between attitudes towards the creative and performing arts, in case that comment above, with its nested quotes, wasn’t clear.)
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
God reveals himself through creation, but I don’t worship the creation. God reveals himself through the scriptures, but I don’t worship the scriptures. It is the person being revealed that counts.
There was a little bit of ouch! saying dcctrine can replace God, but I actually agree with you. There is a lovely sentence in the prophecy of the new covenant which reads And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, `Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD. The classic evangelicals have subtely changed know the Lord to know about the Lord. Notwithstanding imperfect knowledge in this life, surely in some sense God can be experienced? The bible should not become a substitute for this.
This ‘knowing God’ is not reserved for the great: its for the least as well, which must I suppose include little old us!
linda wrote:
I would have only one quibble with the above: that church membership is for the purpose of furthering the evangelization of the world. I honestly don’t understand the need for formal membership in a particular physical body. I really don’t see a connection between evangelism and church membership. Please explain.
Gram3 wrote:
I suspect this is rather an accurate description of our ex-church.
dee wrote:
I haven’t read all the way to the end of the comments, so this might already have been answered. I think the answer is “Federal Vision.” But I thought the PCA dissed that particular doctrine. I could be wrong.
linda wrote:
Hoo, Nelly. You got it. That’s a very bad sign,IMO. Sounds very familiar.
Gram3 wrote:
It’s true. Doug Wilson was heavily promoted in our PCA church.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Did I neglect to thank you for your clarification? If so, belated thanks.
Nancy wrote:
Yikes. Definitely an alien culture, to my tastebuds’ way of thinking. Tried okra once. “Once” being the operative word.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Great way of putting that phenomenon. And some of us are more disposed to do one rather than the other while thinking we are doing nothing of the kind.
Ken wrote:
I love this, and what a great point to highlight.
refugee wrote:
The PCA has made numerous attempts to bring Federal Visionists under discipline, but so far it has not happened. I have an opinion about why that is the case, but I don’t really have inside knowledge to verify my opinion. There are Federal Visionists who are most dangerous to the church at large–Peter Leithart and Doug Wilson–and there are the ones who are most dangerous to the PCA. I would put Jeffrey Meyers in that category. It has to be kept in mind at all times that these men have a very long time horizon and are patient but persistent and, above all, very clever.
@ Gram3:
I followed what happened in the PCA while I was in the OPC. The straw that broke the camels back for me was when the General Assembly voted to shelve the report on the Federal Vision. I felt that the OPC was playing right into the hands of the FV. What they wanted was time and the OPC gave it to them.
The Presbyterians are victims of their own doing. It takes forever to get anything done at the General Assembly level and the FV guys appeal everything to the GA, which in the end gives them time to promote their heresy. It’s like Gram said, they’re very smart, they’re very patient, and they’re very persistent.
@ Jonathan:
I think the Presbyterian pewpeons are victims of their leaders just like SBC pewpeons are victims of their leaders. Leaders who care more about their own power and position are willing to turn a blind eye to things they should be addressing. The most politically astute or ruthless take advantage of organizational structures and procedures to advance their agendas. Take a look at Covenant Seminary and see if you see something happening there that is similar to what happened at SBTS.
@ Gram3:
I believe you are right Gram and it’s why I left several years ago. If the elders didn’t want to protect my family from men in open rebellion to God’s word then I had to do it. After I did it I realized it was my job to do just that in the first place.
Pizza’s here, chat you later.
__
” Thunderstruck Calvinestas + KoolAid + ACDC = Hell bound Religion?”
hmmm…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQsoO46ufew
God said He wants all men ta be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth…
huh?
John Calvin said God only wants some ta be saved.
What?
Satan apparently wanted none to be saved.
(bump)
So they (Satan & JohnnyC) compromised and agree’d few are to be saved…
Satan: “JohnnyC, I’ll flip ya for Sopy…”
**
(grin)
hahahahahahaha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Ao-iNPPUc
;~)
—
Jonathan wrote:
Just like Al Mohler who has his minions now running almost all SBC entities
Jonathan wrote:
Wasn’t the same thing said about the Communists during the Cold War?
New reader and commenter – love this blog/website!
I’m reformed, but not a calvinista. I think there is an important distinction between reformed theology and baptists who are also calvinists. Baptists are not reformed. I remember being annoyed when the CT article came out years ago because they were talking about baptists who were calvinists, not true reformed believers, and called them reformed. Reformed theology believes in infant baptism, the opposite of the baptist faith! Reformed theology is also covenant theology whereas most baptists are dispensationalist. IME, the calvinistas are typically from the baptist calvinist camps, not the presbyterian or reformed church camps. Not that calvinistas don’t also exist in those churches, but I find it to be more rare.
Has anyone checked out ECO? I’m very interested in that movement. It was started by those who are more conservative theologically in the PCUSA, but not anti-women in leadership like the PCA. I also like the EPC but the closest church to me is over 30 miles away. We’ve ended up at an Anglican Mission church.
@ Robin:
Welcome Robin
We are aware that Baptists espouse a different theology than traditional Reformed believers. However, there are a number of traditionally Reformed people who are hanging around with the Baptist *Reformed* folks. That is how we came to mash them into one big group.
I have received calls from some Reformed professors in traditionally Reformed seminaries who dislike being identified with these groups. One professor told me that his fellow theologians are embarrassed by some of the pronouncements from John Piper and Doug Wilson.
Also, you may be aware that some of the Reformed Baptists are no longer supporting dispensational theology. I have friends who are members of an EPC church in another state and love it, I am familiar with the ECO but have not yet heard from anyone who is a member of that group.
I have fellowshipped with Reformed people all of my life in various nondenominational churches. Until the YRR/TGC crowd came into existence, I never had any difficulties in the give and take within a diverse groups o believers. Now, it appears that I am to consider myself *lucky* if a Calvinista might consider that I am barely a Christian.
I have had some good experiences with Anglican mission churches although one, in particular, decided that we could not be members because our SBC pastor was miffed off that we, and others, confronted them (Baptist church) about a mishandled pedophile situation. However, I think that is the code of pastors. They believe each other as opposed to considering that the sheep might have something to say.
Thank you for your kind comments. I am sure that we would have wonderful debates and conversation if we were in the same church!
@ dee:
Dee – thank you for the welcome! As I was reading more on the blog, I read about the distinction between neo-puritans and neo-calvinists from last Spring during the TT/TGC controversy. I definitely see the case that the calvinistas fall more into the neo-puritan camp. I tend to be more Kuyperian in theology. I used to be a member at a CRC (though I’m not Dutch) and still miss the denomination (and at times, my former local church). Definitely not perfect and way too Dutchy at times, but the denomination seemed to focus on grace, and I appreciated that.