The Saved and the Unsaved

Here is Wade Burleson with an intriguing piece (posted on 13 February) entitled "Getting the Saved Unsaved So They Can Be Saved Again".

Tiresome Trendies

Once upon a time there was a conference attended by trendies, at which representatives of the great religions had a chance to speak about their beliefs.

First the Buddhist talked of the ways to calm, the mastery of desire, the path of enlightenment, and the trendies all said "Wow, terrific, if that works for you that's great". Then the Hindu talked of the cycles of suffering and birth and rebirth, the teachings of Krishna and the way to release, and they all said "Wow, terrific, if that works for you that's great".

And so on, until the evangelical Christian talked of the message of Jesus Christ, the atonement and the way to eternal life, and the trendies all said "Wow, terrific, if that works for you that's great". And he thumped the table and said: "No! It’s not a question of 'if it works for me'! It's the true Word of the living God, and if you don't believe the gospel you will be subject to divine judgement!"

And they all said: "Wow, terrific, if that works for you that's great"...

[Adapted from a piece by Simon Blackburn]

Whatever...

Dan from the Apologetic Junkie blog:

"Armed with a master's degree in apologetics, I felt like I could conquer the world. Bring on the most ardent atheist and I'd be ready. My training prepared me to launch informed arguments and counter the toughest objections. To my surprise, the biggest challenger however wasn't the outspoken critic but the one who spoke the least - the passive skeptic who just didn't care. I quickly learned that the word no passionate apologist wants to hear is 'Whatever'..."

Classic.

This sort of apathy is probably related to a combination of vulgar postmodernism and too many electronic toys. And the fact that the passive skeptic probably last read a book five years ago.

The Intolerance of Tolerance

D.A. Carson, in his book The Intolerance of Tolerance (2012), makes the point that the notion of tolerance has changed for the worse...

The older notion of tolerance encouraged you to accept the fact or existence of different views, but you were not discouraged from opposing other peoples' views and you were certainly not asked to "respect" the various views (whatever that might mean). The more recent notions of tolerance make it clear that you have a sort of civic-minded duty to "respect" not only the people who hold the different views but (somehow!) the views themselves.

The newer conceptions of tolerance, with their prissy focus on "community cohesion" and related values, can (ironically) be remarkably intolerant, especially to those who hold conservative beliefs of one sort or another.

The bottom line here is that there is a significant difference between:

(a) The legitimate right of people to hold certain beliefs and values, without being persecuted, silenced, interfered with, or personally insulted.

(b) The bogus "right" (which exists only in the world of political correctness) of people not to be offended by the airing of contrary views.

Be ever vigilant that the entirely reasonable mandate "Be courteous to people who hold views that are different from your own, and discuss their views with courtesy" does not quietly mutate into the different (and more insidious) mandate: "Have the courtesy not to imply that there is anything invalid or untrue or unworthy or socially problematic about the different views that people do hold, especially their religious and political views".

Evangelical Christians are often accused of being "intolerant" because they hold exclusivist views in areas like Christology and soteriology. Exclusivism does sometimes go hand in hand with intolerance, but the former does not automatically entail the latter.

Remembering John Hick (1922-2012)

John Hick, the philosopher of religion and theologian, died on 9 February 2012. He was a theological pluralist who believed that the great living religions, despite their doctrinal and cultural differences, are each experientially in touch with the ineffable divine Ultimate. The article on Hick in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a quote about this from Hick's Autobiography (page 160):

"As I spent time in mosques, synagogues, gurudwaras and temples as well as churches something very important dawned on me. On the one hand all the externals were different... And not only the externals, but also the languages, the concepts, the scriptures, the traditions are all different and distinctive. But at a deeper level it seemed evident to me that essentially the same thing was going on in all these different places of worship, namely men and women were coming together under the auspices of some ancient, highly developed tradition which enables them to open their minds and hearts 'upwards' toward a higher divine reality which makes a claim on the living of their lives."

Hick edited the significantly controversial book The Myth of God Incarnate, which was published in 1977. Apart from Frances Young, who you would not expect to contribute to such a book, the book's authors were the usual familiar culprits: Maurice Wiles, Leslie Houlden, Don Cupitt, John Hick, Dennis Nineham, and Michael Goulder. (It is interesting that Wiles, Hick and Nineham all had evangelical Christian backgrounds in their younger days.)

John Frame versus Westminster West

On 7 February, Robert Godfrey wrote a blog post entitled "Westminster Seminary California Faculty Response to John Frame". Godfrey's post is clearly unhappy at John Frame's criticisms of certain people at Westminster Seminary California (aka "Westminster West" or "WSC" or "Escondido").

Godfrey's post begins like this:

"All of us on the faculty of Westminster Seminary California are shocked and saddened by John Frame's book, The Escondido Theology. Several of us were colleagues with John and several had been his students. We have appreciated particularly over the years his teaching of the apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, his critique of open theism, and his strong defense of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy... We are very troubled, then, to find John so utterly misrepresenting and misstating our views. We do not wish to engage in a protracted discussion of these things with John, but we do find it necessary to set the record straight.

Perhaps the simplest way to do that is to refer to the thirty-two bullet points with which John has summarized our views at the beginning of the book (pp. xxxvii-xxxix). He introduces these bullet points by claiming: 'Below are some assertions typical of, and widely accepted among, Escondido theologians. Not all of them make all of these assertions, but all of them regard them with some sympathy' (p,xxxvii). In response all of us on the WSC faculty wish to state clearly that we reject all of these thirty-two points as a fair or accurate presentation of our views."

According to Godfrey, then, Frame is wrong and/or deluded and his book is fundamentally misguided. Frame has allegedly accused various well-known Christian seminarians of sundry imaginary things...

I find this situation mystifying and somewhat bizarre. John Frame may have become a bit slow in his old age, but he has always written clearly and well, and he is nobody's fool. I have read many articles by him ("Machen's Warrior Children", his numerous discussions of Van Til, and his analyses of perspectivalism, presuppositionalism, theonomy, the Reformed faith, the Amsterdam philosophy, and the implications of "biblicism"). Frame's ideas are always worth reading, as are his book reviews (especially his reviews of books by Michael Horton, Scott Clark and David VanDrunen, all of whom are currently on the resident faculty at WSC).

Many people on the Web have pointed out certain distinctive or unusual approaches at Westminster West. A post on the "Reformed Apologist" blog said (on 8 March 2011):

"I have thought for quite some time that Westminster Seminary California (WSC) is not only theologically incorrect on many issues, but often historically mistaken as well. WSC is wrong on Natural Law; wrong on Two Kingdom theology; wrong on the Covenant of Works; wrong on Redemptive Historical preaching; wrong on Molinism; wrong on Law-Gospel; wrong on John Frame - yet had they got Frame right, they probably would not be so wrong on so many things."

Please don't misunderstand me: I am not saying that Frame's criticisms of WSC have all hit the mark; I simply find it hard to believe that Frame, who was on the faculty at WSC for twenty years, has got things so badly wrong that every single one of his complaints represent (in Godfrey's judgement) an unfair and inaccurate account of the views of people at WSC.

P.S. John Frame is currently on the resident faculty at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida. The full title of his latest book is: The Escondido Theology: a Reformed Response to Two Kingdom Theology.

FIRST UPDATE: On 10 February, Michael Horton (at The White Horse Inn Blog) posted a response to Frame's book. Near the end of his response, Horton says: "All that I ask is that those who disagree with my arguments in fact disagree with my arguments, not with John Frame's description of them. Do not assume that if you've read The Escondido Theology you actually have any grasp of what I or any of us teach at Westminster Seminary California."

SECOND UPDATE: On 21 February, Andrew Dionne observed that Frame's book gives a convenient nine point summary of the 32 bullet points referred to above.

The Elephant Room 2

Mike Riccardi (at Cripplegate) discusses the news, irritations and outrages surrounding The Elephant Room 2.

My favorite item was Chris Rosebrough being threatened with arrest for the crime of wanting to attend the ER2 conversations...

[Thanks to Glenn at "The Watchman's Bagpipes" for the tip]

Remembering Francis Schaeffer

This year is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984). Like many others, I remember the first time I read Schaeffer's Escape from Reason; its approach and its impact were so different from the Christian books that I had previously encountered.

Schaeffer confirmed that his essential trilogy of books is The God Who Is There (1968), Escape from Reason (1968), and He Is There and He Is Not Silent (1972). In the Appendix to Genesis in Space and Time, Schaeffer said that these three books "make a unified base; without them, the various applications in the other books are really suspended in space... On the base of these three books, all the other books which have come or will come depend."

Here are some reflections on Francis Schaeffer and his legacy by James Packer and by Don Sweeting.

Barry Hankins once said that there were three distinct periods in Schaeffer's ministry: during the 1930s and 1940s, he was an American Fundamentalist separatist; during the 1950s and 1960s, he was a European Evangelical apologist; and finally during the 1970s and 1980s, he returned to America as a conservative Christian activist.

Here is a brief Schaeffer chronology between 1935 and 1947:

1935-1936: The young Francis Schaeffer studies at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia under J. Gresham Machen and Cornelius Van Til.

1936 (June): The Presbyterian Church of America is founded by Machen and others (this group includes Schaeffer).

1937: Carl McIntire and a group of Christians (including Schaeffer) break away from Machen's Presbyterian Church of America and form the Bible Presbyterian Church (this new church was fundamentalist, separatist, Calvinist and premillennial in character). About this time, Schaeffer becomes a student at Faith Seminary.

1938: Schaeffer is ordained in the Bible Presbyterian Church. (Beginning in the late 1930s, Schaeffer was a BPC pastor in three different churches. It was only in 1956 that Schaeffer left the BPC.)

1939 (February): Machen's church (the Presbyterian Church of America) is renamed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

1942: Schaeffer writes a paper which includes these words: "Let no one of us forget that our Separatist position is not an arbitrary thing; it is doctrinal. If one should ask for a single word that would show our stand against the evils of this day, the word would be Separatist; and it should be, for we are Separatists."

1947: McIntire's Foreign Missions Board sends Schaeffer to Switzerland.

Note: In Schaeffer's well-known books (written between 1968 and 1984) and in the accounts of his life written by his wife Edith, there is no mention of Schaeffer's early fundamentalist separatism and his association with Carl McIntire.