Some Light Reading Before Bedtime

Yes, that really is a picture of my current night stand (click the picture for a larger version). I realized that a good portion of the library in my office has been migrating to my bedroom over the last few weeks. Is this an indication that I am undergoing a time of deep and intensive study, so as to prompt Festus to declare that my great learning is driving me mad? Unfortunately, no.

The reality is that my reading has been sorta schitzophrenic lately, and I've just been reading small portions of various books as I've tackled different issues of late. Some of those books I've already read, and some I am currently reading but have no plans to read in their entirety (like that thick Turretin book). However, I do plan on reading Dr. Clark's FV book and Venema NPP book all the way through. Anyway, I've been jumping back and forth between books in 'research mode' on a variety of disparate topics, skipping around trying to find relevant treatments. My office library has just over 230 volumes (in the theology section), and I've been gradually plucking them off the bookshelves and curling up with them in bed, only to fall asleep leaving each one on my night stand. Over the past weeks, I haven't bothered to put them back and they just keep piling up. Eventually, they stacked up high enough that it took some effort for me to keep the pile from teetering off to one side, and I thought I should snap a picture of what is essentially a monument to my laziness.

The 'odd man out' in the bunch is the Dr. Laura book. Hey, why not? She's got some really wise things to say for a non-Christian. She's got us guys pegged pretty good, and she has no time for feminism or PC psychobabble, so it gets the rare and coveted common grace thumbs up from me. I'm sure I'll re-gift it as a present for my future wife.

Notice that Peter Leithart's book is precariously in direct contact with Dr. Clark's anti-Federal Vision book. I actually thought I saw Dr. Clark's book levitating, mysteriously, a few centimeters above Leithart's in the middle of the night due to the repulsive theological/magnetic forces contained in the respective volumes.

Also notice that there are 3 versions of the ESV in the stack. So, yes, the votes are in. The ESV has my official seal of approval as Bible of choice. No offense intended to my beloved NASBs.

Now for something completely different....

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The Something That You Really Should Listen To Award, an award that I made up just now, goes to Kim Riddlebarger for his recent series on Francis Schaeffer. For those who don't know, he is a URC pastor at one of our sister churches, and also co-hosts the White Horse Inn radio program. He has been giving an overview of his apologetics at the Christ Reformed Academy in Anaheim, which I have been attending when I can, although he has kindly been making the audio available here.

The best stuff he has had to say actually isn't on Schaeffer himself, but rather on Schaeffer's sources. His discussions of Cornelius VanTil, Old Princeton (especially Charles Hodge and B.B. Warfield), and the wars between "traditional" and presuppositional apologetics have been very enlightening. These are worth listening to from beginning to end if you have any interest in apologetics at all. His insights are keen, and he has some very balanced criticisms. He has even put himself in the unpopular place of saying some kind things about Scottish Common Sense. Scandalous!

I knew Dr. Riddlebarger was a good theologian, but I didn't know he knew his way around philosophy and apologetics so well. Turns out that the chap did his doctoral dissertation on B.B. Warfield's apologetics. Oh. That probably explains it.

Category: Blogging Ourselves

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Federal Vision and Petulant Papists

The blogosphere has, of late, been scandalized by the apostacy of a supposed Calvinist fellow (a.k.a. "Paleocrat") to Rome. Paleocrat announced that he was "swimming the Tiber" on his Xanga blog, and the Puritanboard picked up on it in this thread. There, one of Paleocrat's friends commented:

His flip flopping on issues started a few months after we met...just after I helped guide him back to paedobaptism. From there he went FV, and then I told him perhaps it would have been better to be a Baptist again, that God was protecting him from further errors there. After that, everything was up for grabs.

Scott Clark commented on Paleocrat's self-professed Federal Vision sympathies and it's logical connection to his conversion to Romanism. He is right about this, but there is a bit more to the story.

I clicked over to Paleocrat's (former) church's web site. Notice anything strange? This church was not a confessionally Reformed or Presbyterian church. Not even close. It is a Church of God member, a Pentacostal denomination. Although this particular church is an um...interesting hybrid. It lists theonomy, presuppositionalism (although it's definition of it is fideistic), "victorious exchatology", and dominionism as their distinctives. Oy veh!

Reading Van Til and Bahnsen is all well and good, but clearly there were a lot of conflicting strains of theology at work in and around Paleocrat. Being confessionally Reformed grants us a stability, along with coherence and consistency, in our theological convictions, as opposed to merely having an unstable hodge-podge of beliefs that happens to include presuppositional apologetics and TULIP.

James Swan commented (in the Puritanboard thread), regarding Paleocrat's reasoning for the authority of Rome:

I have to wonder if he ever did the basic-presuppositional 101 test of applying the same question to the person asking it. Typically, Roman apologists can't answer their own questions. They can't give a coherent response when the same question is asked of them.

Indeed, I think this is another chapter in what Dr. Clark would call the Quest for Illegitimate Certainty. Essentially: gosh, there are a lot of hard questions and issues in life and in the Bible for me to get a grasp on, so I will turn to X system to answer those questions for me and provide 'certainty.' The promise of epistemological certainty come through various means in different claims, but the core promise is the same. Rome claims infallible authority in it's teaching, so I don't have to depent on my own fallible interpretations of Scripture.

Of course, this fallacy is exposed when you consider that Rome's teachings also must be interpreted by us fallible interpreters. You haven't improved the epistemic situation by putting the question one step back, and swapping out the object of our interpretation for another source. Eric Svendsen's book On This Slippery Rock covers this, and other, epistemological fallacies that Roman apologists routinely use.

Be sure also to read James Swan's article here, and Steve Hay's here.

On a more biographical side of this issue, I had this to say on the Puritanboard:

A few things go through my mind when I hear about this:

1. I hope that his pastor and session will excommunicate this newly-minted Roman convert swiftly if he does not heed their admonition to repent.

2. There but by the grace of God go we. Amen and amen.

3. I cringe to think of his wife and new child being discipled in a false church unto their spiritual destruction.

4. I hope that the wife I marry in the future will have the Scriptural fortitude and moral integrity to exercise godly and firm disobedience of my spiritual 'leadership' if I were to ever apostatize; and pray for me without ceasing, rebuke me, and continue to attend a true church without me. I hope that the powers of my emotional and intellectual persuasion would have their limits at such a point, and not drag her into such foolishness.

I'll also take some time to quickly note some breaking Federal Vision News.

First, the good news is that Lane Keister's presbytery drafted and approved this anti-Federal Vision and anti-New Perspective document. It is short, sweet, and oh-so-delicious. If you don't read it, you are just plain silly.

Second, the bad news is that Steve Wilkins' presbytery exhonerated him again. Now the PCA's Standing Judicial Commission will review LA Presbytery's decision. A few thoughts:

A. I'm trying to find another source to confirm this, but someone on the Puritanboard testified that the vote was 13-8. If this is true, then it is telling. If 38% of your presbytery thinks that there is a strong presumption of guilt on matters like this, there is something terribly wrong. I would be utterly embarrassed to attend a church under such a pastor. There is at least some plausible reason for this happening to someone like Wilkins, and why it would be absolutely laughable if someone were to accuse anyone in my URC classis (Classis Southwest) of not teaching the Reformed doctrine of salvation with 100% crystal clarity.

B. Even if the vote was unanimous, this only raises the bigger question of whether or not the LA Presbytery is worthy of censure from the broader PCA not simply for failing to discipline Wilkins, as a failure or duty or perhaps incompetence, but rather because the whole presbytery has been infected by Wilkin's errors. We have already seen the inter-presbytery problems that this failure to be of one mind has caused when Rich Lusk's transfer was denied when he tried to transfer out of Louisianna to a sister presbytery. (He then jumped ship to the CREC). That sort of situation cannot be resolved until the lines are drawn in the sand at the General Assembly level.

Theoblogia

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The Gospel According to Johnny Cash

As a crotchety musician I don't have much use for the new-fangled music the kids are listening to today. As a child of the 1990's, I lost interest in the new music playing on the radio after the Smashing Pumpkins broke up in 2000 (sniff, sniff). The good ole days. Anywho, as the rancidification of the radio airwaves got progressively worse, we were forced to go backwards in time to listen to the good stuff from before our time.

Any musician who is serious about knowing the history of the rock and roll he is playing is going to run into Johnny cash. A track he recorded was released posthumously just a few months ago, called God's Gonna Cut You Down, and it even saw some rotation on radio and MTV. It is a traditional folk song, so it is not Cash's song. But it is quite good (see the video here).

As an aside, I note that the video is very odd. It is full of wide mix of celebrities, all of whom, with the exception of Bono, are fairly open pagans and God-haters - the very ones that God is 'gonna cut down.' Are these people even listening to what Johnny's saying here??!!

Here are the lyrics:

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

Well my goodness gracious let me tell you the news
My head's been wet with the midnight dew
I've been down on bended knee talkin' to the man from Galilee
He spoke to me in the voice so sweet
I thought I heard the shuffle of the angel's feet
He called my name and my heart stood still
When he said, "John go do My will!"

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What's down in the dark will be brought to the light

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down


Now the question is this: is the Gospel in there? I'd say, yes, the Gospel is in there, but it is not the Gospel. The song talks about God's judgment of sinners, and alludes to Cash's own repentance. But, strictly speaking, this is only Law. It tells us about our obligations (Law), but not about what Jesus has done for us (Gospel). There is the 'do this...' of the Law, but the 'it has been done [by Christ]' of the Gospel is not explicit. You can argue, rightfully, that a Christian can understand the lyrics in the proper sense, where the 'man from Galilee' is the one who bears our sins and gives us eternal life and, on this basis, calls us to repentance. But this requires some background knowledge of the Gospel that is not explicit in the lyrics. Fine - this isn't supposed to be a Gospel tract we hand out to unbelievers, I take it.

In conclusion, I think Johnny's right on this one. Christians should sing it remembering that we - every one of us - are long-tongued liars, backbiters, and worse who needed, and continue to need, God's grace.

Category: Theoblogia

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More Thoughts on the Federal Vision Train Wreck

You may have noticed that Westminster Seminary California has released a book critical of the Federal Vision and New Perspective on Paul, edited by R. Scott Clark. The book, Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry came out, officially, just last week.

Curiously, on the 8th - that's Monday - of this week Andrew Sandlin's organization, the Center for Cultural Leadership, announced that they would be publishing a book, edited by Sandlin, in response to the Westminster West's book, tentatively called A Faith That Is Never Alone: A Response to the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California. The contributors to this response include John Armstrong, John Frame, Don Garlington, Mark Horne, Sandlin himself, and Norman Shepherd. This is curious, because I'm not sure how and why you would plan on writing a book and announce it to the world when the book you are responding to was released only days ago. As a matter of fact, I just got my copy in the mail today.

This is desperation, and a transparently knee-jerk reaction on the part of the Federal Visionists. The Federal Vision has been in hot water lately in various ecclesiastical forums, so I suppose they have to kick out something -anything- to throw a wet blanket on the influential H-Bomb that Dr. Clark's book promises to be in Reformed circles. 'Clark & Company must be wrong, so we're going to prove it to everyone (as soon as we know what they actually wrote, anyway).'

Now, I suppose it is possible that Sandlin and his contributors all got their copies of Clark's book ahead of me, had time to read the thing, and formulate initial objections to the arguments contained therein, which would justify throwing together a response book (or, rather, announcing the intention to) so quickly. But, barring the authors having access to early copies of Clark's book, I highly doubt it.

Also, notice the strange title of their book - A Faith That Is Never Alone. Now, most polemical books usually contain titles or subtitles that actually give you an idea of the primary thesis of a book or lets you know what idea is being opposed in the book; the pivotal issue of antithesis and disagreement. But if all the Federal Vision was saying is that "faith is never alone", well, we wouldn't be having this debate at all. Certainly, the critics of the Federal Vision do not imply anything other than that we are saved by a faith that is never alone. So this misrepresents the issue from the get-go. It will either end up shooting at straw men or else ignore the real point of controversy.

For all of this, I have lost a few notches of respect for all of the contributors to this childishly reactionary project. Although, to be honest, only John Frame was "in the black" in my book to begin with. If he thinks that his multi-perspectival theology can be waved over the Federal Vision like a magic wand to make it OK, he is wrong.

Ligon Duncan comments:

Kind of reminds one of the good ole days when Gary North was cranking out "responses" to Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia volumes!

[UPDATE] - Dr. Clark linked to this post, and Robin helpfully reminds us of a pertinent admonition from Scripture in Clark's combox:

Proverbs 18:12-13

Before destruction a man's heart is haughty,
but humility comes before honor.
If one gives an answer before he hears,
it is his folly and shame.

Also, for updates and critiques of the Federal Vision controversy, especially as Wilkins' presbytery will be reporting to the Standing Judicial Commission later this month, be sure to keep stopping by Green Baggin's (Lane Keister, a PCA minister) blog. He is at the forefront in the blogosphere, in my opinion, in handing out confessional and scripture-rich spankings to all manner of FV wonkiness and Tom Foolery.



Category: Theoblogia

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