Category: Theology

Classic Arm Chair Theology at its best (or should that read worst?)

The 2011 Gospel Coalition National Conference: See You There!

~ Bob Hayton ~ 5 Comments

Over the years, I’ve blogged about quite a few conferences, from the sidelines. I eagerly downloaded the audio after the fact and helped spread the word about conferences such as Together for the Gospel Conference, The Gospel Coalition and others. This time, I get to go!

If you’ll be at The Gospel Coalition conference next week, I want to know. I’d love to arrange to meet you in person. The theme of this year’s conference is right up my alley: Preaching Christ in the Old Testament. Already, TGC is compiling a stellar listing of top-notch resources on this issue. You can learn more at their Preaching Christ in the Old Testament page.

I’ll try to bring some “live blog” updates if I have time. But I plan to be soaking up the ministry of the word at the conference. I’m also thrilled to be going with my fellow biblioblogger Shaun Tabatt, and we’ll both be attending the Band of Bloggers event Tuesday night.

Use the Contact page here, or message me on Twitter or Facebook to get in touch. Hope to see you there!

On another note, I’ll be meeting Phil Johnson in person the Sunday before TGC here at my church in St. Paul, Beacon of Hope. I’ve been following Phil’s blogging ministry off and on since his solo Pyromaniac days. He was a big help to me early on when I first started blogging about my journey out of extreme fundamentalism. Phil is in town for the Psalm 119 conference and will speak at our church in the services and for a special Q & A, dinner event following. If you live in the Twin Cities, contact me for more info.

Dave Doran on Why the Label “Fundamentalist” Doesn’t Work Anymore

~ Bob Hayton ~ 9 Comments

Dave Doran has posted some reflections on where we are after the Advancing the Church conference, with respect to fundamentalism and conservative evangelicals (or at least where he is coming from). Of course separation and fellowship are the twin concerns for today’s fundamentalists: just how much fellowship can we permit with conservative evangelicals who don’t proudly wear the label “Fundamentalist”? Now that Kevin Bauder has clarified his current stance and hesitations over extending full fellowship to someone like Mark Dever, perhaps Doran sees the need to clarify some statements of his own. In any case, the last few posts on Doran’s blog have been meaty and traced the development of his thinking on these questions over the last 20 years or more.

In yesterday’s post, Doran discussed fences, shibboleths, fundamentalism, non-fundamentalist separatists, and more. His conclusion is worth posting here in full, but I encourage you to read his whole post (or better yet scroll down from here and read the last several “reflections” posts). I’m glad Doran continues to explain his take on things as the questions he’s exploring need to be hammered out by fundamentalists, and have needed to be for several years (or more).

…I am not advocating extending Christian fellowship to those who have denied the faith. I am not advocating toleration of those who do it. Just the opposite, in fact. I am advocating that these very specific questions be the ones that govern our decision making. Those questions are the baseline for fellowship and cooperation. A lot more matters to me than these, but anything other than the right answers here prevents it. The circle of people that can answer these questions satisfactorily is not limited to self-professing fundamentalists. IOW, there are separatists who don’t claim to be fundamentalists. My fellowship is limited to those self-professing fundamentalists who are genuine separatists and also other genuine separatists even if they don’t call themselves fundamentalists.

That last sentence prompts the real question of the hour””will the self-professing fundamentalists build a fence that excludes people who won’t limit their fellowship to only those who claim the label of fundamentalism? Is that label so tied to the essence of the biblical position that to not wear it means you fall on the wrong side of the fence? If so, is that a fence that can be defended biblically and practically?

I agree almost entirely here. I still consider myself a fundamentalist in many respects, but I’m not in a church which considers itself part of the fundamentalist movement. Yet the concern for doctrinal purity and biblical living is equal to or more than what I have found in many fundamentalist churches. I’m interested to hear your take on this, too. Do you agree or disagree with Doran? I’m all ears.

Doug Wilson on Pessimistic Assumptions & the Piper/Warren Controversy

~ Bob Hayton ~ 23 Comments

Following up on my post from this weekend, I stumbled across this jewel of a video clip with Doug Wilson discussing the Rick Warren / John Piper controversy. He makes some insightful comments about how pessimism plays a role in the conservative church today when we assess situations such as Piper and Warren getting together to talk. We assume that something bad is going to happen, rather than looking for a positive outcome. I think Wilson is on to something here, even if I don’t totally buy into his eschatology. Listen to the clip below and let me know what you think.

Rick Warren and Desiring God 2010 (Part III) from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Be Careful about Bearing False Witness: John Piper, Rick Warren and Over-the-top Reactions

~ Bob Hayton ~ 20 Comments

John Piper’s ministry, Desiring God, will be holding a regional conference at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California April 29-30. Pastor Piper will also be speaking, apparently, at Saddleback Church on Sunday May 1.

Now, Rick Warren’s ministry raises some question marks for sure. Should the church be focusing on poverty and world peace so closely as an extension of ministry? Do some of Warren’s teaching methods and outreach efforts really cater to the “felt-needs” of the unchurched too much, to the point where the gospel is obscured? Does having the Jonas Brothers performing in concert reveal a total lack of discernment?

I’m not sure I have all the answers here about Rick Warren, but I haven’t talked with him either. What bothers me, is that many people are quick to point to John Piper’s speaking at Saddleback, and Rick Warren’s speaking at the Desiring God Conference in Minneapolis last Fall, and conclude that John Piper has sold out on the Gospel, and has compromised the faith.

I recently came across remarks by Ingrid Schlueter, a well-known watch-blogger:

Despite the countless and detailed warnings that have gone out over the last decade about Rick Warren and his distortion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, John Piper prepares to deliver his followers to the platform at Saddleback Church in an act of ultimate spiritual betrayal on April 29 and 30, 2011.

John Piper, perhaps more than anyone else who has been seduced by Dr. Warren through the years, is without excuse. Could there be a teacher more aware of what the Gospel actually is according to Scripture? Someone with a more thorough knowledge of the whole Counsel of God? Someone with more access to the best commentaries, the best theological instruction, the most devout and rigorous Bible teaching colleagues in the land? Yet he falls, and with him, takes innumerable sheep who will trust him to their own destruction.

“Ultimate spiritual betrayal,” really??? Piper is taking us to our “own destruction”??

In a Facebook conversation recently, someone mentioned that Warren taught a works-based righteousness. Another said Piper speaking at Saddleback would be “counter-productive to the gospel effort”. I respect the people who said these things, but I think they are swept up in a frenzy of mis-information, and well-intentioned paranoia.

Rick Warren is not a false teacher or a denier of the Gospel. He may muddy the waters signficantly, but he isn’t a devil or antichrist. He is just the latest incarnation of American revivalism meets pragmatism. His message is not strange. It might not be as clear doctrinally as some would like (although we don’t get to see all the doctrinal teaching that goes on at Saddleback, up close and personal). His preaching may not always be verse-by-verse exposition. But He does revere the Bible and preach a plain Gospel.

It is hard to judge people solely on one-liners given in front of a hostile interviewer. I’m sure Warren’s failed sometimes in articulating the gospel message clearly. In this interview at Fox News, however, I think he did a good job in presenting that Jesus is the only way, and that salvation is a gift — while still not coming off as being extremely judgmental and mean-spirited. But we don’t have to go by just his public media appearances. Here is a 13 minute video where he presents the Gospel, answering the question “What does it mean to begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” Now his gospel presentation there differs little from many given around the country every Sunday. It’s not as clearly Reformed as some would prefer, and it emphasizes a “sinner’s prayer”. But it is still clearly a grace-based, Biblical, Gospel presentation.

I’ve read some of Warren’s reflections about his incredibly popular book, The Purpose Driven Life, where he admits to being Calvinistic in his doctrine, even. I watched his message delivered to the Desiring God National Conference last Fall. I thought it was full of helpful information and really opened up a side of Rick Warren I hadn’t hear much of before. I heard John Piper’s explanations about why he invited Rick Warren: here and here. I’ve also posted about the controversy at length before. (And I’m not the only one who thinks the reactions against Piper and Warren are seriously over-the-top.)

But for my part, Piper speaking at Saddleback, and having a DG Conference at Rick Warren’s church is far less a problem than having Warren come speak at his conference. The Conference is going to be John Piper speaking in three sessions about the essence of “Desiring God”. It will be a standard Piper conference focusing on the 25th anniversary of Piper’s hugely influential (and thoroughly Biblical) book, Desiring God. I am thrilled that many of the people at Saddleback may get to hear that teaching and be shaped by Piper’s emphasis on God’s glory. And then, Piper speaks at Saddleback, and he can give his message and say what’s on his heart. I’ve heard many a well-known Baptist fundamentalist even claim they’d preach at the Vatican if given the chance to preach the gospel. Why should Piper preaching at Saddleback’s pulpit be necessarily a compromise of the Gospel?

This post is a bit of a vent, I’m sorry. It might not flow all that well. I’m just saddened to see so many derail Rick Warren as being an “antichrist”. I literally read someone wish that Piper had called Warren out as exactly that, an “antichrist”. Or just as sad, consider how a commenter at Justin Taylor’s blog described Rick Warren: a “Gospel-betraying, Bible-hating evildoer”! This kind of reaction is over-the-top, and I believe it also “bears false witness” in direct violation of the 9th commandment. The kind of ill-will and judgmentalism displayed toward Piper and Warren is as detrimental to the Gospel and more so, than some of Warren’s public statements which are less than clear about the Gospel.

St. Patrick the Missionary: Excerpts from Patrick’s “Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus”

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

The following excerpts are taken from St. Patrick’s “The Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus”, one of only two documents that were certainly written by St. Patrick himself and preserved for future generations by careful copyists. The letter tells of a brutal act done by Coroticus and his men– the murder and capture of several newly baptized converts of Patrick’s. I cannot reproduce the entire letter, but you can find it here. The translation I’m using is that found in The Wisdom of St. Patrick: Inspirations from the Patron Saint of Ireland by Greg Tobin (Ballantine Books: New York, 1999).

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1. I, Patrick, a sinner and poorly learned, as is well known, speak to you as the true and anointed bishop in Ireland. I believe with certainty that all that I am I have received from God; and so I live among barbarians and foreigners, a stranger and an exile for the love of the Father— and He is my witness that this is so. I would never, of my own will, speak so harshly and sternly as I feel I must, but I am compelled to by the zeal of God and the truth of Christ, and for the love for my friends [neighbors] and children [sons], for whom I have given up my homeland and my family, and even risked my very life unto the point of death. Though I am despised by some, I have dedicated my life– if I am worthy– to my God to teach these heathen tribes.

2. I have written these words myself and sent them to be given, delivered, and handed to the soldiers of Coroticus. I do not call them my own people nor fellow citizens of the holy Romans, but because of their evil deeds [I call them] the cohorts of demons…. I denounce them as bloodthirsty men who seek to gorge themselves on the blood of innocent Christians, whom I have “given birth to” [begotten] in countless numbers for God and confirmed in Christ.

4. Therefore, I do not know for whom I should more rightly grieve. Should I weep for those who were killed or captured, or for those whom the devil has enslaved?…

5. So let every God-fearing person know that those who murder their own families, who kill their brothers like ravening wolves, who devour the people of the Lord as they would eat bread–they are forever estranged from me and from my God, whose missionary I am. As is said, “The wicked have destroyed Your law, O Lord,” the law that He has of late– and at the end of time– graciously sown so successfully in Ireland to become firmly established there with God’s grace.

7. Therefore I earnestly beseech those of you who are holy and humble of heart that it is not correct to seek favor from such as their kind, or even to eat or drink with them, nor should alms be accepted from them until they have done the most severe penance, pouring out their tears to God’s satisfaction, and until they have freed the baptized servants and handmaidens of Christ on whose behalf He died and was crucified.

9. …We know that a murderer cannot stand with Christ. And he who hates his brother will be called a murderer, and “He who hates his brother lives in death.” More offensive is he who stains his hands with the blood of those children of God whom He has recently won over to His ways through my own paltry efforts here at the utmost ends of the earth.

10. Could I have come here, to Ireland, without the guidance of God, or for reasons that were human and secular? Who compelled me on this mission? It is because of the Holy Spirit that I am bound to remain forever separated from my family. Does this forgiveness that I have shown to the very people who once enslaved me and pillaged the male and female servants of my father’s household come from within me? In the eyes of the secular world, I am a free man, the son of a Roman decurion. But I have traded my noble birthright, without shame or second thought, for the advantage [benefit] of others. In a word, I am Christ’s slave; I serve Him by ministering to foreign tribes for the sake of the indescribable glory of eternal life that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

11. …I do not seek anything for myself. It was not by my own grace, but God who put within me this sincere care in my heart, that I should be one of His hunters and fishers of souls, whom God had long ago foretold would come in the end of days.

12. I am the target of resentment and jealousy. What shall I do, O Lord? I am openly despised. Look, all around me Your sheep lie torn and spoiled, and by these very soldiers of Coroticus at his evil orders. Far removed from the love of God is anyone who betrays my newly won Christian into the hands of the Scots and Picts. Voracious wolves have eaten the Lord’s flock, just when it was increasing in Ireland with tender care…. So do not be pleased with this calamity; it is unacceptable, unjust, and irredeemable all the way to hell.

13. So who among the holy saints would not shudder to make merry or partake of a feast with men such as these? They have filled their houses with the stolen property of dead Christians; they live only to plunder….

15. I do not know what more I should say or how I can speak of those dead children of God who were ruthlessly struck down by the sword….

16. For this reason I cry aloud in sadness and grief: O most beautiful and beloved brothers and sons whom I confirmed in Christ, and whom I cannot number, what shall I do for you now? I am unworthy to help either God or man. The injustice of wicked men has overcome us….

17. Consequently, I grieve for you. Indeed, I deeply mourn for you, my dearly beloved ones. Yet, I also rejoice within myself. For I see that I have not labored without result, and my journey [exile] to an alien land was not without purpose. And though this was an unspeakably horrible crime, I thank God that you were baptized believers when you left this world for paradise. I can see you in a vision: you have embarked upon your journey to a place where there is no more night, no sorrow, and no death. Freed from your chains, you will romp like young lambs and the wicked will be like ashes beneath your feet.

18. You will reign with the apostles and the prophets and the martyrs. You will win eternal kingdoms, just as He Himself promised: “They shall come from the east and west, and they shall sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” While “outside [heaven] lie the dogs, the evildoers, and the murderers.” And “liars and blasphemers shall be damned to the lake of eternal fire.” The apostle rightly says: “When the just man shall barely be saved, where will the sinner and the ungodly lawbreaker expect to find himself?”

20. I witness before God and His angels that, though I lack learning, all shall be as I have predicted. For these words that I have written in Latin are not mine; they are from God and His apostles and prophets, who have never lied. “Whoever believes will be saved; whoever does not believe will be damned.” Thus God has spoken.

21. My first and sincerest request is that the servants of God who shall come into possession of this letter, do not conceal or withdraw it, but be sure that it is read aloud in public, and even when Coroticus himself is there. I pray that God will inspire the hearers to come to their senses and, even at this late stage, that they should repent of the evil they have committed– the murder of the Lord’s brothers– and that they should release the baptized women whom they have taken prisoner and sold. In this way they may yet deserve to live in the grace of God, and they may be restored whole, here and for all eternity. Peace be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen. [bold emphasis is mine, words in brackets are part of the translation]

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Patrick lived from around A.D. 390 to 460. It’s refreshing to see how Bible-rooted so much of Patrick’s thinking was– we are not all that removed from his theology and passion. I was struck by his connection of “hunters and fishers of souls” with Old Testament prophecy, something my study has only recently revealed to me. Patrick also considered his mission field the “utmost ends of the earth”. He viewed his ministry as fully within the “end times”, too.

From the above selection, it should be obvious that Patrick viewed himself as a missionary. He was on a mission to save the lost souls of Ireland. God blessed His efforts, we can fairly say. Above all, this selection reveals the heart of Patrick. He is broken over injustice and sin. Yet the horrors of hell motivated him to warn all not to be complicit with Coroticus’ evil deeds.

Patirck was a man on a mission– a missionary. And he was equally enthralled with “the indescribable glory of eternal life that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. We do well to ponder St. Patrick on this, his special day.