What We Believe- Article VI, The Church (part 2)

February 17, 2009

Today we are going to look at the second paragraph of article six of the BF&M which concerns itself with the universal church of all believers. Here’s what it says:

The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.

Matthew 16:15-19; 18:15-20; Acts 2:41-42,47; 5:11-14; 6:3-6; 13:1-3; 14:23,27; 15:1-30; 16:5; 20:28; Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 3:16; 5:4-5; 7:17; 9:13-14; 12; Ephesians 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 3:8-11,21; 5:22-32; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:18; 1 Timothy 2:9-14; 3:1-15; 4:14; Hebrews 11:39-40; 1 Peter 5:1-4; Revelation 2-3; 21:2-3.

To start, I do not like the way this paragraph is set-up. Yes, I agree that “[t]he New Testament speaks of the church as the Body of Christ” and that the New Testament speaks of the church universal, but I do not believe that these two things are meant to be synonymous, as it seems to me this paragraph is implying. Specifically, I do not believe that the New Testament speaks of the Body of Christ as being only that which is the universal church; I believe that the Body of Christ is also fully present in each local manifestation of the church, else by the argument in 1 Corinthians 12, we would be unable to say that each local autonomous congregation is fully equipped to do the work of the ministry of Jesus Christ.

As for the idea that there exists a manifestation of the church on a universal level, I believe that this truly is a biblical notion.  In Hebrews 12.23 we see mention of “the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven,” where the word ‘assembly’ is actually the word ‘ekklesia‘ from which we often translate as ‘church.’  Similarly, there are many mentions of ‘the church’ in places where the idea of meaning one specific, local body seem to make no sense, such as Ephesians 1.22-23 (“And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all“).

The idea of a universal “invisible” church (“invisible” meaning that its exact boundary is unknown, not that it is wholly hidden from sight) also plays out in the illustration of the church as the flock of God, whose Chief Shepherd is Jesus Christ.  In this metaphor, we see but that there is one flock being gathered under one shepherd (John 10.16), but for a time this flock is scattered about and being tended to by many smaller shepherds awaiting his return (1 Peter 5.1-4).

One thing from yesterday’s post that I would like to add.  At the end of the post we were considering  anything which we felt was missing from the “minimum” definition of the local church given by the BF&M and I left out something which at the time I felt was right but could not think of any Scriptural justification for it, that being that the church is to be noted by the presence and blessing of the Holy Spirit.  Some places where we see this indicated are 1 Corinthians 3.16, which says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”, and Ephesians 2.22, “In [Christ Jesus] you[, the Gentiles and the Jews,] also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

In closing, I would like to give you the affirmation of “The Church” from the Abstract of Principles, which I feel is as clean and sufficient a declaration of what the constitutes the church as could reasonably be made:

The Lord Jesus is the head of the Church, which is composed of all His true disciples, and in Him is invested supremely all power for its government. According to His commandment, Christians are to associate themselves into particular societies or churches [i.e. the local church]; and to each of these churches He hath given needful authority for administering that order, discipline and worship which He hath appointed. The regular officers of a Church are Bishops or Elders, and Deacons.

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Posted by Todd Burus

What We Believe- Article VI, The Church (part 1)

February 16, 2009

After a weeks hiatus we are returning to our look at the Baptist Faith & Message and what it says (or doesn’t say) as our standard doctrinal confession in the Southern Baptist Convention. This week we will be analyzing the sixth article of this document dealing with the church, both local and universal. In the first part we will observe the church local:

VI. The Church

A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

One should probably start in their analysis of this passage by taking it to be the minimum definition which the SBC believes is required for a body of believers to be considered the church. If this is the case, we must look at each portion of the article and ask if that indeed is part of the minimum criteria for a church as displayed in the New Testament, and then in the end if there is still more that needs to be said.

“A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation . . . ” This we believe to be true, in light of the fact that people in the NT, though given instruction at times by the Apostles, were free to practice the actions of being a church through the observance of the elders which had been appointed to them. They are clearly local as the fact that there are letters addressed to local churches by both Paul and by Jesus attests.

” . . . of baptized believers . . . ” A place I would turn to justify the idea that the members of a local congregations must be baptized believers is in Acts 2. Verse 41 says, “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” Clearly by the context this here means “there were added to the church . . . ” and so here we see the practiced (and thus prescribed?) order: belief, baptism, membership in the church.

” . . . associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel.” It is important that the church be alike in beliefs. I am first among those who dislike denominationalism and think that churches today are too at ease breaking away from a denomination than standing and fighting for orthodoxy, but at the same time, the denominations exist to help us align more closely with a specific set of doctrinal beliefs. This is also the point of confessions which people ascribe to, such as the BF&M. If the church is to be unified, then it must be in accord on its doctrine, and this means obeying the words of Paul when he says, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”

“observing the two ordinances of Christ.” By the language of Acts where we see the churches baptizing new converts who then become members, and by that in 1 Corinthians 11 where it talks about the Corinthians “com[ing] together as a church” (v.18) and partaking in the Lord’s Supper, we would agree that the church is called to observe both of the ordinances established by Christ and the Apostles in the NT.

“governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word.” All of this I would classify under having a high view of Scripture, a trait promoted by 2 Timothy 3.16-17 when it says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

“and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.” This is the Great Commission/Acts 1.8, a command which was given to the disciples and early followers and was carried out by the gathering of people at different times and places. Christ gave this in a unified context (the church), and hopefully every effort will be made to maintain this unity in its fulfillment.  Working to fulfill the Great Commission is a must for any NT church.

“Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes.  In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord.”  I believe the call for the church to fall under “the Lordship of Christ” is clear by the teachings about Christ being given as “as head over all things to the church” (Ephesians 1.22; which is addressed later as well in Article VI).  However, I am unsure of any clear verse teaching democratic decision making in the church, though would be glad to be corrected if one exists.  This does not mean that I do not feel it is the best form of rule, but I simply am unable to justify that as a hard and fast requirement of the church for myself.  Thus, moving on to the idea of “each member [being] responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord,” I do not think this applies in any more specific sense in the church than it does in general in the life of a Christian, which is supposed to be lived under the declaration that “Christ is Lord” (Romans 10.9).

“Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”  I agree with this wholly.  It is a shame that we must make a declaration about the exclusion of women from the pastorate, particularly since this means we are singling out one among many qualifications for an elder in the church, but at the end of the day I am glad that the SBC is not leaving that one up for interpretation, since many interesting interpretations abound.  Still, there needs to be sufficient emphasis on the qualifications for elders, and the fact that the BF&M does not include Titus 1.5-9 among the supporting Scripture for this article is frustrating.  We must not skip on the required criterion for our leadership, as their qualification and purity are of utmost importance both for our local congregations and for the cause of Christ in the world.

Concluding this all, I can not think of anything right off which I feel is missing from the minimum definition leveled here, though I did point out one or two places where I felt they went too far.

Defining the church is of greatest importance for Christianity.  Many today are wont to recreate “church” in a fashion and practice which is in no way biblical or beneficial for the Christian believer, and without a firm idea of what we are to be looking for, we have no standing for declaring that body to be illegitimate.  This is a rampant problem and one that needs to be addressed more fully as time goes on.

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Posted by Todd Burus

Visitors Not Welcome?- More Insanity Around Driscoll, More Revelations of the Real Problem

February 15, 2009

Things continue to spiral out of control in SBC world as many top guns are chiming in on the Driscoll issue. Because I do not think I can do it in charity I am not going to link any of the opposed voices (though you shouldn’t have trouble finding them), but I do want to give a shout out to some more who have stood up for the inclusion of Pastor Mark as a friend to the SBC.

Dr. Alvin Reid is the first voice I want to share. He gives his view in an article which describes the problems Dr. Reid has with many great theologians, then with Driscoll, then with himself, and then with the SBC; the ultimate point being that he is comfortable with learning from and conversing with other imperfect people (since only Christ is perfect) who, though he may not always agree with them, share with him in a common bond of “love [for] the Word and the Gospel.”

Probably my favorite line in his article is one that I think proves awfully prophetic. Speaking of the problem he has with his convention (which is also my convention, the SBC), he says, “I am tired of talking good younger men off the ledge from leaving the SBC.” Is this not what we see happening, and will see happening evermore if things like the Baptist Press article smearing Mark Driscoll go uncorrected? I tell people all the time, this generation doesn’t care nearly as much about being Baptist (at least in name) as it does about seeing the gospel spoken effectively into the culture of today, and as long as the SBC refuses to do this they will continue to see diminishing numbers of young leaders within their churches.

The second article I would point you guys to is the one written Friday by Ed Stetzer. Ed is always a hammer on these issues, and with as many connections and as much clout as he has inside the convention, when he swings, people either listen or get hurt. He is very unapologetic about his distress at the BP article and about how unfair, even unchristian, it is to keep trying to tag Driscoll with the “cussin’ pastor” moniker.  He also delves into the cursory issue which some have tried to move onto now in attacking Driscoll, that being his handling of sex from the pulpit, and once again offers support to Driscoll and rationality to the discussion.  I love the way Stetzer says what is on his mind and says it forcefully without simultaneously being uncharitable to the party he opposes (a quality I am constantly trying to refine in myself).

Finally, I want to point you to a pair of articles from Baptist21 that deal with the Driscoll issue in another light, as part of a growing generation gap between those over-40 and those under-40 within the SBC (1 and 2).  Some deny this, claiming it is a problem of a “discernment gap” between the Driscoll/Acts 29/Calvinism proponents and the traditional conservative core of the SBC.  I whole heartedly disagree with this (in fact, I think there is even greater discernment on the part of the new generation in issues of regenerate believers and cultural engagement), and if you don’t already feel the same, hopefully you will read the B21 articles and better understand why they (and I) feel this way.

Enjoy reading and I will keep things up-to-date as new posts continue to be published.

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Posted by Todd Burus

New Tools for the Search Party- A Review of “Lost and Found” by Ed Stetzer (part 2)

February 14, 2009

(This is the second part of our two-part review over Ed Stetzer’ new book, Lost and Found.  Read part one here.)

In the analytical portion we start seeing how the author plans for us to put this information into practice.  He keys in on four important focuses for reaching the unchurched twenty-somethings.  They are community, depth, responsibility, and connection.  For people who have read much on this current generation of Americans, the focuses on community and responsibility (think, serving) were givens.  However, depth and (cross-generational) connection might have surprised some.  All combined, this portion of the book was really the meat that was meant to come through; an honest, fact-based look at what the younger unchurched say they want (at least to the extent that the church can remain faithful in giving them).  They want a group of people to live with and alongside, going deep in the Word of God together, finding the truths of Scripture, while also serving the community and stewarding their lives, and learning from those who came before them how to do this all the right way.

The final segment of the book dealt with practical applications and those who are doing a good job at it already.  Stetzer compiled a list of nine common characteristics in churches reaching young adults today and broke each one down into its own chapter for further elaboration.  Some highlights from this include the tandem chapters of authenticity in community and transparency in leadership.  Using technology wisely and appropriately in order to reach the age of hyper-wired young adults was also discussed.  This was reminiscent to me of a similar chapter in Mark Driscoll’s new book Vintage Church, which is another good read for people trying to reach the younger unchurched with their ministry.  I found this portion of the book to contain a lot of helpful information about community/life/covenant groups (everyone has a different name for the same thing) and how to make them as effective as possible in connecting people to God and to each other as they live out being the church during the week.  Importantly, Stetzer placed a strong emphasis on the fact that these characteristics are meant to be descriptive and not prescriptive for doing ministry (which again is an authenticity issue for your given context).

I do have two criticisms of this book.  In the opening chapter, Stetzer made a point to define four different types of the younger unchurched (always unchurched, de-churched, friendly unchurched, and hostile unchurched).  Unfortunately, these different types were mostly all lumped into the same heading of “the younger unchurched” throughout the remainder of the book.  I would have liked to see a little more information about type-specific opportunities, particularly how to reach the de-churched as I think they pose the greatest challenge to evangelism efforts.  The only place these distinctions really showed up was in the mini narrative which Stetzer worked through at the end of most chapters.  This, however, is where my second complaint lies.  I didn’t particularly like the story and found it to be confusing trying to remember peoples names and roles when I was going 20 pages at a time without hearing from them.  I don’t know if it should have been all grouped as one short story or just scrapped altogether, but the way it is structured I did not find to be as helpful as I think was intended.

Overall, I thought this was a well-written, well-researched, informative, and beneficial work.  As I said above, I found this book preferable to unChristian, and that’s saying something since unChristian was one of my favorite reads in 2008.  I think this book would be a great resource for anyone working with young adults or college students, trying to reach that population with a new work, in an established church, or simply in everyday life.  At no point did I feel the book became specialized just for pastors or Sunday school leaders or the like, but stayed accessible to all Christians throughout.

In this book, Dr. Stetzer has once again shown why he is currently one of the most sought after missiologists for reaching the new emerging generation.  I recommend you check it out.

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Posted by Todd Burus

New Tools for the Search Party- A Review of “Lost and Found” by Ed Stetzer (part 1)

February 13, 2009

The younger unchurched are more open to hearing about Christ than expected.

That is the good news delivered by Ed Stetzer and Co. in his new book Lost and Found: The younger unchurched and the churches that reach them.  In it he makes the following revelation when comparing the younger unchurched (20-29 year olds who have been out of church, save special occasions, for at least six months) to the older unchurched (30+ year olds with the same requirements): “While many have told of the resistance of the younger unchurched, the loss of faith, and the close-mindedness about Christianity, we found the opposite.  The younger unchurched are more open to hearing about Christ, not less” [p.55].  In fact, Stetzer says that their research shows 89% of unchurched twenty-somethings would be willing to listen to someone tell them about Christianity.  To a point, the remainder of the book is focused on how Christians can maximize this opportunity.

When I first heard about this coming title last fall I could not wait until it was out.  I have read and benefited from several of Dr. Stetzer’s previous books and by the preliminary description thought this one sounded a little like another book I really enjoyed over the last year, that being Dave Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons release unChristian.  After reading it, I would have to say that this was an accurate thought, and that I actually prefer Lost and Found to unChristian in many ways, the least of which not being that it is ideologically more comfortable to me as a Southern Baptist reader.

Lost and Found is basically broken into three parts: a statistical portion where the results of the surveys are gathered and presented; an analytical part where the four key areas of importance for reaching the younger unchurched are explored; and a practical part where they lay out what churches who are currently having success at reaching the younger unchurched are doing right.

The statistical portion was interesting, at least to me, simply just to see how my generation (I’m soon to be 24) views God, Christianity and the Church.  It would be easy just to rely on stereotypes or probe easily identifiable opinions, but the questions that were asked (either in a survey North American Mission Board or by LifeWay Research) did more than that; they unpacked the layers of underlying beliefs which may fuel more favorable surface level claims.  For example, not only did they ask if the younger unchurched believe that God exists (81% said yes), but they asked if they believe this to be the one God of the Bible (57% agreed) and if they believe that the one God of the Bible is no different from the gods or spiritual beings depicted in other religions (58% said they hold this belief).  So, what looks good on the surface, that 4 out of 5 people believe in a god or supreme being, and even a slight majority believe this to be the biblical God, more than half believe that, basically, all gods are the same.  Not only is this disconcerting, but looking at the numbers you realize that there had to have been some respondents who believe both in the one God of the Bible and that he is also the same as Allah or the multiple Hindu gods.  This makes a big difference in how one will proceed with the information gathered, and so is a major plus in the methodology of Stetzer and Co.  It was also intriguing to see how the belief breakdowns of the younger unchurched compared to those of their older counterparts.

Check back tomorrow to read part 2 of my review on Dr. Stetzer’s new book, Lost and Found.

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Posted by Todd Burus

Visitors Not Welcome?- Further SBC Divide Over Driscoll Following Propaganda Piece

February 12, 2009

(UPDATE: I have modified the intro to this post in order not to offend my brothers in Christ. I apologize to anyone who took offense at my initial statements and wish it to be known that my only intention was to seek accountability from certain bloggers, not to personally attack them.)

Last night I was surfing the web (boy, is that phrase out-dated) and came across an article entitled “Poll: Your Thoughts on Baptist Press on Mark Driscoll.” This intrigued me since I had no idea what the Baptist Press had said, so I followed the link to this article. After reading it, I promptly headed back to the first article and checked “Terrible article! What shoddy journalism!” (along with 71% of other voters).

If you took the time to read it (and it’s really not worth the time if you haven’t) what you would find is some hastily put together propaganda piece trying to discredit Driscoll. Nothing new, right. Except this is from the Baptist Press is a news wire service that is supported by the Cooperative Program and is wholly under the purview of the SBC. Yet Driscoll is not a Baptist and this article makes no explicit mention of why they deemed it necessary to cut and paste an article run a few weeks earlier in the New York Times Magazine (remember) along with their own editorial content. This is clearly an opinion piece (since no effort at charity or contacting Driscoll appear to have been made), but the question is, Why did BP see fit to broadcast their opinion on this?

Well, apparently Danny Akin knows why. At least, that is the idea one would get from the article which popped up on Southeastern’s blog Between the Times shortly after BP’s piece, entitled “Mark Driscoll and Southeastern.” It seems that SEBTS took this as a shot at their recent collegiate conference featuring Driscoll, as well as their continuing relationship with his ministry. Timmy Brister also sees this as an attempt at undermining Driscoll’s influence on young SBCer’s by using old data and fear-mongering, and some on his comment board have pointed out the unnecessary reference to Driscoll and MacArthur being Calvinists in the piece.

For what it’s worth, I agree with all of the people saying that BP is pushing an anti-Driscoll, anti-Calvinist agenda here and that the timing is purposely so that it casts a poor light on the recent success of the SEBTS collegiate conference. If all they were doing was rehashing a current event from the NYT then they should have published this a month ago. It is this type of propaganda and judgmental mindset that got me running this whole Visitors Not Welcome? series in the first place. It is also the reason why not too long ago a prominent young SBC pastor told me that he is “ferociously Baptist” and yet chooses to do his church planting outside of the SBC entities.

How many thriving, biblically sound churches must the SBC lose before it stops cannibalizing the next generation?

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Posted by Todd Burus

Visitors Not Welcome?- Matt Chandler at FBC Jax Pastors’ Conference

February 10, 2009

Ho-ly crap! When I began writing this series on the intermixing of SBC and Acts 29 interests, I was not expecting the most spectacular part to be Matt Chandler’s appearance at the FBC Jacksonville Pastors’ Conference. Given Mark Driscoll’s reputation and propensity for being a little extreme I was sure some detail would come out of the weekend at Southeastern that his critics might latch onto and make a fuss over. But, little did I expect Chandler to travel over from Dallas to Jacksonville and point the two-edged sword of the gospel right at the throat of the SBC idols.

Here’s what went down. Tuesday morning, Matt Chandler gave a session at FBC Jax which was structured to be a lesson/Q&A about how to reach the younger generation. During this time he went through his personal history and his experiences in being called to, straightening out, and growing his church, The Village in Dallas, TX. This turned out to be a nice testimony interspersed with comments about how The Village became what it is today, a rapidly growing congregation of 6000 people spread over 10 services and 2 locations.

There were a couple of interesting points in this period.  First, Chandler wasted no time getting the fact that he is a Calvinist out on the table.  It wasn’t in a “I’m a Calvinist and so is God” pseudo-instructing manner, but simply came out as a depiction of who he is overall ministerially.  Also, there were a number of instances when he made comments that, though not directed at FBC Jax, could be taken as against FBC Jax if someone wanted to pick a fight.  For example, Chandler said that his conviction was to not spend $40 million on a new facility for his church.

The last interesting remark to come out of the morning session with Matt Chandler was when he said that he is thankful to the older generation of Southern Baptists for fighting the war for inerrancy and winning, but that now they need to learn to stop fighting for secondary issues over and above simply focusing on the primary concern of the gospel.  When he said this I was amazed.  It seems similar thoughts have been in my head (and on my blog) in the past, so to hear Chandler voice them on a stage like FBC Jax, if at nothing more than a minor session among early-rising preachers, was an incredible moment.

However, as it turned out, that incredible moment that I felt when Chandler said this during the AM session, grew into an incredible hour as this message elaborated was the topic of his afternoon sermon.  Using the example of the church at Ephesus to illustrate (Acts 18-19, Revelation 2), Chandler talked about what happens when a formerly vibrant community of God remains biblically faithful and yet still “abandon[s] the love [they] had at first” (Revelation 2.4).  This, he claims, is what has happened in the SBC as church leaders have promoted secondary issues, specifically moralism, into the primary focus of the church to the exclusion of emphasizing the gospel’s power to salvation.

After using various examples and situations to hammer on this for a while, sometimes to much applause, sometimes to a reserved acknowledgment of the veracity of his statements, Chandler moved to the story of the Prodigal Son as a close.  He briefly overviewed the story and then began describing the last scene, with the good son standing in defiance against the celebration of the Prodigal’s return.  The son stands firm against the father’s plea to come and celebrate and in his selfishness complains that, “You never gave me a young goat!” (Luke 15.29).  This, Chandler claims, is what the older SBC is doing.  They are crying, “We want our goat!” and then turning various moral stances and practical convictions into a goat of favor which they can use against the world saying, “Look what we’ve got.  You should get some too.”  And it is this that Chandler says is causing them to lose the younger generation from the ranks of the SBC.

When he finished with his message, my blood was pumping harder than it previously had been.  Seeing the way in which Chandler took a hard message from Scripture and personal observation and drove it home, all while standing in the pulpit of a benchmark of SBC tradition in FBC Jax, was an unbelievable experience.  My hope is that this was a message taken to heart by the pastors and SBC leaders in attendance, and that that old familiar enemy of pride doesn’t just cause them to bull up and deflect the charges to those around them while avoiding any serious self-reflection here.  Matt Chandler really went out on a limb with his message at the FBC Jax Pastors’ Conference, but he said something that needed to be just put out there and I pray God can now use that to ignite change for the better within the ranks of the larger SBC communion.

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Posted by Todd Burus

Visitors Not Welcome?- Mark Driscoll at SEBTS Collegiate Conference

February 9, 2009

This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to attend Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary’s 20/20 Collegiate Conference.  As I noted in the previous post, one of the major draws to this conference, both for myself and the 1399 other young adults who attended, was the presence of Pastor Mark Driscoll (Note: this is in no way to discount CJ Mahaney, who delivered probably the best message overall, but his speaking isn’t nearly as controversial as Driscoll’s).

It is well-known that there is no love lost for Driscoll among conservative Christians or specifically people in the SBC.  In fact, while at the conference I found myself coming across a nice piece of propaganda entitled “What you should know about Mark Driscoll” which takes upon itself the responsibility of cut-and-pasting Driscoll’s quotes and then passing judgment on him passed on their own subjective, extra-biblical requirements.  You can view the full 11-page condemnation of Pastor Mark here.  Nevertheless, in light of some peoples opinions to the contrary, I do not believe there to be any more biblically faithful teacher than Driscoll today.  In a day where we have the leadership of a major church movement proclaiming biblical justification for committed, homosexual unions, why are we still cannibalizing ourselves over someone’s methods?

Putting his biblical fidelity on full display, Pastor Mark delivered three messages in three days, including one rewritten 4 hours prior to going on with it, all of which energized a collective of hungry young Christians while simultaneously focusing them on the unadulterated teachings of Scripture.

The first message was delivered during chapel at SEBTS on Thursday and dealt with the nine distinctions between the Gospel and religion.  To show you how highly Dr. Akin thinks of Driscoll, this was the speaker and message on stage during the Preview Days for the seminary, when prospective students are on campus seeing what it’s all about.  Anyways, this was a typical hard-hitting Driscoll message, one of those which probably doesn’t resonate well with traditionalists since it was basically an attack on all of the sacred calves of half-hearted, legalistic, self-aggrandizing American Christianity.  In it he spoke of distinctions such as, Religion causes us to be aware of others sins, the Gospel makes us aware of our own sins, and, Religion is about getting stuff from God, the Gospel is just about getting God.

The second message came Friday night to open up the Collegiate conference.  This was on 7 views of Culture.  This was the message by Driscoll which I think that made the biggest impression on people throughout the weekend, specifically in his explication of the Ecclesiological view of Culture.  Speaking on this, he said that there are four ways of viewing culture through the church: Church as a mirror of culture, Church as a parasite on culture, Church as a city within the city of culture, or Church as a bomb shelter from culture.  The last one, Church as bomb shelter, took aim squarely upon the home-schooling co-op, end times preaching, music banning church that we all probably know of and some maybe even belong to.  He criticized this because, in an attempt to maintain and manufacture innocence, all they really seem to be doing is creating naivety.  He also spent considerable time developing the idea of how Joseph, Daniel, and Nehemiah demonstrate the Biblical view of Culture for us to imitate.

His final message at the conference, which he started at 8:30am, admitting he had written at 5am, was an extended treatment of one view of culture he was unable to get to, that being the Doxological view.  This concentrated on how we can live our lives as worship (in the vein of Romans 11.36-12.2) and how we can avoid idolatry (in the vein of Romans 1.24-25).  Driscoll was probably his calmest during this message, but what he said was very poignant, particularly as he answered the question, How can we find our idols?  Dr. Akin commented afterwards about how rich an exposition of the practice of worship he found this message to be and I would certainly concur.  It is well worth listening to, even if you are not necessarily a Driscoll fan.

So, it appears that Driscoll at SEBTS the 2009 version came off without a hitch.  I am continually finding myself praising Dr. Akin for his vision and integrity in standing up to the inevitable criticism that must come with bringing Driscoll on campus for events, and am thankful that the SBC has a man like him who can hopefully take the reins as the more traditional “Church as bomb shelter” leadership of the SBC starts to fade away.  Listening to Driscoll and Mahaney at this conference was an incredible experience, and I will attest, along with the 1400 other people who were there, that the presence of the Lord was rocking in that chapel over the weekend.  The SBC is in dire need of a youth resurgence, and thanks to the foresight of men like Danny Akin in calling the speakers that he did, hopefully this will occur sooner than later.

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Posted by Todd Burus

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times- A Tale of Two Seminaries

February 8, 2009

This has certainly been an interesting week in the ever evolving, ever angry world of the SBC. Some how, by some supreme irony (or should I say providence), in this one week we got to witness the two possible futures for the SBC played out in two of its seminaries.

The first future is the future of an SBC where the SBC does not admit “anybody who could not look anybody in the world in the eyes and say, ‘Christ died for your sins.’” Those are the words of Dr. Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, TX. This comment might sound appealing to you at first, but read between the lines, maybe, say, with the help of this quote from Southwestern’s Dean of Theology, Dr. David Allen:

A consistent five-point Calvinist cannot look a congregation in the eyes or even a single sinner in the eye and say: “Christ died for you.” What they have to say to be consistent with their own theology is “Christ died for sinners.” Since Christ did not die for the non-elect, and since the five-point Calvinist does not know who the elect are, it is simply not possible in a preaching or witnessing situation to say to them directly “Christ died for you.”

So, what Dr. Patterson appears to be telling us is that he looks forward to a future in which 5-point Calvinists are excluded from SBC life, or at least from his little corner of it there in the Lone Star State.

Of course, why wait for the future since, as Wade Burleson has been earnestly reporting, it appears that Dr. Patterson is already well on his way towards booting many 4- and 5-point Calvinist faculty members out the door of SWBTS in the name of “budget cuts.” Keep in mind, this is not an official announcement, but it is something that is scary enough to take notice of, particularly in light of that administrations well-documented hubris against Calvinism. Read more here and here.

The second future we have to look toward is the one where the SBC is thriving with fresh, young faces eager to go out into the world and make a difference in the name of their savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the picture we got from last weekend’s 20/20 Collegiate Conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (with major respect to Danny Akin for having the vision/stones to organize it). Over Friday night and all day Saturday, 1400 college-aged and young adult believers packed into (and actually flowed out of) the chapel at SEBTS to listen to Mark Driscoll and CJ Mahaney present on the conference topic of “The Gospel Comes to Life.”

For those of you who may not know, Driscoll and Mahaney share two interesting things in common. First, neither is a Southern Baptist. Second, both are fully committed Calvinists. (As a third strike, I think both believe in private prayer languages). However, these mens affiliations and beliefs did not hinder them from rocking the crowds with their piercing testimonies, challenging words, and utter devotion to God’s Word. This was an incredible weekend and showed that there are still young people in the SBC who love God, even if they like wearing blue jeans and ball caps while thanking God for his unconditionally electing them and irresistibly calling them to faith in him; a sight that would make many SBCer’s today run (further) for the hills. The messages from SEBTS can be found here (listed with the prefix ’20/20 2009′).

So, which future do you want?

3 Comments | Calvinism, Mark Driscoll, Observations, Quotes, SBC, Sermons | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Todd Burus

What We Believe- Article V, God’s Purpose of Grace (part 2)

February 7, 2009

Last time we dealt with the section of Article V which addressed election. Today we will be looking at what it has to say about perseverance/eternal security:

All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

Genesis 12:1-3; Exodus 19:5-8; 1 Samuel 8:4-7,19-22; Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 31:31ff.; Matthew 16:18-19; 21:28-45; 24:22,31; 25:34; Luke 1:68-79; 2:29-32; 19:41-44; 24:44-48; John 1:12-14; 3:16; 5:24; 6:44-45,65; 10:27-29; 15:16; 17:6,12,17-18; Acts 20:32; Romans 5:9-10; 8:28-39; 10:12-15; 11:5-7,26-36; 1 Corinthians 1:1-2; 15:24-28; Ephesians 1:4-23; 2:1-10; 3:1-11; Colossians 1:12-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 2 Timothy 1:12; 2:10,19; Hebrews 11:39-12:2; James 1:12; 1 Peter 1:2-5,13; 2:4-10; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:19; 3:2.

[Note: These are the verses for both the portion on perseverance as well as the previous section on election.]

In a turn of irony, we follow the previous section to which no consensus was given and most all options were left on the table with a section that all of us should be able to be on-board with.  Many non-Calvinist Southern Baptists will argue that they are not Arminians (the traditional Calvinist counterpart) because Arminians deny eternal security while no Baptist would do such a thing.  So, let’s take a moment to enjoy this brief period of agreement.

Most of this article consists of standard yet solid lines like “All true believers endure to the end.”  This is nice, and particularly when it comes to an issue of such critical importance to the Christian life as security, it’s straightforwardness is appreciated.

One place where it gets interesting however is when it says, “Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation. . . .  yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.”  There are a number of people today who still hold to a theology which says Christians who live in sin must have never been Christians to start with.  This is both wrong and dangerous.  Instead we must replace this incorrect notion with the proper biblical teaching that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8.38-39).

Other than that, as I said, the section on eternal security is nice, simple, and straightforward.  It is an excellent outline to witness from when dealing with someone who struggles over their own righteousness and if they have done enough to merit salvation or pay penance.  I am thankful that, though it happens quite infrequently, we can at least come to one mind on the doctrine of perseverance within our convention.

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Posted by Todd Burus

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