Book Review: Shepherds for Sale, with responses to Gavin Ortlund and Jordan Steffaniak

The book Shepherds for Sale by Megan Basham has taken the American evangelical church by storm, as it documents and charges various evangelical leaders of pushing leftist positions. Is this a political book, or rather, as the author says, it is a book designed to expose politicking in the church? Well, I have finally read the book, and have written a review about it from a non-Western and non-American perspective. I have also included responses to two book reviews of sorts from Gavin Ortlund and Jordan Steffaniak, both of which in my opinion misrepresented the book and its author. Steffaniak in particular even get page numbers wrong, so take from that what you will.

Without further to do, here is the book review. An excerpt:

American evangelicals in the early 21st century are truly a sight to behold, as compromises one after another flare up within her. One is shocked to find professing Evangelicals promoting immorality such as LGBTQ, as David French does. One is puzzled as to how American evangelicals can tolerate such people, who in earlier centuries would be immediately excommunicated by orthodox churches, and even heretical groups as well. The flood of sewage coming out of American Evangelicalism is shocking to evangelical Christians around the world looking in, but ‘Murica being focused on itself, they could not care less about what the world thinks.

Megan Basham in her book seeks to peel away the secrecy behind the shift in American Evangelicalism. ...

[more]

Oh, also, since the book mentions political issues, you can find my thoughts on political issues and the church here as well.

Confessions of a former strict confessionalist (Part 1)

[I am currently busy with work commitments and preparing for my next phase of life, so updates here will be sporadic]

My life has been quite a journey, and with my current progress in the Christian life, I thought it would be helpful to tell parts of that story here.

Introduction

How does one relate to God in this world? To the church? What should a Christian do in order to glorify God? All of these are questions that I struggle with, especially after I have been awakened to the things of God by the Spirit of God. Having brought up in staid traditionalism, I was exposed to Charismatic influences. It is admitted that there are many biblical problems with the Charismatic movement, and the particular strain that I was eventually exposed to, the Third Wave New Apostolic Reformation, is heretical. Yet, for someone raised in staid traditionalism, this was a breath of fresh air. In particular, it cannot be denied that, through focusing on the imminant and the practical, Charismatic Christianity preserve an important aspect of Christianity, which is that Christianity has to be practiced and not relegated to mere cognition. Christianity is a whole person faith. The idea that one can be Christian in mere intellect is not biblical, but more on that later.

As a biblically deficient movement, Charismatic Christianity left me feeling dry over time. God graciously led me to Reformed teaching and Reformed theology. Through seeing the latitudinarian approach in much of Singapore Christianity, I was led to reject New Evangelicalism, which I see as the movement allowing false teaching like the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) to infiltrate the church. In a sense, I became a Fundamentalist, Fundamentalist in approach not in doctrine. If New Evangelicalism is marked by toleration of false doctrine under the guise of charity and respectful disagreement, then the reaction is to be strict on doctrine. Laxity of doctrine is spiritual adultery, leading to spiritual destruction applauded by those going to heaven under the guise of charity. It was evidently clear that New Evangelicalism is a movement of spiritual negligence on the part of its pastors at best, so the way to combat it is to be its opposite.

I notice quickly of course that Fundamentalism does not work, noting the problems and church wreckages it has caused. If everything is important and one must separate from other Christians on almost every doctrine, then everyone will eventually form a church of one. Yet it is evidently clear that New Evangelicalism does not work either. The so-called triage method promoted by Albert Mohler, when I heard about it, does not work either. "Triage" presumes that one can rank doctrines in order of importance, but where is this ranking found? Who gave us this ranking list, and upon what basis should we grant that list authority? "Triage" is basically an intellectual version of New Evangelical compromise, allowing pastors to feel less guilty or not guilty while being indifferent about other people going to hell.

The Promise of Confessionalism

New Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism are a dialectical pair, with the one feeding into the other. Those who reject New Evangelicalism veer Fundamentalist, while those reject Fundamentalism veer New Evangelical. It is a zero-sum game either way, and in no way is Christ's church and Christians properly served. Believers are destroyed by false love and unity under the banner of triage or whatever term New Evangelicals use. Christ's sheep are broken by fundamentalist attack dogs slashing the sheep they were meant to protect, guide, and feed. While wresting with this dialectic, I came to hear of Confessionalism, which holds itself to be a third way in the dialectic.

What is the allure of Confessionalism? Confessionalism asserts that the problem with evangelicalism is that it does not have a true center of unity. Evangelicalism fails in its struggle to be coherent and proper because it is in some sense a false construct. By rejecting the historic creeds and Christian confessions, and trying to create a pan-"Protestant" movement, Evangelicalism cannot truly function as a Christian church. "Evangelicalism" as a movement must be deconstructed, argues historian D. G. Hart, because it has become a "seemingly large and influential religious body, but it lacks an institutional center, intellectual coherence, and devotional direction." [D.G. Hard, Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004), 176]. Hart in that book was focusing on the New Evangelicals, but the issue of a true center of unity or lack thereof affects the Older Evangelicalism as well. The only difference is that Old Evangelicalism had denominational legacy and thus had a more stable identity despite their trans-denominational slant. The dialectic between doctrinal separation and doctrinal compromise exists because there is no real substantive center in evangelical churches. All claims to be centered on the "Gospel," whether of the older evangelicalism, the New Evangelicalism, or the New Calvinist version (e.g. TGC) have failed because the words "the Gospel" have no substance in themselves. Over time, as it has been shown time and again, a unity "around the Gospel" results in either doctrinal splits or doctrinal compromise and eventual apostasy. The former comes as one group found to their astonishment that error and heresy lies within the camp, and sought to eradicate it, as for example Charles Spurgeon and the Downgrade Controversy, and the various modernist-fundamentalist controversies of the early 1900s. The latter is seen in the evangelical moderates collapsing to the forces of Liberalism in the PCUSA and other mainline denominations. It is seen also in the modern horror story that is TGC, as it is currently capitulating to the anti-Christian lies of LGBTQ+ and wokeness.

Confessionalism's promise therefore is to re-orientate doctrines around a core, forming something that looks like "triage" without the triage. Instead of asking questions about what doctrines are core and what are not, believers are to understand the form of sound words (2 Tim. 1:13) and link themselves to the historic Christian faith. Christians link themselves to the historic Christian tradition, choosing the historic Confession that they hold best approximates to that tradition, the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3). Christians unite around a common Confession of faith and the historic creeds of the church. What the Confession states is core; what it does not there is room for disagreement.

Of course, this does not solve every problem. There is a sense in which we argue from the Confession for logical deductions from that Confession. There is a sense in which inferences from the Confession partake in the derived authority of the Confession for us, yet are less authoritative than the Confessions themselves, especially when the inference is not direct. Nevertheless, the promise of Confessionalism is an escape from the dialectic between New Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism. In it, the believer can rest, more assured in the truths of Scripture and protected from wolves.

[to be continued]

Book Review: The Secular Creed by Rebecca McLaughlin

Some time back, The Gospel Coalition (TGC) had a free PDF book giveaway of Rebecca McLaughlin's book The Secular Creed. I therefore came to possess a book that I might not have read. I have recently finished the book, and while the book is orthodox in the positions taken, there is much here that is disturbing and undermines those same biblical positions. I have therefore decided to write a review of the book, which can be found here. An excerpt:

How should the Christian Church think about the various movements happening in the Western world in late modernity? In her book, Rebecca McLaughlin seeks to address five movements, five claims, in the contemporary American context: “Black Lives Matter” (On BLM and racism), “Love is Love” (On homosexuality and the supposed validity of all love), “The Gay-Rights Movement is the New Civil-Rights Movement” (On Intersectional Political LGBTQ+ movement), “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” (Feminism), and “Transgender women are women” (Transgenderism). McLaughlin attempts to deal with these issues from what she sees as the biblical perspective, and is supported in this endeavor by The Gospel Coalition (TGC), which published this book and promotes her work.

[continued]

What does repentance and faith look like in a fascist or communist?

The furore over Tim Keller's promotion of third way-ism is just another glipmse into the corruption that is mainstream evangelical Christianity in America. After David Wood wrote a sympathatic critique of Keller, the liberal David French, a political commentator who claims to be conservative while corrupting the faith, has attacked such criticism of Keller's compromise as "moral devolution" of the "new Christian right." Rod Dreher in turn criticized French as misreading American society and for creating a false dichotomy between love of enemies and truth.

As a non-American, I try not to comment much on American social issues. However, insofar as it deals with morality, it is an issue that transcends national borders. On this, there is a larger issue than politics here. The issue is what intellectual sin looks like, and what repentance looks like as it pertains to intellectual sin. That sadly has been missing from the discussion so far.

Sin is any want of conformity to, or transgression of, the law of God (WSC Q14). The human person is a whole person, involving the intellect, the will, emotions, and actions. We are to worship God will all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Lk. 10:27), precisely because we are whole human persons. Sin affects all our faculties, thus affecting the intellect, the will, the emotions, and our actions. Therefore, it stands to reason that repentance ought to affect all our faculties too, including the intellect.

Intellectual sins therefore are sins that ought to be repented as the person turns to Christ. On intellectual sins, there are sins due to ignorance, and sins due to sloth. But there are also grievous sins due to extreme rebellion. Just as in practice, there are sins that would call into question one's profession of faith (e.g. incest e.g. 1 Cor. 5:1), so likewise there are grievous intellectual sins that would call into question one's profession of faith. An example of grievious intellectual sin is belief in any system that denies Jesus is God.

Intellectual sins are present when one holds to systems that expressly rejects biblical standards and supplant biblical morality, regardless of whether one goes all the way into full-fledged conversion to that system of belief. In fact, holding to anti-biblical systems while paying lip service to the true God is the very definition of syncretism. Anti-biblical systems currently in vogue are fascism and communism, or a fusion of the two - corporate wokeism. These systems are so anti-biblical they call good evil and evil good. For example, what God calls abomination, they celebrate as virtuous under the vacuous slogan "love is love."

What does repentance and faith look like therefore for a fascist or communist? Given the extreme anti-biblical nature of theses systems, part of being a Christian is to repent of these anti-Christian sysytems of beliefs. There is no way one can be a repentant Christian and still hold that homosexuality is good or neutral in society. Therefore, a Marxist or woke person who has undergone the new birth will renounce their fomer beliefs as false, and turn in new life in the life-giving truths of Scripture.

The furore over Keller "third way-ism" obscures this most important fact: What currently goes under the label progressivism is sin. The solution is not conservatism (a sociological conversion), but true biblical repentance from all these anti-biblical ideologies. When David French promotes Drag Queen Story Hour, his main sin was not going against the sensibilities of conservatives, but in normalizing wickedness in the eyes of God. The issue is not sociological, but harmatiological. That is why Keller's third-way, and French's "moral winsomeness" fails, because they ultimately rejects what God says as sociological and political, rejecting the final authority of God's Word for their own political positions. Just because one side politicizes biblical morality does not mean God's standards suddenly become political, and attempting a compromise with an anti-biblical position under the guise of "third way" and "not being political," "not being partisan," moral witness," and all other empty slogans, is sin. The key issue is not "Is it political?," but "What does God say."

Tim Keller and how not to "do contextualization"

This is a brilliant example of how to be a Christian in the public square. Notice the witness, but in a form the culture can handle. We should desire to have more Christians in these spaces and give them grace as they operate. https://t.co/0QaXuwzYSa

— Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc) February 4, 2022

The recent post I made about Stephen Colbert's partial answer about his faith and the ensuing comments has shown me American Christians still have a long way to go on understanding Col4:5-6, how to be "wise in the ways you act towards outsiders?" This is called contextualization.

— Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc) February 5, 2022

Tim Keller has recently promoted "contextualization" in the supposed witness of Stepehen Colbert. According to Keller, this is a greeat example of contextualization of the Christian faith. But is that so?

We can point out that Colbert is a Roman Catholic, and therefore not a Christian. We can point out the type of "witness" he has done in blaspheming Jesus Christ. But for the sake of argument, let us ignore all these. Is that video clip in itself and judged according to its merits a contextualization of the Christian message? The short answer is no. Colbert talked about faith and humanity and name drops Jesus, but the whole message is a message about faith in general. It is a message anyone from Mormons to Transhumanists can preach and embrace. If the message is something anyone but the most militant atheists can embrace, how is that exactly a "contextualization" of the Christian message?

The sad thing is that Tim Keller has compromised the faith, by trying to always stake out a via media in an increasingly hostile world. This kind of "contextualization" is unfaithfulness to Christ and to His Gospel. One can only hope and pray for Keller's repentance.

Mark Galli, formerly from Christianity Today, admits what we always knew about Big Eva

Mark Galli on his Substack platform recently admitted in his report what we always knew was the case: That Evangelicals love the accolades of the world and lean left while punching right. An excerpt:

Elite evangelicalism (represented by CT, IVPress, World Vision, Fuller Seminary, and a host of other establishment organizations) is too often “a form of cultural accommodation dressed as convictional religion.” These evangelicals want to appear respectable to the elite of American culture. ...

...

I saw this accommodation dynamic as CT managing editor and then editor in chief. We said, for example, that the magazine did not take a stand in the complementarianism or egalitarianism debate. But we rarely if ever published an article that endorsed complementarianism; we did offer many that assumed egalitarianism in family and church life (not to mention the many women pastors who we published).

Then there was the six-day creation/evolution debate, in which again we said we took no stand. But try to find an article in the last three decades that argued for or assumed six-day creation. And yet we published several pieces that simply assumed a billion-year time span for the history of the earth.

It’s not a coincidence that complementarianism and six-day creation are anathema to secularists, features of a religion out of touch with reality.

Is it any wonder that Evangelicalism has always drifted towards doctrinal and moral corruption over time? Galli puts forward TGC (The Gospel Coalition) as the successor to New Evangelicalism. Unfortunately, the same dynamic is busy at work in TGC, just at a less advanced stage.

Big Eva, Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, and passive aggressive posturing

Christianity Astray Today (CT) had put up a series of podcasts on The Rise and Fall of Mars Hills quite some time back. On the surface, the series does highlight problems with the defunct Mars Hill Church and especially its founder Mark Driscoll. The toxic "hyper-masculinity" and pornification of religion promoted by Driscoll is indeed contrary to true Christianity. The podcasts promote egalitarian views, but that should be expected of the broad evangelicalism that is CT, so the podcasts should be fine, or are they?

The problems with the podcasts come about when you consider the timing and context of the podcasts. First, consider that Evangelicalism had no problems with Driscoll back in 2009 when Driscoll was all the rage. When John MacArthur, a complementarian pastor by the way, criticized Driscoll for his degradation of the Songs of Songs, he was criticized by Evangelicals. Evangelicals had no problems with Driscoll back then, and the reason why CT can run this series of podcasts now is because Driscoll has been disgraced and out of mainstream Evangelicalism for a long time. "After all, who are you to judge Pastor Mark Driscoll?" Where was CT when MacArthur criticized Driscoll for his disgusting treatment of the Songs of Songs? Nowhere! CT only attacks people when they are out of power and influence in Evangelical circles, kicking them when they are down. This is not a defence of Driscoll, but rather a statement that shows how Evangelicalism (Big Eva) deals with people they disagree with. CT applies "judge not" to those in power and influence even if they disagree with them, but go after them when they are out of power and influence.

Second, consider that in episode 5 entitled "The Things We Do to Women," feminists are brought in to critique Driscoll, while those who had criticized him before like MacArthur were overlooked. Here, we see CT has an agenda in mind when it comes to the timing of these podcasts. American society had its #MeToo movement and the airing of former President Donald Trump's past misogynistic remarks. It is clear that CT is using this to push egalitarianism, noting that it has the Americo-centric social "historian" Kristin Du Mez in the podcast commenting on the evolution of the emphasis on men and male headship in the American church. I say "historian" because Du Mez does not actually do history. She starts with a conclusion and reads her thesis into history, since it is clear from Reformation writings and even patristic sources that patriarchy (understood in its neutral sense) of some form is the historic Christian view of gender relations. CT is capitalizing on the current social moment (celebration of victimhood and the dismantling of "hegemony" and oppressive systems of power) and bashing Driscoll (who does deserves to be bashed, but that's not the point of contention) in order to stealthily promote egalitarianism. Instead of dealing with Driscoll's error, complementarianism is tarred by association with Driscoll, such that anyone defending complementarianism is seen as a misogynist who promotes porn and "rape culture" by default. The worst thing is that CT is right in its exposé on Driscoll, but its narrative poisons the well against complementarianism, and all this by appeal to emotions without any appeal to the mind.

To go deeper into the tactics of Big Eva, we see here the way Big Eva deals with those they disagree and/or dislike. Many Evangelicals today prefer to be non-confrontational. Calling people heretics is considered socially unacceptable. Talking frankly about disagreements, disagreeing and fighting openly — these are rejected by Evangelicals. But it is not as if Evangelicals are all about love and fun and roses. The human heart does not change, and disagreements still happen. But instead of the open confrontations of the past, today's Evangelicals engage in passive aggression and other forms of scheming and politicking as a way of dealing with their problems and disagreements. Instead of openly and honestly confronting Driscoll in 2009, CT waited until 2021 to bash Driscoll, when it is more or less socially acceptable to do so. Instead of openly discussing the debate between complementarianism versus egalitarianism, they underhandedly used their podcast to create a visceral antagonism against complementarianism, all under the banner of caring for women. Does anyone seriously think that the passive aggressive posturing, the scheming, the conniving, is way better than open confrontation and disagreement?

Much has been said against the bad and horrible "white conservative evangelical men." While certainly "white conservative evangelical men" are not perfect, I prefer their company over the schemers and passive-aggressors where pretense is everything and backstabbing is laudable. Better a straight talker than one of those politicians.

The "Doctrinal Triage"

For his Masters of Divinity degree, Eric Powers has written a thesis entitled "Is there any Biblical Warranty for the Doctrinal Triage," which can be accessed here. In this 2016 thesis, Powers argues that there is no biblical warrant for the doctrinal triage: the view that doctrines can be split into first-order, second-order, and third-order doctrines. Citing Al Mohler, among others, the triage is described as follows: first-order doctrines are those that are non-negotiable; second-order doctrines are those that are "denominational distinctives" and are doctrines that, while serious, Christians can disagree with without calling salvation into question; third-order doctrines are less serious doctrines that Christians can disagree on within a church (pp. 13-14). Powers engages some of the texts used to support this notion of doctrinal triage and shows that they do not in fact promote this teaching. Rather, any claim of order of doctrine is one of the relation of foundation to the building. In this view, the foundational doctrines are required for the other doctrines, yet there is no sense in which we can say that the doctrines built upon that foundation is any 'less important' or 'less essential' than the foundational doctrines required for them. Interestingly enough, Powers appealed to the unity (and simplicity) of God to ground his view that all doctrines are "relevant to the believer and are equally true" (p. 68; pp. 68-73).

Coming from a confessional perspective means that I do not start with a view of doctrinal importance based on some notion of triage. At the same time, the doctrinal triage is practiced in broad Evangelicalism, under various names, and it is clear that it has been used (or abused) to allow for toleration of doctrinal errors within the church. This thesis is indeed a helpful piece of work as it addresses the tendency within Evangelicalism to water down and downplay doctrinal differences among professing Christians and churches.

On Josh Harris' apostasy and Trueman's hubris

By now, it is common knowledge that one-time New Calvinist and former Sovereign Grace pastor Joshua Harris has apostatized from the Christian faith. While a lot can be said about the factors behind his apostasy, the main thing Christians should be feeling is sorrow. Even if a person "deserves" it due to his rebellion against God, to see someone, especially a once prominent Christian leader, fall away from the faith he once professes, is a very sad occasion.

On this public apostasy, TGC has a helpful article by some of Harris' former friends and ministry partners. The main emotion here is sorrow, which is what Christian should be feeling right now. Ultimately, while I as a confessional Presbyterian believe that what I believe is what the Bible teaches, all of us recognize that inconsistent Christianity is still Christianity, and inconsistent Christians are still Christians. Where one falls, the body should grieve.

Enter Carl Trueman, the guy who made it a personal crusade to go after "Big Eva," of which the "New Calvinists" aka YRR constitute a bulk portion. What do you think Trueman did? Was he grieving as a pastor should be? Oh no! Nope, a tragedy is too big an opportunity to waste! In his article, Trueman correctly pointed out some of the flaws that contributed to Harris' departure from the faith. But instead of exhorting Harris to repent and return to God, this is what Trueman said instead:

As a player, Harris might be qualified to do the evangelical church one last favor: He can expose the behind-the-scenes shenanigans—the money made by at least some of the leading lights, and the power wielded by an unaccountable few—of Big Evangelicalism. That would seem a more important contribution than emotive talk of personal journeys, gobbledygook about repentance detached from any notion of God, and the continuation of life as performance art.

In other words, "Hey Josh, before you leave Christianity for good, can you please do us one last favor and expose the shenanigans going on behind the scenes of Big Eva? Thanks!" Now, does this sound like the proper response a pastor should have towards apostasy? Or is it rather the actions of someone who is on a crusade against Big Eva? I don't think the answer is unclear here.

The sad reality is that Carl Trueman, along with his associates over at Reformation21 and MoS (Mortification of Spin), has been going on a crusade against Big Eva, to the extent that truth does not matter anymore. It is all about taking down the other side "by all means necessary." That is why Trueman et al has been consistently misrepresenting ESS and all who disagree with them on classical theism, because some in the "Big Eva" camp promote varieties of ESS. The party is more important than the facts! Trueman complains that "the movement's leadership was often arrogant." And while this is not necessarily false, the fact that TGC linked to Trueman's article at all (in their article on Josh Harris' apostasy) show that perhaps they are NOT as arrogant as Trueman claims. On the contrary, Trueman himself has done the EXACT SAME THING he is accusing "Big Eva" of doing. Arrogance? Check. Ignore critics? Check. Bullying of critics in private? I have personally been told off, back when I was still in the OPC, about calling on these people to stop misrepresenting ESS. Without the YRR, would Trueman gain so much of a following for his attack on "celebrities"? As an "anti-celebrity" celebrity, Trueman is no different from those he criticizes. Whatever he says about the YRR is just as much applicable to him! Pot, meet the kettle!

As I have said, Harris' apostasy should be met with us with sorrow, and our desire should be that he repents and returns to Christ. There should be no room for posturing, and most certainly not for earning brownie points against other Christians. Let us ignore the Truemans of this world, and hope and pray that God will bring people into Harris' life who will bring him back to repentance and faith in Jesus.

Book Review: Divided We Fall: Overcoming a History of Christian Disunity

Unity is something that God desires in his church (c.f. Jn. 17:21), yet the Christian church seems to be growing more and more fragmented. How then ought we to seek and fight for Christian unity in a divided world? Luder G. Whitlock Jr. had this question in mind as he wrote his book promoting Christian unity, in Divided We Wall: Overcoming a History of Christian Disunity, published in 2017. I have read the book and reviewed it in a book review here. An excerpt:

The history of the Christian church concerning the cause of Christian peace and unity has not been very glorious. Over the centuries, there have been many divisions within what is purported to be the one catholic and apostolic church. It is common among Roman Catholic apologists to attack Protestantism for all the divisions in the church ... [continue]

On Reformed Piety

Earlier this year I started a series on Reformed piety, in contrast to Evangelical piety. I had then decided to take the project offline and finish it first, so here is the completed document. Two excerpts, one from the introduction:

What is Reformed piety? Or is there such a thing as Reformed piety, as distinct from Evangelical piety? For those of us who do not identify as "Evangelicals," and that even before the term has become politicized during and after the election of US President Donald Trump, we do see a difference between Reformed piety and Evangelical piety. We do this, not out of a blind following of tradition, but because of what we see as being taught in Scripture and in light of the implications of Scripture.

And another from the conclusion:

Reformed piety stems from Reformed theology, while Evangelical piety stems from the social settings of Evangelicalism. The distinctives of being Reformed is to be confessional, orthodox, reverent and orderly, while the distinctives of being Evangelical is to be conversionist, activist, Biblicist, and crucicentrist. ...

You can access the entire document here.

Dr James White on RAAN again, and Marxism among the "Reformed" camp

Dr. James White has recently in his Dividing Line podcast spoke concerning Jemar Tisby and RAAN (Reformed African-American Network), the network he co-founded, in light of comments Tisby made after the US election victory of Donald J Trump. Now, the victory of the race-baiting Donald Trump is not a good thing, but neither was the potential victory of the radical liberal Hilary Clinton. Still, Trump won legitimately and he will be the next president of the United States. Tisby's comments are disturbing but not out of character from what I had expected from anyone associated with RAAN, much less its co-founder.

To be sure, I can grant that Tisby's comments were made out of pain, with legitimate personal history backing them up. So I am not inclined to pile on Tisby. Yet, what he has said has revealed once again the problems with RAAN I had stated before. RAAN embraces a false anti-Christian racial narrative, and then cobbles it with a spiritual veneer of "Reformed theology." That is not what being Reformed means however. We can't just take the theoretical aspects of Reformed theology and fix it to a practical secularism (or Marxism)! To be Reformed is to be Reformed both in thought and life, and it is sad that RAAN cannot seem to get that. And dangerous when it claims to speak for all "people of color" (what does that mean anyway?!), or even for all "Reformed African-Americans"

R Scott Clark on the issue of Spiritual Disciplines

Dr. R Scott Clark not too long ago did a podcast with a couple of guys on their Theocast on the topic of spiritual disciplines, which can be listened to here. From the time I heard about them after I became a Calvinist, I was uncomfortable with the issue of spiritual disciplines, even in their New Calvinist form in Donald Whitney's book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, which is better than others like Richard Foster's (a Quaker) Celebration of Discipline. I was wondering whether and when I would have to analyze the issue further, but Dr. Clark has done all the work, so I guess I can just link to that podcast where he deals with the topic.

On Religion

"Religion" in many circles is seen as something staid, formal and dead. The picture given is a bunch of moral hypocrites who claim to obey the law and impose harsh demands on others. For some strange reason, the Pharisees are seen as the epitome of what "religion" is all about, and we all *know* that Jesus condemned the Pharisees and instead call for a "heart religion." But is such a picture correct?

The association of "religion" with dead formality has been a recurring motif throughout history. There was always the State or official religion, and then there were the "mystery" religions for the common people. In the Greco-Roman world, the "mystery" religions multiplied since they promised something exotic and liberating from the official status quo. As Christianity penetrated the Greco-Roman world, the phenomenon known as Gnosticism became the "Christianized" version of the pagan mystery religions. After Christendom was established under Constantine's successors, the mystery religious impulse was partially co-opted by the Medieval Catholic Church, and thus Roman Catholicism (the unreformed branch of the Medieval Catholic Church) has been filled with all manner of unbiblical superstition up to this present day.

Closer to modern times, this mystical impulse returned in the Anabaptists, then in the Lutheran Pietists especially in the Moravian Brethren. It then become a key component of Evangelicalism as it was born in the Evangelical awakenings under George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards and John and Charles Wesley. Whether through Evangelicalism or through Unitarianism and Liberalism, modern society has by and large become infected with the mystical impulse.

The problem with the mystical interpretation of "religion" is that it is at best a caricature. True, "dead orthodoxy" or nominalism is a problem, but it is not a new problem. The old way is to treat nominal believers as the mission field, while, under the mystical impulse, formal religion itself is tarred as being essentially the same as "dead orthodoxy."

It is true that Jesus promoted a heart religion, but that is precisely the point — a "heart" "religion." As James 1:27 says, what God is asking for is a religion that is of the heart. In other words, it is done sincerely out of love ("heart") in a manner that is orderly and with regard to the institutional structure of the church ("religion"). As an aside, the problem with the Pharisees is not that they were religious, but that they had a false religion, a religion that added to God's Word in the multiplication of laws, and subtracted from God's Word through their denial of Jesus Christ.

The contrast therefore should not be between Christianity (as relationship) on the one hand, and "religion" and irreligion on the other hand. While pandering to the prevailing culture's idea of "religion" might help gain sympathy in the short term, what this denigration of "religion" may very well result in is a denial of any formality in Christianity for an amorphous idea of "love," viz mysticism. And as Dr. James White has said, "What you win them with is what you win them to." If you utilize this "contextualized" manner of presenting Christianity to a public that is certainly skeptical of authority and formality, how would you be able to teach them respect for the institutional aspects of the visible church, unless of course you want to become egalitarian in church polity? Church discipline is all but impossible if mysticism becomes the default setting of members in the church. Through all these, God is not honored, and we have not corrected the false teaching concerning the church that was tolerated (or promoted) in the language denigrating "religion" and "irreligion."

"Religion" is treated as a bad word in certain quarters, but it shouldn't be. Perhaps instead of attacking "religion," we should actually be truthful and call it by its true name: "Legalism," or one can call it "Ritualism." Or, since it smacks of the return to the Law principle, we can call its proponents "Judaizers."

The revisionist history of the New Evangelicalism

One manner of dealing with historical criticism is to refute it. Another way, the dishonest and lazy way, is to do historical revisionism and read the opposition out of the records. In the history of the New Evangelicalism, the established historiography claimed only 3 sides to the conflict: the Liberals, who compromised on doctrine, the Fundamentalists, who were so militantly opposed to compromise that they lost their love for the brethren and the lost, and the New Evangelicals, or just "Evangelicals," who stood firm on doctrine yet seek to be winsome and loving to all. Conspicuously absent from the revisionist historiography is the notion of a 4th group: Confessional Protestantism, those who stood firm on sound doctrine as taught in the Creeds and Confessions of the Church, and sought to do ministry with an ecclesial focus. We reject Liberalism for its toleration of heresy, we reject Fundamentalism for its imbalance of doctrine, AND we also reject [New] Evangelicalism for its compromise of the truth.

Justin Taylor has decided to dip his toe into the issue by speaking about the "three type of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals after 1956." As we can see however, Taylor made the same revisionist error of omitting Confessional Protestantism, whether that is due to ignorance or intentional maliciousness is another question. In the interest of correcting this deficit, I have decided to add the fourth column to his chart:

	Confessional Protestantism
Personal separation from sin	advocated
Ecclesiastical separation from liberals/ modernists	advocated
Relationship of evangelism and social action	emphasized evangelism over social action
Style of combatting Modernism	militant
Attitude towards Billy Graham	opposed (less strongly), but do not necessarily regard as apostate
Attitude towards NAE	opposed
Attitude towards self-designation of "fundamentalist"	rejected
Geographical concentration	?
Representatives	J.G. Machen, Reformed churches

By defining the Confessional Protestant position out of the picture, the New Evangelicals, or its latest reincarnation in the "New Calvinism," can claim to be the moderate position between the extremes of Liberalism and Fundamentalism. Furthermore, they can claim, and do claim, continuity with the Reformation, even though they do not belong there. In the one hand, they held up the portrayal of the Liberals, which every true Christian would reject as having compromised the faith. In the other hand, they held up the portrayal of the angry Fundamentalists, using the worst excesses of that movement as an example to tar the rest. They thus seem both strong on doctrine (contra Liberalism) yet charitable towards others (contra Fundamentalism). Confessional Protestantism however cannot be so easily tarred, so it is probably better to revise them out of the picture, since after all they are generally not a big and vocal group, and some can be co-opted into their camp.

Between Confessional Protestantism and Separatist Fundamentalists, the major difference is the balance we achieve through focusing on the historic creeds and confessions of the Church. Separatists Fundamentalists, due to the anti-intellectualism held by many of them, tend towards imbalances resulting in factions and schisms. The prevalence of Dispensationalism in many parts of separatist Fundamentalism has resulted in a cottage industry of elaborate eschatological charts, filling in the blanks where Scripture is silent. Is it not any wonder that factions and schisms will result from such doctrinal imbalances, where belief in a pre-tribulation rapture (nowhere taught in Scripture) becomes definitive of orthodoxy in some circles? Confessional Protestantism, by focusing on the pattern of sound words, do not suffer from such schisms found in Fundamentalist circles, schisms which may be exaggerated by the New Evangelicals to prove that the separatists are short on Christian charity.

The focus on the historic creeds and confessions of the Church of course means that it is less a movement than a church, thus tied to denominations. It is understandable that Evangelicalism hate denominations, but that doesn't make the link to denominations wrong. Perhaps that is another reason why Evangelicals like Justin Taylor wish to ignore Confessional Protestantism. In all fairness, Taylor is not the only one to do so; most of the histories regarding Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism in the 20th century do the same, and all of them are wrong in their omission. One wonders how many of them actually read what John Gresham Machen believed concerning ecclesiology and the Fundamentalism of his time, instead of just focusing on his battle with Modernism.

We return to the beginning of Taylor's article, where he mentions three "definitions" from Dr. Dockery. I will add in the fourth "definition," and thus we will see the different spirit in Confessional Protestantism.

An Evangelical is someone who likes Billy Graham;
A Liberal is someone who thinks Billy Graham is a fundamentalist;
A Fundamentalist is someone who thinks Billy Graham is apostate. AND
A Confessional Protestant is someone who deplores Billy Graham's compromise and lack of biblical ecclesiology, while acknowledging both the good and the bad he has done for the spread of the Christian faith.

The Gospel Coalition just has to prove its critics right

I think it goes to the whole structural problem in the whole young, restless and reformed thing, and that is, the guys at the top decided who was going to be allowed to make criticism, who they were going to listen to, and who they were going to ignore, and you end up, when you decide that, right at the start, you end up with a terribly, terribly potentially corrupt system. .. The truth is so rarely actually spoken into these guys' lives -Carl Trueman (10:45-11:14)

Kevin DeYoung recently wrote a hit piece attacking "internet criticism," and basically claimed that these guys aren't worth listening to. As if to prove my point, any posted criticism of DeYoung's article "miraculously" disappeared off their FB page. Now, just compare their action with what Dr. Trueman said about the entire YRR movement. Time and time again, we have been proven right, and over and over again, none of them want to listen. They rather blunder and abet more Mark Driscolls, more James MacDonalds and so on, and the train wreck continues. I had "prophesied" the train wreck, not because I possess the *gift* of prophecy, but because it was so obvious what was going to happen. Yet they ignored their critics and what we warned about came true.

This hit piece was written by Kevin DeYoung. Remember, this was the guy who hasn't apologized at all for insulting single men. When he talks about "internet critics," he means he can critique and attack anyone he wishes to, but the same is denied to those who push back against him. Evidently, to the YRR establishment, all they want is an echo chamber. Applause and accolades are welcome, but critiques are most certainly not welcome. Why they even bother with keeping up the facade of engaging in social media is anyone's guess, unless by "social media," they mean "I talk, you listen."

So here continues the New Evangelical Calvinism train wreck, coming to a town near you.

Mortification of Spin (MoS): The spin of the "YRR establishment"

The most recent Mortification of Spin (MoS) podcast dealt with the issue of the Mark Driscoll fiasco and the response of the "YRR (Young, Restless, Reformed) establishment." Carl Trueman dealt particularly with John Piper's interview concerning whether he regretted promoting partnering with Mark Driscoll, and expressed astonishment at Piper's statement that he has "no regrets." Trueman voiced my exact thoughts concerning this issue. Here are some choice morsels:

I think it goes to the whole structural problem in the whole young, restless and reformed thing, and that is, the guys at the top decided who was going to be allowed to make criticism, who they were going to listen to, and who they were going to ignore, and you end up, when you decide that, right at the start, you end up with a terribly, terribly potentially corrupt system. .. The truth is so rarely actually spoken into these guys' lives -Carl Trueman (10:45-11:14)

It [issuing a note of repentance] shows a leadership of discernment, a leadership that's willing to make hard decisions, and takes responsibilities when it's gone off the rails. ... My respect for the leaders of the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement would be much greater than it is if they had just once, in all of the crises that have engulfed the movement over the last two or three years, just once, they had expressed some regret - just once they had taken some responsibility for these disasters. But in actual fact what we get time and time again is the spin machine in operation trying to get everybody off the hook. And then turning around and saying, "Why didn't anybody tell us?" Well, people did tell you, but not people that you care to listen to,... -Carl Trueman (14:20- 15:12)

... when it's the top men just talking to the top men, and they forgot the ordinary people that actually get bruised and damaged by the decisions they made -Carl Trueman (16:01 -16:14)

I absolutely agree. It is extremely disturbing that the "YRR establishment" does not even ONCE says it is wrong, that it has sinned. Instead, it's all spin, and none of them are interested in listening to biblical advice, rebuke and correction.

UnChristian?

The greatest danger [to the Church and the Christian faith] lay in a [movement] that insisted on defining professing Christians out of Christianity. ... [Name withheld said,] In the midst of a world situation that "smells to heaven," in the presence of "colossal problems, which must be solved in Christ's name and for Christ's sake, [a certain group of professing Christians] propose to drive out from the Christian churches all the consecrated souls who do not agree with their [doctrine]. What immeasurable folly!"

Quick quiz, is this statement referring to

1. watchbloggers,
2. "haters"
3. all how disagree with John Frame over "evangelical reunion"
4. none of the above
5. all of the above

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Answer: 4 (none of the above).

The full citation goes like this:

The greatest danger [to the Church and the Christian faith -DHC] lay in a fundamentalism that insisted on defining professing Christians out of Christianity. "Just now," Forsdick said, "the Fundamentalists are giving us one of the worst exhibitions of intolerance that the churches of this country have ever seen." In the midst of a world situation that "smells to heaven," in the presence of "colossal problems, which must be solved in Christ's name and for Christ's sake, the Fundamentalists propose to drive out from the Christian churches all the consecrated souls who do not agree with their theory of inspiration. What immeasurable folly!" [William R. Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 275]

Defining "professing Christians" as being non-Christians is not a new thing. It is in fact the traditional practice of both Reformed and Evangelical Christianity. Reformed Christianity defined heretics out of the Church, no matter how outwardly pious they might seem to be. Evangelicals with their revivalism define all without a "born-again" experience as being practically unregenerate, or at least that was what they traditionally did. This idea of defining professing believers as being non-Christians is clearly practiced by the early 20th century Fundamentalists, and this sort of "intolerance" is what the Liberal Harry Emerson Forsdick saw as "intolerance." Forsdick's view of course is not atypical. It was also the view of the 18th century mainstream Anglicans towards John Wesley, George Whitefield, and the Methodists.

Of course, without the context, the answer to my quiz could very well be 5 (all of the above). In fact, if you have actually thought through the quote without scrolling down for the answer, you might actually have thought 4 is the answer. This only goes to show how unbiblical 21st century [Neo-] Evangelicalism has become. The "unpardonable sin" among many Christians nowadays it seems is the sin of stating that such and such a person is NOT a Christian because of what He believes (or disbelieves). But of course, we have seen that this attitude of judging is integral to the Reformation and integral to the founding of Evangelicalism. So what exactly has changed since then? Who exactly is the one who's unChristian: the one who claims that those who do not believe in cardinal doctrines are non-believers, or the one who attacks those who do so? From a historical point of view, I think the answer is self-evident.

Next time anyone utilizes this same critique of "intolerance," inform them they are in the same camp as Christ-denying Liberals like Harry Emerson Forsdick

Charity, mercy and social justice

[Previous post here]

That charity must not be justice in order to be charity is something sadly controverted in our day. From within supposed Reformed and Evangelical circles, we have Tim Keller who has muddied the waters and attempted to steer people towards embracing the Leftist notion of "social justice," which has nothing to do with real justice at all.

The main focus of "justice" is basically giving people what they deserve. Someone breaks the law, they are punished for doing so. Especially in Christian theology, the notion of justice is tied in with notions of works and merit. God exercises His justice when He punishes sinners, because sinners sin and their sins deserved to be punished. Justice is purely an external of giving another his due.

Charity on the other hand as it is used is often linked with mercy. Mercy by definition must be unequal. A judge who acquits the innocent is NOT being merciful to the acquitted. Mercy is always to the undeserving, either in withholding punishment or in giving undeserved aid. To speak of "merited" mercy is an oxymoron. God in His grace in His mercy withholds the punishment due to sinners who turn in faith to Christ. Those sinners do not deserve the mercy; it is purely unmerited. Mercy and charity is thus antithetical to justice and law, the former pair being unmerited and the latter pair merited.

It is with this understanding that we see how terrible Keller's leftist socialist idea of "social justice" is. By calling charity and mercy "justice," Keller has turned something unmerited into something merited. In other words, whereas in the older understanding charity is something given by people out of their care and concern, charity in Keller's leftist system is an entitlement for the poor. The poor could demand charity, as is the case in socialist states. When charity is seen as an entitlement, then what we have as an example today are the socialist countries of Europe, where people give much to charity involuntarily through the State.

So, when Keller tried to equate "justice" and "righteousness," he commits many fallacies in his eisegesis of Job 29:12-17. No one controverts the fact that "justice" and "righteousness" are very similar and could function as synonyms. But synonyms may not necessarily have the same meaning all the time, and when we go into the details, then the differences between similar words can be seen. "Justice" is focused on the external, while "righteousness" is an internal quality. Righteousness does manifests itself in justice, and thus the two can and are often used interchangeably. But just because righteousness does manifests itself in justice does not mean that it cannot consists of other things like love. When the focus is on obligations of people, then the differences between the two terms appear. It is one thing to say it is righteous to aid the poor, and another thing to say that aiding the poor is justice, as what Keller has done. Keller, and those who follow him, have committed logical and etymological fallacies in equating righteousness with justice. While the two terms can be used as synonyms, they are not always the same thing.

The concept therefore of "social justice" is nonsensical. What it leads to logically are socialist states and economies. Instead of spreading the wealth, socialism only spreads the poverty around, being based upon faulty economics.

p = "righteous," q = "just, justice," r = "love, charity, mercy"

If p, then q; If p, then r
Keller's claim: If q, then r; q = r (Both invalid)

Truth table:

			1	2		Conclusion:
p	q	r	If p, then q	If p, then r	1 & 2	If q, then r	q = r
T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T
T	T	F	T	F	F	F	F
T	F	T	F	T	F	T	F
T	F	F	F	F	F	T	T
F	T	T	T	T	T	T	T
F	T	F	T	T	T	F	F
F	F	T	T	T	T	T	F
F	F	F	T	T	T	T	T

Tim Keller and faulty economics

[Previous post on the topic here]

One of the more notorious practices of local banks is to "redline" poor and nonwhite neighborhoods. That is, they refuse mortgage and small business loans to applicants who live there. Their argument is that they simply look at the statistic and conclude that residents of those neighborhoods are more likely not to make good on the loan. God, however, says we are not to live that way in our relationships to the poor. He says, in effect, in Proverb 19:7: "Don't you dare 'redline' people. Don't look at someone and say, 'If I get involved with that person I might be taken advantage of!' I see a gift to the poor as a gift to me. I will, in some way, make the loan good. I will give you value, trust me."

—Timothy Keller, Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just (New York, NY: Penguin, 2010), 184

After quite some time, I have finally read Tim Keller's book Generous Justice. Looking back at my initial interaction with an interview he had done concerning the book, I saw that my assessment was somewhat correct though it requires tweaking.

Besides the categorical confusion over the Church and individual Christians, Keller has misread the Job narrative altogether, as if charity is justice. Keller uses Job 29:12-7, using the words translated as "justice" and "righteousness" to build his entire case that helping the poor is actually justice, not charity. In response, it must be said that "justice" is not the same as "righteousness." "Justice" normally refers to some form of external objective verdict, while "righteousness" is an internal quality. In context, Job rendering justice is his righteous actions. But saying that doing justice is a righteous action does not mean that justice EQUALS righteousness, must less infer that since the injustice Job addressed is oppression of the poor and payment of wages, therefore justice is to work for social good and injustice is not to work for social good. That action X is a subset of set J, and J manifests character R, DOES NOT imply that action X EQUALS character R!

The case I would like to make here concerns the above quote from the book, which is merely one instance, among many, of Keller offering practical steps Christians OUGHT to take in order to practice "generous justice." This quote is shown only because it could be easily tied in to the sub-prime crisis in America around 2007, whereby loans made to poor people were bad debts which had to be written off, and the accumulation of so much bad debt triggered a financial meltdown. The actions of the banks certainly sounds like rectifying the scenario Keller is painting, by not "redlining" people. We now know, in hindsight, what happened when banks decided to not "redline" those who are poor and in fact encourage the practice of allowing any Tom, Dick and Harry to take loans regardless of their financial status.

The point I want to make is that just because Scripture do tell us to be charitable to the poor does not give any pastor a right to propose solutions (which seems almost always to look and sound like Liberal social justice solutions), besides general teaching. Pastors are not economists, and even economists and politicians are not monolithic on the solutions that should be implemented to help the poor. It is one thing to say that believers should be compassionate and helpful towards the poor, it is another to tell them what policies they should do to help the poor. As it is, why should people accept Keller's solutions as actually helping the poor? Upon what basis should a pastor who is clearly not an economist pontificate about the proper way of dealing with sociatal problems? Furthermore, in hindsight, do we honestly think that allowing anyone to take a loan from any bank for any reason is actually a good idea for all?

Keller's book therefore fails to prove its points. The only thing worth salvaging is that Christians ought to be concerned about the plight of the poor, and I don't need his book to tell me that.