No Place For Truth?

Thomas Oden is my favorite Wesleyan theologian. He was a liberal in the sixties. But something happened. He was driven away from theological liberalism to embrace Protestant Orthodoxy. Oden writes with clarity and passion about the need for the Mainline denominations to return to the truth. Until then, there is no ground for unity.

In Turning Around The Mainline Oden writes:

Oldline ecumenical debate and planning are prone to misfire through a fundamental misunderstanding of the relation of unity and truth: They do no seek unity based on truth.

Four modern ecumenical arguments in particular misfire, as shown by David Mills. They even make Christian disunity more likely. These four following arguments have prevailed in liberal ecumenism, each unintentionally eliciting disunity. Each is a mistake “if-then” correlation:

1. If we can just get together on some common ethical standards, then we will therefore achieve the unity of believers.

2. If we could have the same open ecumenical feelings or experiences, then we would feel our unity.

3. If we could just be open to dialogue, then we would grow toward unity.

4. If we merge the separate institutions based on different memories created by the Spirit, then we would experience our unity through an institution, and thus we now must renew our commitment to the institutional vestiges of ecumenism.

All these attempts are alike in one way: they put unity ahead of truth. They squander the truth to achieve a superficial unity. All are mistaken. All spawn disillusionment with efforts at Christian unity. Together they have resulted in the ecumenical turbulence that now buffets us.

All misfire for the same reason: they base unity on something other than the truth, by avoiding the only basis from which Christian unity can emerge—that is the revealed Word whose hearing is enabled by the Holy Spirit and received through faith. (111)

HT: Kevin DeYoung

As the seminaries go...

The new direction of the Clarmont School of Theology, a United Methodist institution, demonstrates once again how theological liberalism inevitably leads to apostasy. This is one of the reasons why many of us are sticklers for detail when it comes to doctrine. The first reason is that love for and faithfulness to God demands holding firm to His Word. But secondly, when the tent of acceptable doctrine becomes broader than the Scriptures allow then ruin is sure to follow.

Al Mohler comments:

The leftward march of liberal Protestantism is hardly news, but on occasion a development arises that serves as something of a parable of that trajectory. Such is the case this week with news from California that the Claremont School of Theology, a school historically related to the United Methodist Church, is transforming itself into a multifaith center for the training of clergy.

In a press conference held on June 9, leaders of the school formally announced the “University Project,” which will involve the addition of programs to train Muslim imams and Jewish rabbis. Programs to train Buddhist and Hindu religious leaders are to be added in the future.

The school’s Board of Trustees voted back in 2008 to inaugurate the program. A statement from the school explains that this vote “set in motion the University Project as a means to rethink classical models of theological education in an effort to promote interreligious cooperation and ethical integrity in the training of religious leaders for a variety of religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others.”

David Roozen of the Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Theological Seminary told The Los Angeles Times that Claremont’s plan is “really kind of a creative, bold move.” He also suggested that liberal Protestants have been moving toward more expansive multifaith dialogue — a dialogue he described as on a continuum alongside race, gender, and sexual orientation. “Multifaith is the new ‘other,’” he told the paper. “It’s kind of the next step.”

The next step toward what? In a sense, the announcement from Claremont is indeed just a “next step” along a leftward progression set decades ago. Liberal Protestantism long ago grew embarrassed by the exclusive claims of biblical Christianity and the historic Christian faith. Adopting pluralist and inclusivist reconstructions of the faith, liberal theologians and theological schools have been pressing the margins for over a century now. Given that trajectory, a multifaith theological seminary was an inevitability — the only question was when and where it would happen.

Read the entire article HERE.

Carl Trueman on Packer and Ecumenism

The break between J.I. Packer and Martin Lloyd Jones was a sad event. They are both heros to me. They were certainly wonderful gifts from God to His church. I have spoken to Carl about the schism. As a historian and a Brit Trueman has keen insight into those events. I'm posting this in part because Carl is among the folks present at Westminster Weekend.

Incidentally, Trueman's chapter in THIS BOOK is outstanding.

Thanks to Martin Downes for posting this video and the following thoughts:

Have a listen as Carl talks about his recent essay on Packer "An English Non-Conformist Perspective" in Timothy George [ed.], J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future. You can read some sample pages here.

I don't suppose that my following comments will make any sense unless you have watched the video clip. Perhaps they won't make any sense even if you have watched it.

I have heard Carl talk about some of these issues before, and he is surely right about the lack of a systematic theology from Packer. That said he has given to the church a remarkable written legacy. As a sixteen year old I heard Packer preach in Cardiff on the doctrine of hell. I have listened to the recording many times since then, and had no appreciation at the time of what I was listening to, or who Packer was. I must find a way to get that message from audio cassette to mp3.

I have yet to read Carl's essay and so have no idea about the connection between my comments and what he has written as they appertain to Packer and Lloyd-Jones. The break with Lloyd-Jones came in 1970 and not in 1966. Indeed this Sunday will mark the 43rd anniversary of that definitive moment in post-war British evangelicalism when Lloyd-Jones, the speaker, and John Stott, the chairman, publicly disagreed over evangelical policy on ecumenism at the Evangelical Alliance meeting.

The break between Lloyd-Jones and Packer, in 1970, came after the publication of Growing into Union. The book was written by four authors, two evangelicals and two Anglo-Catholics. But the positions advocated were representative of a common mind ("We are all four committed to every line in the book...and we are determined that no wedge be driven between us." I am referring to a footnote by Iain Murray in Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace and am not able to verify what has been omitted from this sentence).

Certainly from Lloyd-Jones' standpoint the parting of the ways was due to Packer's ecumenical commitment expressed in Growing into Union. Lloyd-Jones expressed his concerns to Packer in a letter dated July 7th 1970. Referring to a discussion about the book at the monthly ministers' Fellowship (the Westminster Fellowship) Lloyd-Jones wrote:

The general opinion there, without a single voice to the contrary, was that the doctrinal position outlined in the book cannot be regarded as being evangelical, still less puritan. The three of us [the free church members of the Puritan Conference committee] therefore feel, most reluctantly, that we cannot continue to co-operate with you in the Puritan Conference. To do so would be at the least to cause great confusion in the minds of all Free Church evangelical people and indeed a number of Anglican people.

This I feel sure will not come as a surprise to you as you must have known that the views expounded in the book concerning Tradition, Baptism, the Eucharist and Bishops, not to mention the lack of clarity concerning justification by faith only, could not possibly be acceptable to the vast majority of people attending the Puritan Conference.

Packer, of course, continued to follow this trajectory, culminating in the 1994 Evangelicals and Catholics Together document, The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium, of which he was an endorser. That document contained the joint affirmation that "we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ," an affirmation notable for the omission of the Reformation's solas. This, above everything else, was surely the great failure.

It is somewhat ironic that the pursuit of a wider ecclesiastical unity, a pursuit that could never be fulfilled by a policy of temporarily suspending the practice of gospel essentials in order to achieve more visible agreement, has been the cause of the open divisions among evangelicals in the twentieth century.

Lloyd-Jones' letter also stressed something of Packer's literary failure that Carl noted in the video:

You have known throughout the years not only my admiration for your great gift of mind and intellect but also my deep regard for you. I had expected that long before this you would have produced a major work in the Warfield tradition, but
you have felt called to become involved in ecclesiastical affairs. This to me isnothing less than a great tragedy and a real loss to the Church.

Common Ground Between Christians and Muslims?

Al Mohler responded to a letter that appeared in the New York Times in December. The letter, endorsed by some 300 Christian leaders called for understanding between Muslims and Christians based upon their sharing common ground. Baptist Press reported on Mohler's response (http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=27176).