CREDO

If you are not familiar with the website/magazine/blog CREDO then you ought to be. It is an excellent resource for Christians who want to grow in the knowledge of the Scriptures and the Faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Each edition of the webzine is given to a particular topic. The most recent issue is dedicated to the doctrine of the Trinity. Check out the article by Michael Reeves entitled Why A Triune God is Better Than Any Other.

Carl Trueman on the Trinity

Given some recent goings on among prominent evangelicals it is clear that the doctrine of the Trinity still needs clarity and defending. To lose clarity on the Trinity is to lose clarity on the gospel itself. Recently Carl Trueman gave a series of lectures on this vital tenet of biblical faith. I would encourage you to take time to listen.

AJM11 Carl Trueman Session 1 from The Proclamation Trust on Vimeo.

AJM11 Carl Trueman Session 2 from The Proclamation Trust on Vimeo.

"Bishop took two pawns"

Thanks to Carl Trueman for posting a link to a fascinating interview with a former Oneness Pentecostal.

RB: Assuming the best and that Jakes now affirms the orthodox view of the Trinity, if you were Mark Driscoll would you have asked him if he was going to publically recant for teaching damning heresy for so long?

JD: Yes. If he truly affirms an orthodox view of the Trinity, he must repent of his former teaching. The two views are totally incompatible.

RB: Elaborate on the practical implications of moving from modalism to the orthodox view in terms of Jakes’ church and world-wide impact. In other words, what would you do if you were T. D. Jakes and you now hold to the orthodox view of the Trinity after confusing so many people for such a long time?

JD: If I were Jakes, I would start to teach the Bible. That may sound like an oversimplification but men like Jakes may use the Bible every Sunday but don’t really teach it. I would start there.

RB: Comment on the following tweet I saw the other day: “The way Jakes played MacDonald & Driscoll, you could say Bishop took two pawns.” Why do you think the tweeter said that?

JD: Jakes quickly neutralized their objective questions with a bit of reverse psychology. MacDonald and Driscoll, who came to ER2 thinking the issue was doctrine, were very quickly routed by the Bishop, and before long they were talking about unity. It is always tempting to abandon our pursuit of doctrinal purity for church unity.

RB: On your Face Book page, you said, “Jakes’ chair was certainly no hot seat for he is an expert in vagueness and unfortunately they were charmed by his charisma.” Explain what you mean.

JD: He has capitalized on his cult of personality. His speaking skills, social diplomacy, and celebrity status can be overwhelming. He is a master at saying a lot without saying a lot. He is also a very likable fellow and the 30,000 Texans who make up his congregation are proof that theological ambiguity can fill a church building. I have been to conventions where he was the main speaker and have seen multitudes swoon over him. Driscoll and MacDonald were easy pickings.

RB: What would you say to folks who may be confused about ER2 and the discussion with Jakes?

JD: It may come as a surprise but men like T. D. Jakes are not epistemologically self-conscious. By that I mean that they spend so much time on motivating speech and platitudes that they’ve given very little time or thought to expound why they believe what they believe. They have reduced their doctrinal expressions to harmless sound-bytes intended to offend the least amount of people possible, and this is why he could neither call himself a Trinitarian nor fully renounce Oneness.

Read the entire interview HERE.

I must say that I am very concerned about the consequences of the Elephant Room. Driscoll, MacDonald and the other participants now affirm T.D. Jakes as orthodox. It is clear from Jakes' own words that he now desires to identify himself as Trinitarian while still holding on to modalist language. Driscoll and MacDonald should have called him on this. By failing to do so they diminished the importance of this central doctrine of biblical Christianity. By failing to mention, much less confront Jakes on his prosperity preaching, they failed further.

The clean bill of doctrinal health given to Jakes by Driscoll and MacDonald will only mean greater confusion within the church. It will mean pastors such as myself will need to be increasingly vigilant. Of course pastors expect this. What we do not expect is for false teachers to be given entree by influential evangelicals.

Legitimizing False Teachers...

There has been quite a broo-ha-ha stiring over James MacDonald's invitation of T.D. Jakes to his "Elephant Room" event.

Thabiti Anyabwile sees the invitation as a significant setback to the African American church.

He writes:

In 2007, the Lord granted me the privilege of publishing The Decline of African-American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity (IVP). The book was a labor of sorrow and love–sorrow because of how sharp and deep theological decline has been since the first writing African Americans of the late 1700s and early 1800s, and love because I ache to see my kinsmen according to the flesh brought into the gracious realms of God’s salvation. For me, the book was an attempt to (a) accurately trace the history of African-American theology using available primary source material, and (b) fulfill a pastoral obligation to advance the gospel and refute error (Titus 1:9).

Because the book “breaks rank” and “the party line,” I expected to be alone against an avalanche of criticism and angry protest. But the Lord has a people who have not bowed the knee to the baals of theological heresy, a people who want to know the truth and who instinctively if not explicitly knew something had gone wrong in the African-American church. Jesus’ sheep hear and know His voice, and they follow Him. Instead of an avalanche of criticism, I’ve pretty much heard a chorus of “Finally” and “It’s about time!”

When theologically conservative, Evangelical or Reformed African Americans call for reform in the African-American church, they feel like midgets facing the titans and juggernauts of a word-faith, charismatic pantheon. The task can seem so daunting and isolating. Internally, there’s the constant fight with unbelief and resignation. There’s wrestling with questions like “Can the African-American church be reformed?” ”Is the church essentially apostate?” Sometimes these questions have more to do with us than they have to do with the church. But the questions illustrate how intense and serious a battle this is.

That’s why it’s difficult to see larger-than-life heretics given a platform in circles of pastors and leaders we respect and we regard as co-laborers in defense and confirmation of the truth. I’m breaking no stories here. The news of T.D. Jakes’ invitation to the Elephant Room is widespread and rightly lamented by many. I’m just adding a perspective that hasn’t yet been stated: This kind of invitation undermines that long, hard battle many of us have been waging in a community often neglected by many of our peers. And because we’ve often been attempting to introduce African-American Christians to the wider Evangelical and Reformed world as an alternative to the heresy and blasphemy so commonplace in some African-American churches and on popular television outlets, the invitation of Jakes to perform in “our circles” simply feels like a swift tug of the rug from beneath our feet and our efforts to bring health to a sick church.

MacDonald and Driscoll can moderate discussions with anyone they wish. But we kid ourselves if we think inviting someone so recalcitrant about fundamental biblical teaching as Jakes can result in anything positive. MacDonald, Driscoll and others will not be the first to privately and publicly exhort, admonish, instruct and challenge Jakes on this vital issue–to no avail thus far. And we kid ourselves if we think the Elephant Room invitation itself isn’t an endorsement of sorts. We can’t downplay the associations by calling for people to suspend judgment and responding ad hominem against “discernment bloggers.” We certainly can’t do that while simultaneously pointing to our association at The Gospel Coalition as a happy certification of orthodoxy and good practice, as Driscoll seems to do here with MacDonald.

Read on HERE.

Carl Trueman has written well about this troubling case HERE and HERE.

Read Phil Johnson's insights HERE and HERE.

Finally, Nathan Busenitz weighs in HERE with a helpful article on the doctrine of the Trinity and the heresy of modalism.

Friends, nowhere in the Bible are Christians, particularly pastors and elders called to be nice to or build bridges to false teachers.

Trinitarian Discipleship

I love J.I. Packer. I try to read everything he writes. His influence upon sound evangelical thinking would be difficult to overestimate. One of Packer's many strengths is his ability to pack a freight train of theology into a comparitively brief statement (see his outstanding Concise Theology).

In this month's edition of Modern Reformation (to which I would encourage everyone to subscribe) features an interview with Dr. Packer that is well worth the read. I found the following statement to be very insightful and encouraging:

"I’m a great believer in the importance of trinitarian thinking in discipling. A lot of what has weakened discipling is the result of thinking of only one person of the godhead at any one time–think about the Holy Spirit and what he does; think about Jesus and his death on the cross for us; think of the Father and of his love and goodwill. But you’re not thinking, you see, of the three together: the divine team which works in the unity of a single program and plan, each person in the team fulfilling his part in our salvation, so that the gospel is much less “what a friend we have in Jesus”, but “what a team of friends we have through Jesus”–it’s the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our discipling instruction will be infinitely strengthened if we present it that way. Sometimes people say, “I’ve never heard it put like that before.” People will be deistic unless they are taught the Trinity.”

- J.I. Packer