Archive for egalitarianism
Thank God for the CR
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the reasons that the CR was needed is illustrated by the recent string of articles in the Associated Baptist Press on women pastors. There are some people in our SBC sphere of existence who wish to rewrite history, and who like to think that the CR was not really needed. They think that it was all purely political, and it was an evil grab for power and control. But, the issue was definitely theological. The leaders of the CR just represented what thousands and thousands of Pastors and people in the pews were wanting to happen; praying for; and longing for someone to lead the charge. Thank God for Dr. Page Patterson and Paul Pressler and Dr. Adrian Rogers and all the others, who had the guts and the faith to lead out in this incredible endeavor. God used it and blessed it greatly.
But, what I really want you to see in this post is some of the reasons that the CR had to be, and where the SBC would be today if it had not happened. The ABP is a good place to look when trying to see what the SBC would’ve been. Look at this article: http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5411/53/ and this one: http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5410/9/ So, clearly going against the teaching of the Bible does not seem to matter to these people. They could care less that the Bible clearly teaches that only men should be Pastors/Elders in a church. This just shows their total disregard for what the Bible teaches. They’d rather fit in with society. And, this is where the SBC was going before the CR.
Also, I’ve always thought that winning souls and worshipping Jesus was at the heart of Christian ministry? I always thought that fulfilling the Great Commission was at the heart of what a Christian should be about? I’ve always thought that people knowing God and loving Him would answer the problem of man. Is that not what the Bible teaches? But, according to the ABP, the heart of Christian ministry should be something else. Now, please, dont come in here telling me that I dont believe in helping the sick and the poor. Of course, Christian compassion should lead us to help people in need, and we’re commanded to do that in the Bible. But, is this the “heart” of Christian ministry? Is this the core of what we should be about? Look at this article: http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5410/9/ Also, notice that it’s a woman that’s “preaching” it! lol. And again, this is where the SBC was going before the CR.
Also, the ABP has shown how the liberal/moderate crowd of the former SBC’ers disregard the clear teachings of the Scripture concerning homosexuality. Look at this: http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3469&Itemid=9 and this one: http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5001/9/ And then, look at this one: http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5281/53/ This is where the SBC would be today had not the CR taken place. This is the way we were going before the CR.
Folks, we need to thank the Lord that the leaders of the CR had the courage and the faith to lead our SBC back to the Bible. We need to thank God most of all for doing this great work in the SBC. God has blessed us in the SBC in great ways. God is using the SBC in tremendous ways to carry out His work on this Earth. And, we need to realize that being a people of the BOOK is the reason that God uses us and blesses us so greatly. The fact that we preach the Gospel and teach His Word is why He continues to choose to bless us and use us. And, if we ever drift away from a true faith….based on the Bible….then we’ll go the way of the other denominations and churches that left the faith. You dont have to look far to see how dead and dying these churches and denominations are.
Abandoning Doctrinal Fidelity for the Lowest Common Denominator
Posted by: | CommentsWhile attending the FBC Jacksonville Pastor’s conference, the events of last week have weighed heavily on my mind. Namely what our site, SBCToday, should be about. The resource managers have primarily taken up the cause of the nearly forgotten doctrines concerning Baptist ecclesiology. Because of this, some have referred to us as “Baptist Identity” (BI), “neo-Landmark/Landmark,” or “fundamentalist” while sometimes adding “spooky.”
Frankly, last week Friday and most of Saturday, I was not keeping up with the blogs, yet through the preaching of God’s Word at the conference, God was dealing with me in how I represent His Word on the blogs. For what am I willing to suffer in the proclamation and upholding of His Word? This question was driven to me as Dr. Mohler preached from Colossians 1:19-28. Dr. Mohler’s point was that that we are “called,” men of God, not men working in a profession. This calling requires us to uphold the Word of God and suffer if we are called to do so in the proclamation of the truth. Essentially Paul was willing to suffer for the sake of the church to fulfill the Word of God.
It is my opinion that over the past couple of weeks, my name has been suffering for something that does not equate for what Paul is calling us to suffer. Though I believe I have done nothing ethically wrong in my blogging activities last week, I did in fact abandon my primary purpose of proclaiming the wondrous biblical truths of God and in articulating the overall situation Southern Baptists are facing. There is a systematic diverting of attention from doctrinal fidelity by the Southern Baptist (SB) ecumenist. This is being done by aligning oneself to the lowest common denominator for cooperation, a false redefinition of terms, and a pragmatic approach to missions cooperation.
I joined with the other men at SBC Today to bring awareness to the almost forgotten and severely neglected theology of Baptist ecclesiology. If anything, I wanted to be a part of the grass roots movement to help Southern Baptists journey back to their biblical heritage concerning matters of the church.
With this endeavor in SBC Today, I have frequently used a term called “ecumenical” or “ecumenist.” While some have dismissed using these terms as being unhelpful, by using them in the context of Southern Baptists, I have understood it and applied it in three ways:
1. Those in Southern Baptist life who are ecumenical are those who seek to cooperate using the lowest common denominator. Not only in Southern Baptist life is this a movement, but it is also in the wider evangelical community. The recent evangelical manifesto proved this as the document itself abandoned inerrancy as a distinctive for evangelicals. In the SBC calls for cooperating on the essentials of the Gospel is the mantra. After the 2007 SBC Convention in San Antonio the Garner motion was an effort of the ecumenists to keep SBC entities from making decisions beyond the doctrinal limitations of the Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M). The ecumenists saw the BF&M as a “maximal document,” limiting the trustees to doctrines only addressed in the BF&M. In other words, the trustees could not fully fulfill their mandate as agents of accountability of the SBC. Fast forward to today. No longer are calls given by the Southern Baptist ecumenist to keep the BF&M as the limit of doctrines that are necessary for cooperation. Now the caveats have increased and the ecumenist desires to cooperate solely on the “essentials” of the gospel as long as those essentials remain in a state of flux so that no one is eliminated from their tent of cooperation. The belief in a regenerate baptized (immersed) church membership no longer matters. The ecumenist wants to work with the paedobaptist or sprinkler whether they were baptized as an infant or not. These issues are not of great concern to the SB ecumenist and do not impede cooperation for them.
2. Those in Southern Baptist life who are ecumenical wrongly redefine terms in order to evoke action towards their cause. Terms have been used to invoke fear among various groups of Southern Baptists. “Fundamentalist,” “spooky fundamentalist,” “Landmark,” “neo-landmark,” and “avant-garde self-styled defenders of Baptist Identity,” have been used against confessional Southern Baptists. Recently the issue of closed verses open communion took front stage. Those who believe that a church should allow, at a minimum, only those who are saved and baptized by immersion to participate in the Lord’s Supper were called “neo-Landmark.” Yet, by this post here, it was shown that those Southern Baptists who practiced this are abiding within the parameters of the Baptist Faith and Message. Those who accuse confessional Southern Baptists as neo-Landmark are themselves outside of what Southern Baptists officially believe. The aforementioned terms have been wrongly used to describe those who are Baptist Identity.
3. Those in Southern Baptist life who are ecumenical focus more on pragmatism and cultural preference (or feelings) rather than Biblical principles in forging their worldview. For instance, one may not want a woman to pastor their church because their discomfort “is personal and cultural – and not Biblical.” But when an autonomous state convention of cooperating churches, because of biblical beliefs, decides to disfellow themselves from a church that has a woman for their pastor, the convention is scourged on blog posts saying that it is unfair for a state convention to hold, in particular, those biblical beliefs not only in doctrine, but also in practice. Autonomy is only held in cases where it benefits the ecumenist. The state convention of cooperating churches, for the ecumenist, is not autonomous in this decision, yet through out Baptist history, there is example after example of associations and conventions who have operated as an autonomous body of churches that did not allow themselves to compromise their doctrines by one church’s decision to act independently of the confessional belief of the body. To claim that cooperating churches in a state convention cannot act autonomously against one aberrant church is weak if not illogical to say the least.
The ecumenical reformer understands certain truths from God’s Word to be stumbling blocks to cooperating with others. Where the doctrine does not pragmatically fit, it must be removed. We see this time and time again in the seeker sensitive or emergent church movement that is creeping into our convention. Don’t misunderstand, doctrine is not unimportant to the ecumenical reformer if it aids their cause, but when it is perceived to being a stumbling block, it must either be removed or avoided because it takes away from the pragmatic benefit of cooperation.
There is no doubt that a movement is afoot to make doctrine of secondary importance behind the shortsighted pragmatical benefits one perceives. When inerrancy (truth without any mixture of error), believers baptism by immersion, and the Lord’s Supper are considered tertiary doctrines that should not impede cooperation in a convention, association, or network of churches, then those who are not ashamed of the doctrines that make us Baptist must speak up and “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.”
What is Wrong with Biblical Terminology?
Posted by: | CommentsIn the last post, Scott Gordon garnered 233 comments surrounding the subject of Egalitarianism. Those commenting followed the usual lines; What about Deborah, Lydia, Phoebe, Priscilla? It seemed that some believe that submission is a bad word. Today, as in many cases, the words are changing because the biblical word has been so perverted. Submission, it seems, has been used as a curse word by feminist agenda advocates aligning those who advocate submission with wife abusers. It seems now that subordination is being substituted for the term of submission.
Is there a Difference in “Eternal Subordination” and “Submission“?
I say there is! It seems that some desire to argue that the eternal subordination advocated by the The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood is the same as submission of the woman to the man in a marriage. Please do not get me wrong. I understand that the CBM&W is arguing this as an example, but I do not believe I have read where they advocate the woman’s creation is inferior to the creation of a man. The CBM&W merely gives an example as to the proper theological basis for the husband and wife relationship and how they are to function. Orthodox teaching is that the Father is the source (1 John 1:1) of the Son and the Spirit. The Son is eternally generated by the Father (John 3:16; Heb. 1), and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father through the Son (John 15:26). The Father is therefore correctly identified as the First Person of the Trinity.
Moreover, the economic Trinity (how the Persons work) indicates the essential Trinity (who the Godhead is). Consider the working relations (economics) of the Trinity. We know that the Son submitted Himself to the Father (cf. Gethsemane). We also know that the Spirit is sent by the Father and in turn by the Son (John 14:26, 15:26). The economic priority of the Father thus also indicates that there is an essential priority of the Father that does not violate the equality of the Son and the Spirit. The Son’s submission to the Father does not make Him less than who He is, it means that He willingly surrendered to the economic structure of the Godhead.
It seems that the Bible is full of clear teaching that Jesus submitted to direction within the Godhead structure. Mark 3:12 should be fully researched for those who would argue that Jesus, while fully man and fully God, made decisions on His own as God. Jesus clearly submitted himself within the subordinate structure of the Godhead. There seems to be a “slight of hand” that some use as a redefinition of the word “subordination.” When it comes to the relationship of the husband and wife I will always use the term “submission“. That way the “equality of being yet willing to yield” is properly maintained.
Maybe you disagree. That is alright because as Dr. Pete Schemm has clearly researched there is room for a view within Christian Orthodoxy that is different from the “Eternal Subordination” view. When using the word “subordinationism“, the word strictly refers to the Son being subordinate in relationship, thus it refers to the economy of the relationship of the Trinity. But others have taken the word “subordinationism” and have tried to place this teaching in a relationship with Arius’ heretical teaching. The huge difference in using “subordinationism” and Arius’ teaching centers on what Arius taught about Jesus. Arius taught that Jesus was created by the Father which is not what “subordinationism” teaches. “Subordinationism” merely follows the economy of God in directing the various actions of each Person of the Trinity. Would one believe that each person in the Trinity would act according to it’s own will? I think not!
As you disagree let me ask that you do me a favor. We can all agree the Bible tells us in the Ephesians 5:32 passage on the husband and wife is a direct illustration of Christ and the Church. With that in mind, as you debate here, identify what you believe the relationship between the three Persons of the one Godhead is. Exactly how do you see them relating to one another? Also, in that relation how does the submission of Jesus to the Father relate to the submission of the wife to the husband?
Egalitarianism Crashes
Posted by: | CommentsThis morning Laura Ingraham said something on her radio program that set off a set of fireworks in my brain (the good kind of fireworks, that is). While discussing the market debacle that is currently captivating our attention as a nation, she–with the help of dated articles to back up her assertions–has shown that the problematic practices undertaken by Freddie & Fannie actually began during the Carter administration and were strongly encouraged and even ramped up during the Clinton administration…despite objections and warnings from lawmakers and financial experts alike. The overwhelming theme of the Clinton extension of looser lending practices was set forth under the ploy that everyone should own their home…and it was (apparently) the government’s job, through its quasi-government/private lending agencies [Fannie & Freddie once again], to make sure this happened.
Laura’s money quote in reference to the outcome of those policies?
“Well, that strikes a stunning blow to egalitarianism there.”
And that is why I like this woman. Egalitarianism in social constructs where it is not warranted is dangerous. Certainly on a great number of things we all stand as equals…before the law, before the Cross, as citizens of this great country, as human beings…in all these things neither gender nor age nor ethnicity matter. BUT, egalitarianism is not a one-size-fits-all-situations card. In the aforementioned case of home loans, mandating that lending institutions institute unwise financial practices in the name of helping provide a home for everyone has caused our country to enter the most troubling financial time in decades. Also, those who wish to be housing egalitarians must also assume the mantle of economic socialists as well. I am well aware that anyone who would have or still does support former President Clinton’s economic policies, especially in this instance, would likely recoil at being called a socialist…but that is what it is whether one claims the mantle or not.
Obviously the collapse of that egalitarianism brings to mind the reason I see such danger (as do Dr. Tommy Nelson, Dr. Wayne Grudem, Dr. John Piper, Dr. John MacArthur, and a host of others) in theological egalitarianism…and the subsequent monicker of “evangelical feminism” which is so readily embraced by many who style themselves to be theologically conservative in Christian and Southern Baptist circles today. Those whose mindset it is to force egalitarianism into a social construct where it is not warranted (e.g. housing) are dangerous enough…those who wish to force egalitarianism into a place where God expressly forbids it are more dangerous. WHY? My concern with these theological egalitarians who wish to push women pastors, theological openness, and denegrate the role of a father in the home is this…where will they stop? If we are to be “open” about this issue, which one is next? How broad does the tent need to become?
Why does this bother me? BECAUSE there comes a time when the tent becomes too broad and it ceases to exist, and that is not an option. SO, I feel a necessary responsibility to stand up and speak up concerning this issue…to call this egalitarianism what it is: a troubling doorway to liberal ecumenical thought once again attempting to rear its head in our midst.
