I just got a note from Chris Cowan, associate editor of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. It looks like the newest issue is going to be really good. It’s on the atonement, and all the articles favor a penal substitutionary view of the atonement. In his opening editorial, Stephen Wellum writes: “In the evangelical church today we are in danger of downplaying and even distorting the true meaning and significance of the cross. A number of examples could be given to demonstrate this last observation, but I want to focus on one disconcerting trend that is increasingly occurring in evangelical theology, namely, an effort to reinterpret the cross in…
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Let’s Amend the ETS Constitution
Dr. Ray Van Neste (Union University) and I have been working on a proposal to amend the constitution of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). We have been in touch with senior members of the society (e.g, living founders, past presidents, and executive committee members) and have received some excellent, critical feedback (though no endorsements). We have completed our proposal, and now we want to go public and to gather support for it from our fellow members of the ETS. In short, our aim is to expand the doctrinal basis of the ETS. We are not naïve about the challenges of uniting such a diverse body around an expanded doctrinal basis.…
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I’m still at least 51% Protestant
Evangelical-Catholic dialogue has been a hot topic in the wake of the Pope’s recent affirmation of the Roman Catholic Church as the only true church. For example, Christianity Today‘s “Honest Ecumenism, Again” and “Virtue That Counts” as well as Al Mohler’s “No, I’m not offended” have been making the rounds in the blogosphere. In this context, it is interesting to read some questions raised by my old mentor Daniel Wallace over at the “Parchment and Pen” blog. Although Wallace’s remarks are not a response to the Pope’s recent announcement, they are relevant to Evangelical-Catholic dialogue. Wallace says, “I’m still at least 51% Protestant.” You’ll want to go and read the…
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Tommy Nelson: A Real Live Dispensationalist!
People are often surprised when I tell them that I became convinced of the doctrines of grace through the preaching of a dispensationalist. Nevertheless, it is true. It happened when I was in college. Pastor Tommy Nelson’s exposition of Romans 9 changed my worldview forever.
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Voddie Baucham’s Unforgettable Message
I wrote last month that the best sermon that I heard at the Southern Baptist Convention was delivered by Voddie Baucham, pastor of Grace Family Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. Baucham’s message wasn’t actually a part of the official program of the Southern Baptist Convention. He preached at the Founder’s breakfast which meets annually in conjunction with the Convention.
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So the Pope Is Catholic
Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church because it is the only one that can lay claim to a legitimate apostolic succession. A writer from the Associated Press has figured out the significance of the timing and the content of Benedict’s move:
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Tony Jones: A Gobbledygook “Orthodoxyâ€
If Brian McLaren is the author of A Generous Orthodoxy, then Tony Jones is certainly the author of gobbledygook “orthodoxy.” And, yes, the scare quotes are necessary because, as you will soon see, Jones’ “orthodoxy” is anything but orthodox. Tony Jones is the National Coordinator of Emergent Village (a network of emerging churches that constitutes the theological leftwing of the emerging church), and he is not so happy that his plenary address will be excluded from the published volume of essays from the 2007 Wheaton Theology Conference.
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JBMW Articles Available
The contents of the Spring 2007 issue of The Journal for Biblical Manhood & Womanhood are posted on the journal’s website. You don’t want to miss the two articles that are available for download right now: Russell D. Moore, “O. J. Simpson is Not a Complementarian: Male Headship and Violence aganist Women” Jason Hall, “A Review of Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity by Kevin Giles” If you are not already subscribed to JBMW, you need to be.
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Mark Driscoll on Women in Ministry
I wrote last month about an article that Jim Hamilton and I have written for the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. In our research for this article, we obtained Pastor Mark Driscoll’s position statement on church leadership, which was published as a little booklet titled Church Leadership. According to Mars Hill Church’s website, this booklet and others from their “Theology Series” are slated to be published by Crossway in 2008. So you can no longer download Church Leadership from the church’s website. You’ll have to wait for the book. In any case, we were interested in Driscoll’s book because we were trying to figure out…
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Southern Baptists and Elders
Morris Chapman wrote an interesting piece in the Baptist Press last week about the confessional status of the SBC’s doctrinal statement, “The Baptist Faith and Message 2000” (BF&M). His article comes on the heels of the annual meeting of the SBC in San Antonio where Southern Baptists voted to reaffirm the BF&M as a sufficient guide for SBC leaders when they make convention-wide policies (read story). Because Chapman is president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), his reflections carry a lot of weight with many Southern Baptists. I’m not going to interact with Chapman’s entire essay, but I do want to comment on a small piece…