As a Southern Baptist, I really appreciate the sentiments expressed in Douglas Baker’s Baptist Press essay, “Semper Reformanda: more than a phrase.” His basic contention is that the Southern Baptist conservative resurgence will have been for naught if a continuing reformation does not ensue. He writes: The affluence and leisure of modern church life make it all the more difficult to evangelize and disciple people who find Broadway more exciting than the Bible. The logic proceeds that if people are still attending Broadway shows and movies, then the church had better mimic such venues or else the sanctuary of today will be the museum of tomorrow. To assuage this fear,…

I was struck by something that I read today in Carl F. H. Henry’s watershed work The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947). Fundamentalism is agreed on the main doctrines of God, of creation, of anthropology, of soteriology, and of eschatology in its main peaks (p. 61). What impressed me about Henry’s observation here is that, sadly, it is no longer true. The consensus that used to characterize American evangelicalism no longer exists. One can no longer claim unity among evangelicals on central issues. Current debates among evangelicals about open theism and the adequacy of the penal substitution model of the atonement demonstrate that the old, broad consensus on the…

1 Timothy 2:8-15 has a been a battleground in the recent history of interpretation as scholars have been offering varying interpretations of a passage that at first blush cuts against modern egalitarian sensibilities. Verse 12 has proven to be particularly problematic for modern interpreters who support the ordination of women as pastors. A literal translation of verse 1 Timothy 2:12 reads: “I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over/domineer a man.” At the heart of the exegetical dispute is the problem of translating the phrase “to teach or to exercise authority over.” Dr. Ben Witherington, who will soon be adding to his impressive list of…

Yesterday I wrote in response to Ben Witherington’s critique of the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible. Today, Dr. Witherington apologizes for the remarks that he made there (HT: Justin Taylor). He explains that he didn’t have the whole story when he originally wrote, but now he does. You can read the entire apology in the “comments” section of the original post which is titled “The Problem with the ESV.” I understand where he’s coming from. I had to revise my post after reading the critiques of those who visited my site. I had overgeneralized on one point, and I’m glad that someone pointed it out to me. Oh,…

Ben Witherington’s apocryphal account of the origin of the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible has been roundly refuted on the ESV Bible Blog (HT: Justin Taylor). Among other things, Witherington alleges that the ESV translation too often manifests conservative biases rather than accurate translation. His comments imply that he detects complementarian biases being manifested in the ESV’s translation of texts like Romans 16:7, 1 Timothy 2:12, and Ephesians 5:21-22. Witherington writes, “The ESV doesn’t do justice to any of these texts, and at the expense of women.”