John Piper on Doug Wilson (& N T Wright)

Here is John Piper on You Tube responding to a question about whether so-called The Federal Vision is "Another Gospel". Although he is concerned about some of the trajectory of Doug Wilson's theology and critical of some of his circle, Piper says very emphatically that Wilson does not teach a False Gospel or heresy. Wilson is careful and very bright, wrong on many things in the kind of ways you’d expect a Presbyterian [or peudobaptist] to be wrong. The Federal Vision is very complicated. It legitimately stresses some objective aspects of the covenant in a way that any Reformed person might want to do - there are objective sides to church membership that give real privileges. Don’t write Doug Wilson off very easily.

Piper also mentions that he does not think Wright preaches a false gospel, though he thinks he preaches a very confused gospel.

An Evangelical Introduction to the Federal Vision (for Brits!)

Since the Federal Vision (FV) seems to be a growing matter of interest and, to some, concern in this country, here is Rev'd Dr Steve Jeffery seeking to introduce Evangelicals in the UK to the ongoing FV conversation (downloadable PDF file). Steve does this by expounding and giving some background to "A Joint Federal Vision Statement" issued in 2007. Steve hopes that British Evangelicals wont feel the need to fall out over all this as some Reformed types in the States have.

Agree with FV enthusiasms or not, Steve concludes that:

The Statement stands demonstrably within the Reformed tradition at every point.

And again:

every single affirmation and denial within the Statement lies firmly within the Reformed tradition. At no point could an evangelical justifiably charge the FV with being beyond the bounds of historical Reformed orthodoxy. FV theology is Reformed theology.

Further, Steve claims that:

it is abundantly clear that FV advocates do not in fact hold a number of the views ascribed to them by their critics. The FV does not represent a denial of justification by faith alone, an Arminian rejection of unconditional election and the preservation of the saints, or a reversion to Roman Catholic views of baptism and the Lord's Supper. It does not undercut the distinction between the visible and invisible church, or downplay the importance of Christ's second coming, or capitulate to the so-called 'social gospel', or deny the distinction between God's covenant with Adam and the covenant of grace, or confuse justification with sanctification, or reject the imputation of Christ's obedience or righteousness, or undermine the possibility of Christian assurance, or entail a legalistic obsession with good works at the expense of free grace. Let us be clear: none of these doctrinal errors is found in the FV. These are misunderstandings of the FV.

The Blenheim Manifesto

In the Blenheim Lectures, Rev'd Douglas Wilson sets out what the Federal Vision (FV) should mean for the UK. He addresses the gospel and your church, family and nation and then gives 2 autobiographical sketches about his ministry. The 5 talks are available for free MP3 download or can be purchased on CD.

The New Perspective on Paul

Some of the comments I made below regarding the so-called Federal Vision (FV) could equally be made about the so-called New Perspective on Paul (NPP) with which FV has sometimes been associated.

We must distinguish between E. P. Sanders, Jimmy Dunn, Tom Wright and others, and them and FVers.

I hold firmly to, preach and regularly defend the Reformation and post-Reformation "sola"s of salvation in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, to the glory of God alone and to sola Scriptura, but I think there are things to learn from NPP, not least a more corporate understanding of salvation.

Go for the corporate and you get the individual thrown in. Stick with the individual and you may never get the corporate.

We may also distinguish:

(1) What Paul meant

(2) What Luther said

And debate whether or not (2) necessarily follows from (1). I think it does! But Luther was not Paul.

There is some value in trying the read Paul as a Jew against the background of Second Temple Judaism with reference to Inter-testamental and 1st Century literarture. But in so doing, no one need sell out on the Reformation, go over to Rome or give up on the gospel.

The Federal Visions

One of the many things that one could say about the so-called Federal Vision (FV) is that there is some disagreement amongst proponents on the Federal Vision. There is not one set FV dogma or detailed blueprint but a conversation, a group of concerns, questions and suggestions.

As far as I know, no FVer has ever said that the FV is the be all and end all.

No doubt there are dangers in the FVs as there are in all things but under God I think there are some things that might be learnt from some FVers. Even if you don't like all their answers, you might find some of their questions stimulating. I would say, "don't panic". FV does not equal RC and need not lead in that direction. Just as FV is not the gospel neither is it Another Gospel!

I'd suggest this Joint Statement is an excellent place to start in getting a grip on some of the things that FVers have said in the US and which we may see more of in the UK.

Is Doug Wilson a heretic?

I liked this comment I saw on You-Tube:

bobbiespants

So the OPC, PCA, and RPCUS declared Doug Wilson a heretic (even if it's not true on all fronts, bear with me). This means that 3 denominations comprising a total of  roughly 385,000 members think Doug Wilson's views are heretical. In a world with 2,100,000,000 Christians, this means that effectively .018 % of the Church has excommunicated Wilson. A Great Ecumenical Council to be sure, but I'll wait to hear from the other 99.982% of of the Church. I'll post when they give me a call.

Good point even if you don't buy the numbers!

John Piper on Doug Wilson

Thanks to Ros for this. A very well spent 4 mins. Do watch Piper on Wilson.

Piper will tell you that what Wilson says is true, risky and compelling. Wilson gets the gospel right, believes the Bible and is a proper Reformed fella with a way with words. Piper wants to give Wilson a platform and hear what he has to say. Amen?

Perhaps Wilson might like to speak at EMA sometime soon, as Piper has, since people there are apparently interested in The Federal Vision? :)

Don Carson on The Federal Vision (updated)

Rev'd Professor Don A. Carson commented carefully and very helpfully on The Federal Vision (FV) or High Church Presbyterianism at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly (EMA) at St Helen's, Bishopgate today. The FV was also discussed in questions with Carson at New Word Alive this year, I believe.

I suggest you listen to it in full when the recording becomes available (online or to buy, I think).

I paraphrase from memory.

In the "On the Record off the Cuff slot", Rev'd Richard Cunningham asked Carson if engagement with the FV is a "99" moment analogous to the times when the captain of the British Lions called on his team to all run up and punch their opposite numbers amongst the Springbox!

Carson seemed to think not. He said that he thought such moments came rarely if ever and that such things should only be done in a spirit of brokenness, if they must be done.

A fair ammount of the hour long interview was given over to the topic and to my mind it felt like the main issue of substance tackled. Unity with Charismatics and the emerging church were also discussed. I imagine most of those present had not heard of the Federal Vision which is quite a small movement in the States and a little elsewhere. Tiny to non-existent in the UK.

Carson identified 2 main points about the FV:

(1) The issues themselves where the questions are nuanced and the answers complex.

We must be careful in our treatment of the movement which has strengths and powerful things things to teach us.

Rev'd Douglas Wilson is the most able / best advocate of things FV. He has written lots of fine stuff and is tremendously gifted. [You can find largely positive reviews of a couple of Wilson's books in The Briefing from this last year or so. I believe Wilson is due to speak at a John Piper / Desiring God conference on Calvin and the glory of God in Sept '09].

Carson didn't really go into the issues beyond what is mentioned here.

(2) The way the issues have been presented and advocated.

We must not assume we know the motives of others.

Young people tend to like the kind of tough minded clarity that some of the FV offers. It may be especially attractive to Evangelical Anglicans.

The best established teachers may not make the FV the be all and end all but students often pick up on their teachers' interests and enthusiasms even if they are not that important in themselves or to their teachers. Carson commented that the main thing he had learnt as a teacher is that students don't learn what he teaches them!

Some FVers may be like one string violins taken up with one or two issues.

Some of the younger FVers especially may have gone a bit OTT or expressed things badly etc.

Some young FVers may be going through a growing up experimental phase.

It may be that some FVers have noticed weaknesses in some contemporary evangelicalism (e.g. about baptism) and over reacted. Such movements can be the unpaid debts of the church.

We must keep the main things the main things and keep the (richly understood) gospel and evangelism central and controlling to everything, rather than, say, Christian education and baptism, though of course the issues are all related.

The gospel must not be simply assumed. We need to continue to be interested and excited about that above all. Neglecting evangelism is a danger.

We want to stick to historical Reformed orthodoxy in so far as it is Biblical and so on.

Like e.g. Young Earth Creationism we must not make the FV a touchstone of soundness, unity or fellowship.

I agree with all that and think we all need to hear it, FVers, sympathisers and opponents alike.

I might also have mentioned Rev'd Dr Peter Leithart PhD(Cantab) as a brilliant FVer. Rev'd James Jordan of Biblical Horizons has been a major influence. I think their writings repay very careful and thoughtful reading.

Obviously, as a Baptist, Carson disagrees with some of the FV stuff on baptism and I guess he thinks that baptism should always be tied to personal conversion from a life of sin and a more or less articulate declaration of individual faith. He thinks there are dangers in speaking too highly of baptismal efficacy and of kinds of presumptive regeneration which he sees as problematic historically e.g. in Holland. These latter point, of course, FVers would grant, but Carson did not address the possibility of infant faith in his brief comments nor the other arguments for infant baptism that are well known for example to the readers of the Westminster Confession or the Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Food for thought and on-going healthy discussion, I think. No punch-ups called for, then?

Ironically, I think opponents of the FV sometimes make FV a primary dividing issue by saying it is a heretical other gospel to be hated and stamped out whereas it seems Carson would prefer to say just that it is wrong and dangerous in certain respects, whatever might be going for it. I think this is a vital distinction and I imagine most FVers would grant that in many ways it is a 2nd or 23rd order issue.

Covenantal Objectivist themes in Calvin

You might say there is a kind of covenantal objectivism or even ex opera operato in Calvin. Those who eat and drink the bread and wine unbelievingly still receive a sacrament visibly to their judgement, though they do not receive the very body and blood of Christ to their comfort and growth in grace. Just by being done the sacraments always do something both to believer, covenant breaker and unbeliever.

This sort of thing:

“It is long since I accurately explained what Augustine means by a twofold (p280) eating, namely that while some receive the virtue of the sacrament, others receive only a visible sacrament; that it is one thing to take inwardly, another outwardly; one thing to eat with the heart, another to bite with the teeth. And he finally concludes that the sacrament which is placed on the Lord’s table is taken by some unto destruction and by others unto life, but the reality of which the Supper is the sign gives life to all who partake of it. In another passage, treating in express terms of this question, he distinctly refutes those who imagined that the wicked eat the body of Christ not only sacramentally but in reality. To show our entire agreement with this holy writer, we say that those who are united by faith, so as to be his members, eat his body truly or in reality, whereas those who receive nothing but the visible sign eat only sacramentally. He often expressed himself in the very same way. (De civit. Dei, 21, ch 25; Contra Faust. Bk 13, ch 13; see also in Joann. Ev. Tract. 25-27)” (LCC Calvin’s Theological Treatises, ‘The clear explanation … concerning the true partaking of … the Holy Supper’, p281)

There is a sense in which Judas ate the bread of the Lord against the Lord whereas the other apostles ate the bread of the Lord (Augustine, in Joann. Ev. Tract 59)

I was also interested to see that when Calvin speaks Heshusius’ argument about the Spirit dwelling in Saul he distinguishes between “the sanctification proper only to the elect and the children of God, and the general power which is proper even to the reprobate.” (p285)

Baxter sounding Covenantal Objectivist

We had a fascinating time today in the post-graduate seminar on George Crowder’s paper on Anglican Church Membership, church discipline and Confirmation.

Here’s a quotation courtesy of George Crowder with Richard Baxter sounding at least a bit like a Covenantal Objectivist:

The essential union is that relation of a head and members, which is between Christ and all the visible members of his church: the foundation of it is the mutual covenant between Christ and them considered on their part as made externally, whether sincerely or not: this is usually done in baptism… the baptismal covenant doth constitute us as members of the visible church.

Christian Ecclesiastics, 596

And for good measure here’s the suggestion of the Lord’s Supper as Covenantal Renewal:

The covenant made, solemnised by baptism, owned at age, must frequently be renewed through the course of your lives… virtually renewed in every act of worship before God, actually in prayer and meditation, especially after a fall, and the Lord’s Supper is instituted for this very end.

Christian Ecclesiastics, 562

Questions for Doug Wilson

Pastor Wilson is coming to Oak Hill in March and there's "an evening with Doug Wilson" planned.

What would you like to ask him or hear him talk about?

I'd like to know, if one basically buys his vision (and I'm not sure what to call it, Federal Vision, High Church Evangelicalism?) what difference would it make in practice and what might your practical programme be in the UK? For example, might you turn up on your first Sunday as pastor with your cassock alb, stole and incense and sit down on your throne to preach TULIPPPP?

I'd also love to know how they are doing on evangelism and reaching their city. What about church planting?

And more on their ministerial training. What does he make of apprenticeships?

What are his thoughts on the C of E?