Recommendation and Review: A High View of Scripture? by Craig D. Allert

46083.gifCraig Allert’s A High View of Scripture? sets out to convince the reader that most of what evangelicals have said about the subject of canonization amounts to anachronism, a purposeful ignorance of the role of the church and a false foundation for concepts about the role of the Bible in early Christianity. He succeeds completely by taking the reader on a tour of evangelical’s own history and claims about the Bible, then comparing them with a careful, cautious and conservative view of canonization. The result is a book that comes to some uncomfortable conclusions for most evangelicals, but makes its case brilliantly on solid historical and exegetical grounds.

Allert is part of D.H. Williams’ Evangelical Ressourcement project, a series of books and conferences with an explicitly post-evangelical agenda of developing resources for contemporary evangelical challenges from scholars working in the field of early church history and theology. This series should be of great interest to many readers of this site who identify with the legacy of Robert Webber and the post-evangelical recovery of the first centuries of the church for all of us.Continue reading “Recommendation and Review: A High View of Scripture? by Craig D. Allert”

Internet Monk Radio Podcast #62

podcast_logo.gifSummer plans, background for “The Baptist Way” and complementarian mythology.

There’s a slight error in the first couple of seconds when it’s played in the player or in QT. It’s not on the actual mp3, I don’t hear it in iTunes and I’m not going to rerecord to fix it. It’s all of 2 seconds. Deal. Paris Hilton is. So can you.

Internet Monk Radio is on iTunes Podcases for free. Search for Monk and ignore all other claims to monkishness that appear.

The Baptist Way: The Dire Situation of the Southern Baptist Convention as I See It

sbclogo.jpgOne of the reasons I am doing this series of posts on “The Baptist Way” is to face what is going on in Baptist life today: We’re losing our soul and our identity. We’re becoming the very definition of generic evangelicalism. We need to face what’s happening to us and we need to stop it.

Many of our churches are going to vanish in 20+ years, and they won’t be replaced. As much as we are stressing new churches we are not going to stop the collapse of thousands of our own churches that contained two or three generations of people that defined Southern Baptist life for 50+ years. The megachurches are there, but we can’t be a denomination of mega-churches and do what we do. That’s a pipe dream that’s killing us.

The desperate cry of some leaders for more baptisms is looking completely past the problems of this convention. Our problem isn’t primarily evangelism, but the health of our churches, the state of our leadership and our strange attempts at confessional integrity. (I would call the SBC leadership’s use of the BFM a kind of psuedo-confessionalism. Useful for political purposes and generally ignored otherwise.)Continue reading “The Baptist Way: The Dire Situation of the Southern Baptist Convention as I See It”

The Baptist Way: Interview with Dr. Wyman Richardson on Baptists, The Lord’s Supper, Church Discipline and Tradition

wymanrichardson_sm.jpgWyman Richardson has served as the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dawson, Georgia, since 2002. He previously pastored churches in Woodstock, GA, and Burneyville, OK. He is the author of Walking Together: A Congregational Reflection on Biblical Church Discipline, which was published in book, Leader’s Guide, and Student Workbook formats by Wipf and Stock publishers earlier this year. The material is designed to help churches approach the issue of church discipline in a preemptive and preparatory fashion, to lead them to understand what church discipline is before they find themselves in disciplinary situations. Further information and resources can be found at Wyman’s website: www.walkingtogetherministries.com

Wyman is a former BHT fellow and a person whose work on church discipline needs to be part of every church leader’s library. As a Southern Baptist contributor at Reformed Catholicism, Dr. Richardson is a good person to talk to on issues of Baptist identity, the Lord’s Supper, church discipline and tradition.Continue reading “The Baptist Way: Interview with Dr. Wyman Richardson on Baptists, The Lord’s Supper, Church Discipline and Tradition”

The Baptist Way: The Lord’s Supper (1)

winebread.jpgUPDATE: A related issue to the meaning of the Lord’s Supper is the methodology for receiving it. Alastair takes on the wine in communion issue, along with a number of other questions.

UPDATE II: In this BHT post, I demonstrate the the language of Baptist confessions avoided the word “symbol” until the BFM. Note the change from the New Hampshire Confession.

UPDATE III: Here is a recent IM post on weekly communion. I’ll reference it here, and again in my next post on “The Baptist Way: Recovering the Lord’s Supper.” (soli deo is now almost officially ended, so I am grieving the loss of any kind of communion.)

UPDATE IV: My friend Trevin Wax, one of those young SBCers leaning more towards a reformed view of the LS, interacts with this post at his blog.

This post begins a new IM series on “The Baptist Way.” These posts will feature resources and interviews focusing on issues in the Baptist tradition that I feel are being neglected in theological discussion today.

This first post will introduce the Baptist view of the Lord’s Supper. Today, many younger Baptists are identifying with a more reformed theology, and many are moving toward other views of the Lord’s Supper. It will be important to understand the Baptist views, and its strengths and weaknesses, as this kind of interaction/evolution occurs among Baptist evangelicals.

For a short historical look at the various Western views of the Lord’s Supper and their historical origins, visit this page at Luther Seminary. Today’s Baptists have a position deeply influenced by Zwingli, but not completely rejecting the language of Calvin.

If you know nothing about the Baptist practice, visit the Wikipedia entry on Baptist ordinances. (It’s not weaponry.) There are many excellent resources on the Baptist view of the Lord’s Supper. Let me suggest several to reacquaint readers with what Baptists believe. (Consult Baptist creeds, confessions and catechisms for a start.)

Dr. Tom Nettles, professor of Church History at Southern Seminary, has an essay on “Baptists and the Ordinances” with a good summary of the classical Baptist view of the Lord’s Supper. Note especially Nettle’s comments on Zwingli’s so-called “bare symbolism.”Continue reading “The Baptist Way: The Lord’s Supper (1)”

Lost, False or Real?: A Closer Look at Assurance

22197088.jpgUPDATE: Some of my pastoral thoughts on assurance are here: On Faith’s Crumbling Edge.

Mark Shea is a sharp thinker and commenter. His daily “Catholic Exchange” podcast is always provocative. In a recent podcast contrasting evangelical (Shea is a convert to the RCC) and Roman Catholic views on spiritual security and assurance, Shea made a unique comment about a common area of disagreement.

There isn’t a transcript, but here’s the quote:

“I became more secure in my relationship with God once I was no longer certain I was going to heaven.”

Shea is skewering the common conception that evangelicals believe in easy salvation with instant assurance, but produce millions of believers who get “saved and resaved” with regularity or care so little about the possibility of hell that they never consider actually following Christ. It’s a bit of a caricature, but it’s also based in some truth. Many conservative evangelicals make it difficult to discuss the topic reasonably because they prefer to run to extremes that aren’t helpful to anyone except people wanting to make stupendous numerical claims for their evangelism.Continue reading “Lost, False or Real?: A Closer Look at Assurance”

Recommendation and Review: Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul by Tony Hendra

bookreviews_father-joe-the.gifRead an extended excerpt. Also, a story involving the author of the book suggests he may have problems not mentioned in the book.

I read a lot of Catholic fiction. Baptists and other Christians haven’t done very well with the genre. To be honest, the same could be said of almost any kind of literature, with a few notable exceptions. Roman Catholics on the other hand, have a collection of great writers of fiction, autobiography, poetry, humor and just about any other kind of literature. You won’t be disappointed, whether you are reading Flannery O’Connor or J.F. Powers; Chesterton or W.H. Auden.

Father Joe, a memoir by former National Lampoon writer and editor Tony Hendra, is Catholic- and Christian- writing at its very best. I would encourage every IM reader to take the time to read this amazing book and its portrait of Hendra’s life-long relationship with a Benedictine monk he calls “Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul.”Continue reading “Recommendation and Review: Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul by Tony Hendra”

Site News: Kicking Moderation Up a Notch

angry_woman_with_computer.gifA few weeks ago, I made a small change in this site: I stopped requiring registration in order to comment.

So far, it’s been a great change. The traffic on the site and in the comments, especially, is way up. The average IM essay easily has 3 or 4 times more commenters than before.

Now for the problem. Recently, I’ve begun to have more and more commenters who push the envelope of what I’m going to subsidize on this site. I can’t exactly explain why, but apparently really angry, obsessed people don’t have time to register in order to tell me I’m an idiot. So we’ve all learned something.

So here’s the deal. I’ve got some specific messages for some of our new commenters:Continue reading “Site News: Kicking Moderation Up a Notch”

Five Post-evangelical Answers for Today’s Evangelical Crisis

bill-nye.jpgUPDATE: A Bible translator in Africa takes issue with me. I’ll say more about his observations in a later post.

Answers. I don’t seem to have many. A lot of complaints. Not that many answers. Right?

I’m an analytical person, and if someone could be paid to diagnose problems, I could probably make a good living. If you’re a reader of this blog, you’ve already noticed that. One reader recently diagnosed me as an arrogant “whiner,” and I can completely understand what he’s talking about.

When I was in the pastorate, I was chomping at the bit to fix everything and everyone. It didn’t happen and God humbled me considerably in the process. But I’m a tough case to cure, and my analytical, over-diagnostic, obsessed with fixing things nature has survived and thrived on this blog. There’s been a lot of pointing out, and not enough building up.Continue reading “Five Post-evangelical Answers for Today’s Evangelical Crisis”