Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Christianity

  • The Wayne Grudem Interview – Reflections

    I’ve been responding at some length to Adrian Warnock’s interview with Dr. Wayne Grudem. He has now posted his Highlights and Reflections and I’m not going to respond point by point to that as it simply deals with issues I’ve responded to earlier.

    I think probably the best question to ask at this point is why on earth I took the time to respond to this entire interview. While Dr. Wayne Grudem is not completely at the opposite end of the spectrum from where I am, he’s far enough from me that it is often hard to engage. I disagree with him on Biblical inerrancy, on women in church leadership, and on the atonement. Just what do we have to talk about?

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  • Grudem Interview #8 – Arguing from Numbers

    I’ve had a day or so delay in responding to sections of Adrian Warnock’s interview with Wayne Grudem, so I’ll take on the last couple of sections and do my own reflections post today. This post takes a small sample from Part Eight – What Does the Future Hold for the Church? The main part of the post simply expresses Dr. Grudem’s hope and optimism that his side is going to win. He does kind of limit it a bit with the following:

    Yes, I have great confidence that this issue will eventually be resolved, and that the vast majority of God’s people who take the Bible as the Word of God will adopt and practice a complementarian position, and will put it in their statements of faith.

    That “God’s people who take the Bible as the Word of God” phrase is theological code for “those who agree with me.” I know this will be seen as disrespectful, but this is the kind of qualification one uses on a statement when speaking for publication with a political aim–in this case, to make it appear one’s position is strong. The easy response to opponents is then, as has been demonstrated in this interview, simply to claim that they aren’t really taking the Bible as God’s word. If you allow me to define the terms, then I take the Bible as God’s word, and Dr. Grudem might not. The point is that as qualified, the statement doesn’t convey factual knowledge, but rather simply tries to comfort a particular audience.

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  • A Practical Application of Grace Before Law

    In an earlier post on salvation I mentioned that I would try to expand on some of the points I had only briefly mentioned. I have followed up with an extract from my earlier essay A Fruitful Faith. I encountered an excellent example of the grace before law principle in my devotions the other day to which I’d like to call attention.

    (Those who want to complain about the grace before law pattern based on passages such as Romans 5:20, I’ll simply note that the perspective there is a bit different. Wesleyans will probably recognize discussion of varieties of prevenient grace.)

    The first verse I noted was a turning point in the speech of Moses to the Israelites in Deuteronomy:

    (1) And now, Israel, listen to the statutes and judgments that I am teaching you to follow, so that you may live, and may enter and possess the land that YHWH, the God of your fathers, is giving to you. — Deuteronomy 4:1

    The reason this verse caught my attention is that Moses has just completed a review of the way in which Israel was rescued and what God has done for them. Having recited God’s prior actions, he then turns to the teaching of commands. The right to give the commands and the reason to hear them is rooted in God’s saving activity–the grace that was given before the law. (An extension of this principle is that God’s grace is truly undeserved, that is it comes before anyone has done anything to deserve it.)

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  • Inerrancy and Liberal-Conservative Dialogue

    In a comment at , Adrian Warnock says the following:

    Dr Grudem has expressed regret for the use of the word “blasphemy”, and as far as the quote from his systematic theology goes you have to understand that his aim is explicitly to build a theology based on the assumption that the bible is inerrant – I am not too sure how you think a liberal theology would help in that aim…

    (See also Dr. Grudem’s retraction of his agreement to the use of the word blasphemy.)

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  • Idolatry and Male Representation

    The new, young associate pastor was praying, and in her prayer she referred to God as “Father-Mother God.” Silence settled over the congregation as mental gasps replaced “Amens.” The associate pastor had transgressed the unofficial line. You can represent God as vengeful or loving, gentle or angry, gracious or demanding, present or distant, but don’t you ever present God as male and female.

    I was preparing a communion service with a slightly non-traditional text. Someone reading the material brought a portion of it to me. Was I sure I wanted to use this passage? Wasn’t it feminized? My text had crossed the line. I can represent God as just about anything, but never use feminine language. The feminized language in question? ” . . . gather us under your wing as a hen gathers her chicks . . .” (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34).

    We constantly use images for God, mental images, yes, but images nonetheless. And there is nothing wrong with mental images, provided you don’t cast them in stone–real stone or mental stone. The Bible uses plenty of images of God, including the feminine image of divine wisdom as used in Proverbs.

    The problem comes in when you fix the images in place so that they become your picture of God instead of allowing God to constantly interact with you, shatter your images, and grow you up. As I previously commented on this:

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  • Agreeing with Wayne Grudem on Something

    Well, I wasn’t sure it would happen, but it has. I agree with a portion of Dr. Wayne Grudem’s comments in the seventh part of Adrian Warnock’s interview with him, Things We Can Agree to Disagree About?

    Of course, he reaffirms the key points on which I disagree profoundly, namely that making penal substitutionary atonement the key meaning of the atonement is the heart of the gospel or that male authority is somehow a substantial part of the gospel message. Nonetheless, I take it as a good thing that he sees the fairly clear (in my opinion) meaning of 1 Corinthians 13:10, which does not mean that miraculous gifts cease in the church at some artificial point prior to the realizaiton of the kingdom.

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  • Christianity vs Paulianity

    Dave Warnock has made an interesting discovery while looking at the interview with Wayne Grudem that Adrian Warnock is publishing on his blog (#6 entry). Jesus has been almost totally left out of the argument.

    I commented on the type of view of scripture that seems to lead to this previously, and in my recent post on deciding who is saved I note that one of the problems I see with current evangelical views on atonement, and particularly on putting penal substitutionary atonement front and center, is that it puts the material out of order.

    In the history of salvation, Jesus came first, and then Paul interpreted him. While the gospels are generally dated after the letters of Paul (though this can be contested), the oral traditions of Jesus on which Christianity first rode forth into the world obviously predate anything Paul wrote. Many modern Christians seem like art critics who, instead of actually looking at a painting, read from a description while the painting itself is readily available. The direction of study should start with Jesus, and who he is, and then read Paul where he fits in, which is in applying the message of Jesus to a broader community. In particular, the kingdom parables say some fairly definitive things about the kingdom, which we often permit theology to override.

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  • I’m the Guy Wayne Grudem Warned You About

    Well, not really. He warned you about some other, much more important guy. But I agree with the guy Wayne Grudem warned you about! Hey! Come on down to the bottom of the slippery slope! The water’s fine!

    Adrian Warnock’s interview with Wayne Grudem continues with its fifth part, Must a Woman Always Remain Silent in Church?. It is at times like these that I begin to wonder why I’m involved. Of course, the answer to that is that I advocate continued communication, however distant, between liberals and evangelicals, and in my view even more importantly between liberals and charismatics. For that reason alone, I read Adrian’s blog, regularly consult conservative commentaries, and generally read more conservative literature than liberal. But when the title of a post asks whether women should always remain silent in church, I am reminded that there is a great gulf present in the way we think and approach subjects. One may hope that the great gulf is not fixed, but one fears otherwise.

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  • Inclusivism and the Heathen

    I was getting geared up to write about salvation, because of various comments on my views that I’ve received here and in real life, but as I was doing so, John at Locusts and Honey weighed in on the issue, giving preliminary assent to exclusivism. He does outline the three major positions quite well, even though I disagree with the exclusivist conclusion and practically all of the logic that lies behind it.

    Though I’d already started my other post (<a href="it’s here) I thought I’d respond to his more specific case first, and then make some further comments on salvation generally. He says the following near the conclusion. (You can go to John’s blog to see the nifty picture he put with this!)

    Let us say that that the state catches two brutal serial killers who terrorized a community for years. Dozens of people have died slowly and savagely, and hundreds of people have seen their loved ones face their last moments in agony. Both murderers are tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. They are brought to the gallows on the day of their scheduled execution. As the nooses are placed around their necks, suddenly and unexpectedly, a telegram arrives from the governor pardoning one of them. One walks free; the other is executed immediately.

    Is this outcome unjust?

    We have done absolutely nothing to merit God’s forgiveness, and absolutely everything to merit his wrath. Ignorant pagans are not damned because they have never heard the Gospel; they are damned because of their sins. Christians are not saved because of their goodness; they are saved only by the inexplicable pardon of God.

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  • Deciding who is Saved

    A few short comments on salvation resulted in some comments that indicate to me that I haven’t been entirely clear on this issue. I have heard such comments in real life from readers of my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic. In general people wonder whether I believe that people who reject Christ or who are too apathetic to listen to the gospel even though it is available to them.

    After starting this post, I responded to one on exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism, and so I will assume some of the minimum arguments made there.

    Here is a summary of my view, without any of the scriptural backing:

    1. Faith and works are always combined. True faith produces fruit. True fruit indicates that there is some divine working going on.
    2. Salvation by correct theology, by which I mean the idea that salvation is predicated on believing a certain set of doctrines, is as much a form of works salvation and a denial of grace as is old fashioned salvation by works. In either case, we are accomplishing something, either attaining an intellectual understanding, or accomplishing a particular set of activities, for the purpose of earning God’s favor.
    3. While God is one, and Jesus is the bridge between God and man, God has multiple ways of working in and with people.
    4. God is much more likely to communicate with people who are listening that we give him credit for. After we’ve given him more credit, he’s still more likely . . . 🙂
    5. It is not essential for me to know who God is saving and who he is not, but I can gather from his actions in history that he is doing so to many.
    6. If you’re still looking, you’re not lost.

    Now that’s way more than I can cover in a single post. In fact, I expect it is likely that I will post occasionally on this over a period of months.

    So where is my problem with the standard doctrine? Most particularly I object to the claim that those Christians who allow for the salvation of people who are not Christians in one way or another are simply rejecting the Bible outright. It is not merely that I am uncomfortable with a God who makes salvation difficult (see below), though I admit I am uncomfortable with that. My problem is with the combination of scriptural claims, that God is merciful, compassionate, and just, and yet will fry a rather large assortment of people eternally.

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