McChurch

29 June 2009

Here’s a thought provoking way to start the week—an interesting article by Terry Mattingly on a new book by the title of Franchising McChurch.

DMD @ 07:23 


Some (final, I hope) Thoughts on the McCall Pavilion and Objections to My Questioning It

27 June 2009

As indicated in my original post, my reason for raising the subject was in connection to discussions about fundamentalism and conservative evangelicals. It was not “to carp” at Al Mohler (or Mark Dever, for that matter). This decision potentially reveals a clear distinction between the two perspectives, especially as it relates to the question of how theological conservatives respond to theological liberals (and those who have aided and abetted them). That some defended the move in terms of “healing old wounds” or as a matter of Christian graciousness seems, from my perspective, to prove my point, not refute it. IOW, what biblical justification is there for attempting to heal old wounds that came from a theological battle between conservatives and liberals? Doesn’t that very language fit more with McCall’s call to “stand together in one common commitment in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord” than with what the Scriptures say about having no fellowship with unbelief and not participating in the evil of false teachers? Since when did Christian graciousness necessarily extend to naming monuments after men (leaving aside, for the moment, the whole issue of man-monuments)? Can anybody seriously envision the Apostle Paul erecting a monument at Ephesus for any elder of that assembly who opened the door for savage wolves and turned his eyes away from the men who rose up speaking perverse things?  I don’t think so.

As for Mark Rogers raising the subject of racism and Bob Jones University, that should be seen for what it is, a red herring. For starters, suppose I agree with Mark’s point, what does it prove? Must I write about every wrong decision to name a building (or school) before I can write about any such wrong decision? All raising the BJU thing did was distract from the point at hand. Even more importantly, in my mind, is whether it is legitimate to equate the two in the first place. Is Mark really suggesting that direct denial of fundamental doctrines is the equal of an indirect denial that springs from a (horribly) wrong biblical interpretation? IOW, is it really true that forbidding interracial dating is the equivalent of denying the inspiration of the Scriptures? I first voiced my opposition to the BJU policy 30 years ago and spoke directly to the administration back in 2000 just before it changed, so please don’t read my point as being sympathetic to it at all. I just can’t see the equivalency here.

 Let me say one more thing about my intent. It was not to rain on SBTS’s parade—had I known that my post would get forwarded to a bunch of SBTS grads, I may have considered waiting until a less awkward time. I was not writing for SBCers or SBTS grads, but for the people that I figured read my somewhat obscure blog—fundamentalists. Guys studying in fundamentalist colleges and seminaries, serving as pastors in fundamentalist churches, etc. There is a lot of talk among us about what is happening across the ecclesiastical landscape. I can’t speak for anybody but myself, but part of that process means seeing the differences that may still exist between the various groups. It matters to folks like me when a John MacArthur, for instance, expresses his concerns about a Mark Driscoll. In the same way, it matters when conservatives honor men who aided the liberalization of evangelicalism.

I can recognize that from a perspective within the SBC and mainstream evangelicalism, my concerns may seem like nitpicking. I am not an insider, though. I am an outside observer looking at things, I hope, with a broader perspective than the last 16 or 30 years. Perhaps an illustration from a little farther back can help explain my concern. Fuller Seminary started as the flagship of the New Evangelicalism in the late 1940s. Too often, I think, people make the mistake of thinking that Fuller now is what Fuller then was like. But Marsden, in Reforming Fundamentalism, is very clear about how conservative Fuller was at its start. For example, it was staunchly anti-Catholic and deeply committed to biblical inerrancy. So how did Fuller Seminary become what it is today? Probably many tributaries, but none more important than its desire to “heal the old wounds” of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy and its “gracious” stance toward heterodoxy. Consider the names of the men who were there at the start—all of them were theological conservatives and most of them took many good stands in defense of the Gospel. But they muffled their objection to false teachers and pursued a path of peaceful coexistence and respectful relationships within the academic guild. There is a warning there for all of us.

Al Mohler deserves, and has, my genuine respect for what God has used him to do in bringing SBTS back from its apostasy-riddled condition. My post wasn’t about Al Mohler; it was about two different approaches to the matter of response to apostasy and compromise with it. This isn’t about who wears what label. I disagree with the decision that was made, and I wonder if this kind of decision is simply an anomaly or truly representative of a very different approach. I hope it is the former, but I am concerned that it may be the latter.

DMD @ 09:21 


Be content to be nothing

27 June 2009

“Be content to be nothing, for that is what you are. When your own emptiness is painfully forced upon your consciousness, chide yourself that you ever dreamed of being full, except in the Lord.”

- Charles Spurgeon

DMD @ 07:02 


We report, you decide

26 June 2009

Greg Gilbert responds to my initial post about the McCall Pavilion.

Two quick thoughts:

(1) It is pretty much the kind of explanation I expected (i.e., this is simply an institutionally proper thing to do; McCall did some good things that should be acknowledged). I’ll confess that I am probably in the extreme minority on this point, but I am not convinced. The question I asked in my post was, “What biblical justification for something like this can there be?” I didn’t see any biblical rationale set forth at all in Greg’s response. I know a seminary is not a church, but don’t texts like 2 John 9-11 have some bearing on whom we honor for their contribution to theological education and ministerial training?

(2) Why does expressing disagreement and asking a question about an action qualify as “carp[ing] at Al Mohler”? I am disappointed by this line of response, but it seems to be standard fare for our culture these days. I don’t think Greg would accuse Mark Dever of “carping at” whomever simply because Mark expressed disagreement with some action by or idea of that person. Why make this about Al Mohler? What not leave it where I put it—what biblical rationale can be offered by a staunch conservative for honoring a man who presided over the liberalization of SBTS? It’s not really about individuals; it’s about ideas and their consequences.

Update: Mark Rogers has also taken exception with my post. I may respond here or there later, but need to focus on some other things presently. 

DMD @ 14:31 


Is this an application of Loving Your Enemies?

26 June 2009

Here’s some more of what Duke McCall had to say, in an article in SBTS’s publication, The Tie, about the Conservative Resurgence:

                The past 18 months have been a dark and depressing period in the life of Southern Baptists. For the first time since I was ordained to the Baptist ministry almost a half-century ago, I have had reason to fear for the future of our convention.

                The well-financed effort to wrest from the conservative majority of Southern Baptists their agencies and assets has moved relentlessly, attacking honorable Christian servants, misleading and confusing lay persons, camouflaging a grab for power as a ‘battle to save the Bible.’

                The leaders of Bold Mission Thrust have been especially frustrated as they have seen our denomination’s energies sapped by the political shenanigans of a hard-core conspiracy. And this at a time when Southern Baptists had an unprecedented opportunity to share the Gospel with a lost world!

                Using both the elective and appointive processes of the Convention, with deliberate and calculated plans to divide and disenfranchise the mainstream of Southern Baptists, a ‘power politics’ party is seeking to change the nature of the policy-making boards of all the agencies of the Convention. They want to remove the broad cross-section of Southern Baptists who now serve as trustees and replace them with others, many of whom support institutions which compete with Southern Baptists and drain off millions of dollars from the Cooperative Program each year.

                The result, if this militant minority of independent interests succeeds, will be the destruction of the Southern Baptist Convention as we know it. (quoted by Jerry Sutton in The Baptist Reformation: The Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, pp. 341-342).

Earlier in the book, Jerry Sutton had this to say about another one of McCall’s efforts to stop the Resurgence in its tracks—“McCall’s use of slur tactics, distortion, and inaccurate analogies are exemplary of his willingness to use whatever tactics necessary to maintain the status quo, even though it was outside the will of the majority of Southern Baptists” (p. 112).

While it doesn’t seem as if McCall has changed his views, based on the report of his remarks at the dedication ceremony, he seems to have toned down his rhetoric.

I ask that because there have been diverse currents running through our community and fellowship. We do not always agree with each other on everything, but what I call upon us to recognize is that the hand of God is upon this institution and those with responsibility for her and that we acknowledge that and say, “We will continue our own convictions as they diverge from one another. But we will stand together in one common commitment in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.”

And here is where the rub is, in my mind. Given the historical context, the “convictions” of which McCall speaks seem certainly to include matters central to the Faith, don’t they? What we know of the man, his presidency at SBTS and the Baptist World Alliance, his advocacy against the Conservative Resurgence, and his writings on these things, it would seem extremely naïve to conclude that he refers only to matters, to frame in it terms of Mohler’s triage model, of secondary or tertiary concern. And if, as he did during his presidency, McCall is claiming that Bible believing people should “stand together in one common commitment in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord” with those who deny the very fundamentals of the Faith, the sad irony of this new pavilion is even greater.

DMD @ 14:03 


In Pursuit of Despair

26 June 2009

Chris Anderson needs help. Serious help. Seriously.

DMD @ 13:26 


Honor to whom dishonor is due

25 June 2009

There is a lot of talk about fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals these days, and that’s probably a good thing (depending on the kind of talk involved). I agree with Mark Minnick when he, following Iain Murray, puts attention on the central question of what an evangelical’s response to non-evangelicals is. In my mind, that is the crucial biblical question. I don’t think the answer to the question is always as clear as some on both sides contend. IOW, some fundamentalists downplay the steps that some evangelicals have taken to break from liberalism (either by putting it out or withdrawing from it) and some evangelicals downplay the softness toward heterodoxy that is sometimes (often?) on display among evangelicals. That last sentence probably needs more elaboration than I will give it, but just think of the long list of heterodox people who have been cut slack by evangelicals for one reason or another. Perhaps a very recent example will illustrate my point. Here’s a quote from a post by Owen Strachen about the celebration of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s 150th anniversary and the dedication of the new pavilion which commemorates this event:

Following Dr. Mohler’s message, the seminary honored seventh president Duke K. McCall by announcing the dedication of its new welcome pavilion in his honor.  McCall then gave some remarks which showed his talent as an orator in the finest Southern fashion.  While noting the “currents that carry us different ways”, an obvious nod to theological divergence between McCall and others, the former president registered his support for the school he loves and called for alumni–presumably those who have struggled to think well of SBTS in recent decades–to stand in support of the school.  The assembly gave him a standing ovation, a moment that was both unexpected and poignant.

For those who are not familiar with Duke K. McCall, Strachen’s line about “theological divergence between McCall and others” is a polite way of saying that the influence and ministry of McCall was one of the reasons the Conservative Resurgence was needed and that he was one of its vocal opponents. McCall himself recounts how he very early in the process viewed the Conservative Resurgence as “potentially disastrous” and was concerned about how to prevent the “Pressler-Patterson Crusade” from loading up the SBTS board with a “flood of ‘anti-intellectual’ trustees.”

This is what boggles my mind. Here you find a staunch theological conservative (Al Mohler), backed by other staunch conservatives (e.g., chairman of the SBTS board, Mark Dever), naming a pavilion in honor of a man whose service at SBTS produced the mess which Mohler is credited for reversing. Recognizing him at the event is one thing, but naming a pavilion after him? What biblical justification can there be for something like this?

Symbolic gestures are important. Naming schools after new evangelicals like Billy Graham and buildings after liberals like Duke McCall are symbolic gestures that mean something. And they mean something bad to many of us.

I just don’t get it.

DMD @ 10:51 


Reflections on Ten Incredible Years

24 June 2009

Well, I am back home and grateful to God for another wonderful visit to East Africa. I enjoyed great fellowship with our missionaries and with eleven members of Inter-City Baptist Church. As I think I’ve mentioned previously, this is my 11th trip to East Africa since 1999. The first trip was almost exactly 10 years ago—I spent Father’s Day in Mwanza, Tanzania back in 1999 and now again in 2009. On Father’s Day I was struck by that fact while writing in my journal. What an incredible ride these past 10 years have been!

That trip in June 1999 was my first visit to the mission field, and it came as a survey trip. Since that first trip, the Lord has given me the opportunity to make a number of other ministry trips—Tanzania, Kenya, Poland, India, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, and Mexico. I’ve written about the value of visiting the mission field in a series of 4 posts (here, here, here, and here), but reflecting on these past 10 years prompted me to make some notes to share with our team (and now with you).

Missions Provocations

1999 marked my 10th anniversary as the senior pastor of ICBC, so I obviously had not done any missionary visits in those first ten years. But I was doing a lot of thinking about missions and the Lord was at work in my heart. In the mid-nineties I preached a series called “Forgotten Elements of the Great Commission” that was pretty much the first draft for a lot of what ended up in For the Sake of His Name. John Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad was used by the Lord to great profit in my life. I also read a number of biographies that all seemed to form an interlocking emphasis on missions—Taylor, Borden, and even Moody pointed toward missions via the connections with the Student Volunteer Movement. (BTW, reading about the Student Volunteer Movement stirred a burden for students and missions that has evolved into Student Global Impact and Missions Mandate.)

Also, our church became debt free in the early 90s and I led our church to start adding missionaries at, looking back on it, an overly aggressive pace. I think that because I don’t think I was as careful leading our church in this as I should have been. I made a few mistakes, but perhaps the biggest was assuming that the endorsement of a mission agency meant more than it did. Thankfully, we added some very good missionaries, but we also added some that we should not have. It was, though, a good learning experience that has proved profitable for our church’s missions efforts for the long haul.

Missions Principles

I may unpack these more fully later on, but let me just fire through a bullet point list of what I’ve come to feel strongly about through these provocations and the experiences of the past ten years:

·         Primacy of the local church—ultimately, we can’t look outside of the local church to do missions; the Great Commission starts from local churches, is under the supervision of local churches, and should result in local churches. Pastors, don’t make the mistake of handing the ball off to mission boards! Get personally involved and lead the church to own the task.

·         Priority of church planting and starting church planting movements—the center of missions must be planting churches that will plant churches, and that means we must deliberately focus on developing indigenous works with a reproducible model and stop transplanting American churches and ministries worldwide.

·         Power of focus—we decided to concentrate our efforts on a few places in order to make a deep impact rather than spread them out and diffuse them. We support works all over the world, but not as many as if we measured our missions efforts solely by the number of missionaries we support.

·         Partnerships in the Gospel—it became clear to me that we needed to find godly, gifted men with a compatible vision and help them get it done by God’s grace. I am grateful to God for the partners that He has given our church. These are men with a heart for God and a vision to advance the Great Commission, and we’ve had the privilege of joining our resources to their work in a partnership that God is blessing. May He raise up more for His glory!

DMD @ 11:06 




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