Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Mohler Confused with Machen

http://pilgrimagetogeneva.com/2011/04/13/confusion-wednesday-in-the-spirit-of-machen/

Confusion Wednesday: In the Spirit of Machen???

Confusion Wednesday almost made it’s debut a few weeks ago, when Ligonier Ministries’ Burk Parsons posted this idiotic tweet on twitter.



I started writing the post and 400 words later, I then trashed it. Because I realized I could not write this post without unnecessarily throwing Dr. Mohler under the bus, after all it was Burk Parsons making these statements and not Dr. Mohler, or so I thought.

A Week or so ago, I was talking to a friend about my blog and my recent posts, when I told him about having to trash the Burk Parson’s post because I thought it would have been unfair to Dr. Mohler because after all Dr. Mohler did not say that. My friend then told me that Dr. Mohler did compare himself to J. Gresham Machen on the Reformed Forum’s Christ the Center recently. I remembered Dr. Mohler was on Christ the Center a few weeks ago and listened to the program.
For context sake, Dr. Al Mohler was invited by Westminster Theological Seminary to speak at the Gaffin Lectures on Theology, Culture and Missions on March 2nd 2011. Dr. Mohler was at WTS and was interview by the Reformed Forum folks while he was there. Dr. Mohler, the political animal he is, did not disappoint either.
After listening to that interview, I am pretty sure it was the genesis of the Burk Parsons tweet now.

Al Mohler & Peter Lillback interview on Christ

the Center 03-11-11

Click the link above for the audio or video of this Interview

Wow, I hardly know where to start here.

How could the Christ the Center guys let Dr. Mohler make those statements and comparisons without challenging him or making him flesh some of those statements out?

As some of you may know, I was a Southern Baptist for many years before I completed my journey to the Reformed Faith. I was a member of FBC-Dallas, FBC-Dallas was a huge part of the Conservative Resurgence that helped install Dr. Al Mohler at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It was very true that Dr. Mohler had an uphill battle and struggle to take back and save that Seminary. But, most of the comparisons Dr. Mohler made to J. Gresham Machen was off based and inappropriate on Dr. Mohler’s part.
To paraphrase Dr. D. G. Hart:
“J. Gresham Machen started WTS to train men to be Confessional Reformed Churchmen, he started an Independent Mission Board and the OPC so those men could serve faithfully”
It was great that Dr. Mohler saved Southern from being another Liberal Theological Seminary, [though he admitted that others did the heavy lifting getting him there]. Instead of Dr. Mohler using that momentum and being the President of the Flagship Seminary of the SBC to usher in change and reform through out the SBC, Dr. Mohler used that momentum to build his celebrity.


While Dr. Mohler is outspoken on the low hanging fruit of pop culture [mostly common kingdom issues], the Emergent Church, and the Biologos folks. A majority of those things aren’t big issues in the SBC. But, Al is real quiet on Rick Warren, Ed Young Jr., Ed Stetzer, the Acts 29 folks, and the other pragmatists that are destroying the SBC, not to mention the Arminians. Those are the real cancers of the SBC. But, Al has little to say about them, no political cred to be won there or brownie points to be issued.


No matter how good of an education you can get at Southern, [which Baptist folks can]. Because of the make up of the SBC, most of those Southern grads will have to leave most of that at the door if they hope to get a pastorate in most of the churches in the SBC. I think it’s insulting that WTS folks would let this man make any kind of comparison to J. Gresham Machen. If Dr. Mohler would have split Southern off the cash cow utter of the SBC and started a Confessional Baptist Denomination and a foreign mission board then you could make a comparison there.


J. Gresham Machen fought against liberalism: at Princeton Theological Seminary [which led to the founding of WTS], in his former denomination [which led to the founding of a foreign mission board and the OPC], and against a culture that screamed for the Social Gospel. Dr. Mohler fought against a liberal faculty with the leadership and movers & shakers of the SBC firmly on his side. [hardly a comparison there]


Perhaps the most puzzling part of this interview was how the Christ the Center gang let Dr. Mohler throw around the word, Confessional.


We never found out with any kind of certainty from the interview, What Confession(s) that Dr. Mohler confessed? or What being Confessional meant to Al Mohler? Because they never asked. With the way Dr. Mohler was throwing the word around at the beginning of the interview, being that the SBC is not a confessional denomination. They seemed like obvious questions to me anyway.


Even in our circles, being Confessional means something different to the evangelical wing of the PCA then it does to Confessional Presbyterians and Reformed Folks.


When I emailed the Reformed Forum folks, I asked them why they let Dr. Mohler use the word repeatedly without asking him; What confession he confesses? Or why they didn’t have him flesh out what it means to be confessional? They told me, since Dr. Mohler was their guest, they thought it wouldn’t be charitable to confront him and if the show was confrontational in nature that they would have a hard time booking guests.


With further investigation on my own part, I found that Dr. Mohler affirms The Abstract of Principles, which is a document created by the founders of SBTS, which they based it on other Baptist Confessions, and he also affirms The Baptist Faith & Message.


We must then ask, what does it mean to be confessional to Al Mohler?


Can it mean or does it mean the same thing to Confessional Reformed Folks that it does to an Evangelical Baptist?
All good questions, and questions that they should have asked him or had him fleshed out some how, because Dr. Mohler opened that door on the program for those kind of questions to be asked.


Being confessional, on Dr. Mohler’s part, did allow him to sign, in good conscience, The Manhattan Declaration, and allows him to have ecumenical fellowship with Pragmatists and Arminians [which are the primary flavors of the SBC].
Not very J. Gresham Machen like, if you ask me.


J. Gresham Machen was at the forefront in the fight against the ecumenical unification movement in the early part of the Twentieth Century and was an outspoken critic of the Auburn Affirmation, which helped usher in the social gospel that destroyed the main line churches.


I understand what the Christ the Center folks hoped to accomplish with this interview. They hoped to connect to Baptists on the fence, [like I was for many years], They hoped to expose them to the show and maybe some Reformed thought as well. But, only focusing on our commonalities and not making him clarify some things he said in this interview could easily leave the listener of the podcast with the impression that Baptists and Reformed folks aren’t that much different and WTS & Southern are two sides of the same coin.


Unfortunately, no matter how well meaning exchanges like this may be, they only blur things if you aren’t going to focus on the discontinuities too. Especially when we have so many Baptists and Evangelicals hijacking the words “Reformed” and “Calvinism” already.

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