Name-dropper alert: Al Mohler and I have been friends for over two decades. (The Harts used to be on the Mohler’s Christmas card list until the former’s nomadic way of life prompted USPS to stop forwarding those attractive greetings from the president’s house in Louisville.) Al and I met when we were participants in a Lilly Endowment project for young Protestant leaders. Because Lilly has historically been most interested in mainline Protestant communions, the religious leaders in Al’s and my group were mainly from the mainline. But because Lilly was aware of the growing prominence of evangelicalism in the United States, they included so-called conservative Protestants, which left Al and me the beneficiaries of mainline Protestant affirmative action. We held hands (not literally) and commiserated over the social justice orthodoxy that continued to prevail among mainliners, and we expressed mutual surprise at how little the Trinity of race-class-gender had come in for revision among those Protestants ever looking for excuses to revise. When a couple years later I was looking for a co-editor for a book on evangelical theological education, Al who had been recently appointed president of Southern Baptist, the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, was a natural for the book project.
All of this is to say that Al and are friends, we are co-authors, and we also affirm the five points of Calvinism.
But all of this coalition potential would not generate a second look at my candidacy if Southern Seminary had an opening in church history and I applied for the job. As Calvinistic as SBTS may be, it is also an agency of one of the conventions (Southern Baptist polity is so Byzantine) within the SBC. That means that my membership and identity as an Orthodox Presbyterian is a non-starter at Southern Seminary. What may be strike-two against me is my disbelief in evangelicalism. Strike three is a less than winning personality (though the Harts’ felines, Cordelia and Isabelle seem to enjoy my ornery companionship). Even aside from these other drawbacks, not being Southern Baptist is enough of a strike to count me out – like those backyard wiffle ball versions of home run derby which dispense with all three strikes.
So big an obstacle is my ecclesiastical identity that even if I joined the Gospel Coalition Al would still not have enough approving material in my dossier to recommend me to his board for a faculty appointment. Indeed, joining TGC would arguably deconstruct my efforts to deconstruct evangelicalism, and might even send the message that I am a kinder and gentler warrior child of J. Gresham Machen. But Gospel Coalition status still would not be enough for me to clear the hurdle of Southern Seminary’s faculty requirements.
For what it’s worth, when I was academic dean of Westminster California, if we had had an opening in theology and if Al had been interested in a change of scenery, his Calvinism and courageous and commendable stands against various theological and cultural ills would not have been enough to get him to the interview stage. His Southern Baptist credentials would have failed to meet the requirements for Westminster faculty. And in case this is not obvious by now, Al’s identity as a Southern Baptist would also disqualify him from holding office in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
This leaves us with the following set of memberships and identities:
The Southern Baptist Convention rejects D. G. Hart because he is Orthodox Presbyterian.
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church rejects Al Mohler because he is Southern Baptist.
The ‘Gospel Coalition accepts Al Mohler and D. G. Hart no matter what their ecclesial identities (if they choose to join).
This picture would seem to make the Gospel Coalition a commendable organization in that it looks aside from seemingly petty ecclesiastical differences in order to unite seemingly conservative Protestants together in promotion of Christ as revealed in the gospel. And set of allegiances would also seem to depict the Southern Baptist Convention and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church as narrower and more divisive than the simple gospel of Jesus Christ and its proclamation.
Beneath this picture’s warm and alluring hues is the downside of the Gospel Coalition, namely, that they run their affairs as if the church does not matter, as if the gospel is independent of every church affiliation and membership (Protestant, that is). That may sound strong but ecclesiastical membership and ordination pose no apparent barrier to working with, attending, or speaking at the Coalition. The reason for setting up an organization free from denominational norms apparently is to get around the difficulty that confronts administrators at denominational seminaries and officers in churches: ecclesiastical standards are divisive and the creators of the Coalition seem to think that the gospel should not nurture such separation. For a confessional Protestant, this logic is a huge problem since confessionalists believe that the gospel not only inevitably produces good works but also is inevitably embodied in a disciplined ecclesiastical body. This is not, by the way, simply the oddity of hard-core Missouri Lutherans or vinegary Orthodox Presbyterians. It is also the outlook of Southern Baptist institutions like Southern Seminary (such as I understand it).
But an even deeper problem for the Gospel Coalition is that its cultivates its appeal through religious stars who have established their reputations not in parachurch ministries but through the churches themselves. In which case, the Gospel Coalition wants the results of the hard work of ordination and pastoral ministry in church settings without the baggage that comes in those ecclesiastical institutions. (And as long as the Gospel Coalition is an exclusively Protestant outfit, it will implicitly rely on differences that divided the Eastern and Western branches of the church, and on the churches that broke with Rome in the sixteenth century. Short of the new heavens and new earth, we can’t have Christianity in this world apart from the visible churches who translated the Bible, interpreted its teaching, established forms of worship, and determined qualifications for membership and office.)
Most if not all of the figures who attract the hearers and viewers of TGC materials and events are ministers. Their credentials come either from denominations or congregations. These communions are responsible for creating the spiritual capital that gives credibility to the Coalition’s speakers and authors. These pastors in turn add value to this capital by conducting successful ministries (leaving aside that thorny question of what constitutes success in the kingdom of God). The Coalition then assembles the most successful pastors, shorn of their denominational or congregational ties, either during the minutes it takes to conduct a Youtube video or over the course of several days at a conference. The Gospel Coalition adds no inherent value to the capital that these pastors and their churches have created and invested. No offense to Justin Taylor or Colin Hansen, but American evangelicals are not signing up to attend the Coalition conference because those young and restless editors and bloggers are speaking.
This leaves the Coalition with a product that is worth only a percentage of the ecclesiastical currency that the ministers (and the communions they represent) have created. To be sure, the gospel is of incomparable value. But Christ did not complete the gospel merely by his death, resurrection, and ascension. The last I checked, he commissioned apostles, inspired authors of sacred writings, ordained means of grace, gave instructions for planting churches, and included rules for those churches’ government and discipline. The reason would apparently be that sheep need shepherds, that believers need to hear the gospel longer than an evangelistic sermon lasts and learn of its implications for a longer time than at a two-day conference. They need to hear the gospel their entire life, and that means they need pastors and overseers who will be faithful, hence all the mechanisms to insure the creation and maintenance of sound pastoral ministry, and the rules governing how those ministers conduct worship and oversight.
Yet, the Gospel Coalition seems to regard all of this ecclesiastical work as incidental to the gospel, as a mere appurtenance. How else can one explain the indifference to the communions from which their speakers and leaders come? How else to explain that those speakers and leaders could not hold jobs or receive calls in the other speakers and leaders’ communions? For the sake of the Gospel Coalition’s gospel, those differences and separations are unimportant compared to the gospe.
But at institutions like Al Mohler’s Southern Baptist Seminary they do. For that reason, I’d rather live in the real world of respectful differences between the SBC and the OPC in their diverse efforts to follow all of Christ’s Great Commission (word, sacrament, and discipline) rather than the la la land of the Gospel Coalition where speakers and audiences act as if such differences don’t matter and where members of different communions are tempted to forget about the ecclesiastical vows and think that what happens in Chicago stays in Chicago.
Postscript on fellowship: Readers may be thinking that the point here about the church and the parachurch here make sense, but is there no room for pastors and members from different churches and denominations to fellowship together? Should the Banner of Truth stop offering conferences?
Part of the answer depends on what we mean by fellowship. If a Southern Baptist pastor cannot minister in the OPC without rejecting his former views on baptism and polity (for starters) and subscribing the OPC’s confession of faith, then it is fair to conclude that the OPC and the SBC are not in fellowship. And if a Southern Baptist transferring his membership into the OPC has to go through the same examination as someone who is a recent convert, then again fellowship is not the word we would use to describe this relationship.
Was it fellowship that I had with my parents when we prayed before meals, even though they were Baptists and I an Orthodox Presbyterian? Probably, but not in an ecclesial sense.
In which case, why do paraecclesial ideas about fellowship trump ecclesial ones? Why is a gathering of ministers at a Banner of Truth Conference more “sweet” than the relations among pastors and elders at a presbytery meeting? Or why is a Gospel Coalition conference (or a Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, for that matter) more moving and invigorating than an ordinary Lord’s Day sandwiched by two preaching services?
It could be that the conferences are subjectively more moving than worship. Or it could be that spiritual standards, like the decline of cultural standards from watching too much television, have declined thanks to the prevalence of revivals, conferences, and retreats – all of those man-made devices for generating devotional excitement.
Of course, it is a free country. We do not have a federal agency regulating spiritual life (I don’t think they have one even in Moscow, Idaho). So parachurch agencies are free to have their conferences and American evangelicals are free to flock to them and feel warm and filled. At the same time, confessional Protestants are free to wonder what good these extra-ecclesial forms of fellowship are doing to the means that we do know God ordained through the clear teaching of his word. If the experiential Protestants are really serious about biblical inerrancy, wouldn’t you think they would want to be faithful to what God has inerrantly revealed about the means he has promised to use to save his people (even when they don’t feel “it”)?
312 Comments
Hi John T,
Re: We are indeed sinners saved by grace. Again and again I thank God that ‘the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin’.
Amen!
Re: John is clear that those whose lives are not marked by truth, love and obedience have no life in them.
John makes it very clear that none of us is without sin and that it is the life of daily repentance before God and faith in Christ that is our daily fare for it the blood of Christ that continuously cleanses us from all sin. Our lives are marked by faith in Christ, his righteousness imputed to us, and the power of the gospel not the law for the law can save no man. Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, have you not read the law? (Galatians).
1 John 1:7-10 But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Re: James insists that faith without works is dead…. Phil 2:14-15…. 1Pet 2:12…. 1Pet 4:3-5…. Verses that expect Christians to be different can be multiplied.
The problem here is that the law is being isolated from the rest of the Bible and pitted against the gospel. The gospel always has the last Word in a Christian’s life. Yes the law is good, right, and holy – it shows us what is holy. Truly, there is none holy but God and his holiness beyond all we can understand. God is holy in his being. We may be able to show some signs of external righteousness in obedience to the law’s moral imperatives, but so can non-believers. This is a far cry from the holiness we called to and an honest Christian will admit that they cannot tell the difference between themselves and good non-believers. The only difference is faith in Christ and being clothed in his righteousness.
The Tale of Two Pieties:
There is a cross-centered piety and a sanctification-centered piety.
Cross-centered piety takes sin seriously for it sees that me, myself, and I am the problem. It sees that I am sinful in my being and my sin in thought, word, and deed flows from my sinful being. No amount of sin management or attempts to eradicate sin will keep the sewer line clean for I cannot remove the source of the sewage. There is the recognition that I am deeply and consistently flawed and I can’t be fixed by merely behaving, thinking, or feeling like a Christian. No the problem will not be solved until that great day when God exchanges my corruption for the incorruptible. So this piety lives by faith and daily finds forgiveness for being a sinner and daily finds strength for each day only by looking away from itself to our crucified and risen Savior. This piety rests in the finished work of Christ for me and trusts God to sanctify us as he sees fit in this temporal life. This piety’s life is faced outward towards God and the needs of it’s neighbors.
Sanctification-centered piety treats the law as doable. It pays lip-service that we are saved by grace and not works. It seems to think that if it can get rid of it’s sinful thoughts, words, and deeds that it can be rid of sin. It thinks that it can transform itself if it just tries harder. It is saturated with a self-orientation, a relentless focus on moralism, and an addiction to actively pursing progressive sanctification. It forgets that God doesn’t grade on a curve. It’s 100% daily perfection or you flunk. Its fails to recognize that holiness is more than good morals and being a good deed doer but it means a 100% sinless being in thought, word, and deed. This piety is turned inward towards itself and away from God and it’s neighbor.
It is not the vocation of any Christian to purse transformation. We pursue growing in grace and knowledge of Christ. All of the blessings/gifts we enjoy in the Christian life flow from him.
There countless books and preachers who will give you a formula to work your way out of the predicament of being a sinner. Books and seminars on prayer, bible studies, rigorous attention to daily devotions. None of it works. There will eventually be a Y in the road. To the left go the hypocrites who think they can pull off the Christian life and to the right go the honest despairing ones who know they cannot pull off the Christian life. For the despairing Christian, confessional Christianity’s cross-centered piety offers an oasis in the wilderness of American evangelical pietism. Here they can find that we are both sinner and saint at the same time, and that our two natures are in conflict. Here they can find why Luther said that when the Scriptures command us to repent it means that we are to lead lives of repentance, agreeing with the Lord that His word is true concerning us, in both the Law and the Gospel.
I repeat the words of Darryl: “John T., at this point are you beginning to see the difference between pietism and confessionalism? Are you willing to concede that pietists disagree with confessionalists as much as the other way around?”
John T.,
Lutherans do allow for God communicating Christ outside the means of grace because God cannot be limited. But we do claim that the promise of God is most assuredly found in
Word and Sacrament. It is here where we find our assurance most assuredly, so to speak. We also realize that things can be counterfeited outside the means of grace and therefore are more skeptical of those who emphasize the communicating of Christ outside the ordinary means.
I am not sure of the Presbyterian or Reformed take on that but I have heard Lutherans say what I did in the previous paragraph.
Lily,
If I may say so, great stuff on “The Tale of Two Pieties.” Very encouraging.
Lily,
I’ve been a Christian for fifty years, and Gali’s sanctification is how I’ve begun to think about it. Thanks for posting that. Thanks, too, for contrasting the two pieties. That’s how I’ve found myself in confessional protestantism so late in the game. Strangely, I began in and until age 30 was in John T’s Brethren denom!
Stay at it. Love the interaction of all you folks.
Lily, dittos on the two-pieties comments. I’m not sure why Reformed people would have a problem with this — except for theonomic/Corinthian impulses.
Barbara, I am thankful you found confessional Protestantism and rest in Christ – such a great blessing it is!
Dr. Hart, I do hope people will start to better understand the differences in pieties. As you well know, nothing I wrote was original. I have wondered if problems understanding the law come from not majoring in Galatians or trying to understand the Christian life apart from Galatians? The idea to contrast the two pieties was inspired by Paul’s contrast of Sarah and Haggar (Galatians 4:21-31).
P.S. If you ever decide to accept the mission, here is the 2007 journal article that got me wondering if Calvin got some of his mistaken ideas from Luther:
The Challenge of History: Luther’s Two Kingdoms Theology as a Test Case
http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/mackenziechallengeofhistory.pdf
Lily,
By “transformation” (not the Christian’s vocation, you say), what do you mean?
The term “cheap grace” originated in a black church in Harlem, and was popularized by Bonhoeffer. It was all about the theology of the cross. Cheap grace is opposed to the cost of discipleship. What think ye?
Lily
I had decided it was time to bow out but given my sinful nature eloquently described by you I thought I would ask a further question.
I agree that in my flesh dwells no good thing. I consider ‘the flesh’, humanity in Adam, as inveterately opposed to God. But I believe too in the new birth. I believe in regeneration I have a new life and nature within me – the life of God in Christ. This new life/nature empowered by the Spirit produces godliness (and can do no other). Thus my duty (by the Spirit) is to put to death the flesh/old self and live as a new person yielding myself to the life of righteousness.
I agree that ‘So this piety lives by faith and daily finds forgiveness for being a sinner and daily finds strength for each day only by looking away from itself to our crucified and risen Savior’
But I disagree with your description of sanctification centred piety. None-one I know believes they can achieve sinlessness in this life. No-one I know thinks that holy living contributes to their justification or acceptance with God though they do believe the pursuit of holiness of life pleases God (as a text or two above indicates). Why do we pursue holiness because we are called to do so; we are called to be holy as God is holy and to perfect sanctification in the fear of God.
You speak of two natures but you seem to see only one as having power – the sinful nature. The Christian should not see his life as one destined to constant defeat but as a life that can and should glorify God.
Rom 6:12-14 (ESV)
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Rom 6:19-23 (ESV)
I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Those who belong to God overcome the world (1 Jn 5)… and the flesh and the devil. Of course we are in constant conflict and we sin… we are not already perfect but we strain towards it. And we do so not to earn salvation but to fulfil God’s purpose in our lives as by his Spirit he conforms us to the image of his Son.
1Thess 4:1-8 (ESV)
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
John T.
Well said. I agree with you. However, I believe your kind of thinking might be termed (on this blog) the “theology of glory” or “victorious living.”
Subtly sin can creep in and make us think that we earn brownie points with God for our obedience. This is bad. But we still ought to strive for holiness. “Be ye holy as I am holy’ is addressed to justified believers.
Well… phooey. Eliza and John T. I accidentally posted answers to you on another thread – Would you like for me to repost them here?