Was He Thinking of Tim Keller?

Published on by D. G. Hart

I ran across an Eastern Orthodox reaction to the New York Times story on the immature and unsettled. And here is what one of the interlocutors wrote:

This is where the word “Calvinist” has no objective meaning. It is interesting from a sociological perspective, though. 25 years ago everyone thought the PCA was going to [be] the “Calvinist” option for thinking baptists. However, a number of articulate, deep Baptist thinkers who loosely adopted “Calvinist” loci were able to offer Calvinist Baptists something besides a Presbyterian alternative.

Implication: the PCA (and OPC) will grow at slower rates because Baptists will have fewer reasons to abandon some of their key identities.

20 thoughts on “Was He Thinking of Tim Keller?”

  1. Whether the “thinking of Keller” connection is “Calvinist” has no objective meaning or Baptist thinkers who loosely adopted “Calvinist” loci this is no great compliment to the Bishop of the Five Boroughs and all other Awesome Places.

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  2. Whoa, someone stop the show. There are other websites in blogdom where people write, and dutiful responders give their high fives on queue, to what end? That they too are just as good as those reformed bums? And here I thought CtC was unique..

    Wow, people with convictions sharing those with other strangers. I feel like David Tennant as I fly around in my tardis around the various planets (websites) and at times in history. Last nights episode took us trillions of years into the future.

    Anyway, inter-web space gets more fun by the second.

    Cheerio.

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  4. We have come to a bad place in history when the only choice is between the PCA and the Andrew Fuller version of “Reformed Baptists” which has replaced law and gospel with “God’s two wills”, one of which desires to save the non-elect.

    I certainly am willing to stipulate that anybody who denies water to “infants in the covenant” is no “Calvinist”. Hey I would even agree that Hodge and Reymond were not “Calvinists” because they did not agree with John Calvin on “sacramental eating”. But while it is true that being “Calvinist” is more than agreeing with (and teaching) the five points, being “Calvinist” is not less than the five points.

    But many Reformed folks are way more concerned about baptists claiming to be “Calvinists”than they are about John Frame’s works-gospel or about PCA people not teaching election or Christ’s definite atonement for the elect alone. As a particular baptist (first London, 1644), I have to ask—do those who leave predestination behind but retain the PCA form for “sacraments” continue to be “objectively Calvinist”?

    Tim Keller to the city of New York after 9/11—- “we now know what the answer is not. It can’t be that God doesn’t love us.”

    Keller is a PCA clergyman who has signed on to the Westminster Confession which explains in its chapter 3, first paragraph: “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely ordain whatever comes to pass.” This is not “allowing”.

    Paragraph three of the confession chapter 3: “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death.”

    For the manifestation of His glory—this is a place where the Westminster Confession and the Bible agree. Romans 9:13 declares “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” Romans 9:22 tells the truth: “God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory.” The Bible was written to those who believe the Christian gospel (not the message of universal brotherhood and God loves everybody.

    According to the Bible, God does not love all sinners, and that love is never conditioned on the sinner. God has ordained evil things to happen to both the non-elect and the elect, but the promise of Romans 8:28 is that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”

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  5. Chortles of the realm, we may be looking through a glass dimly, but even given the fog, I think my ball landed if not on, then near the green. Then there’s always sandtraps, so we won’t for sure right now.

    I did it again!

    Later, bro. Happy Friday

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  6. This guy nailed it. I had a leading “reformed” SBC leader tell me exactly that 20 years ago. He has been right which is one reason there has been some panic in the PCA. We are no longer the hot denomination as the “reformed” mojo has passed elsewhere. The question is what to do about it. I wrote a fictional piece about that here. Having just re-read it, the writing is pretty poor, but here it is anyway:

    http://theaquilareport.com/classical-protestant-resurgence-how-the-pca-got-its-mojo-back/

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  7. Andrew, life has gotten way too complicated for me. When I was growing up in the 60’s, we used to say that Baptists who became Presbyterians just wanted to drink and couldn’t afford to be Episcopalians. Within reasonable driving distance of me there was only one Presbyterian church that was not PCUSA.

    I first noticed this guy’s blog six months or so ago, before I had even heard of CtC or Old Life. When I remarked in another thread that you reformed guys must give of a scent that attracts sheep stealers, I had this site in mind, too. I don’t really follow it since (a) I’m not a target and (b) EO’s, at least in their American form, aren’t transformers, by and large. .(Until I read DGH’s latest book, I thought all Calvinists were Kuyperians, who scare me to death, as do all utopians.)

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  8. This reminds me of something one of us wrote a long time ago…

    As decent and orderly as it may be for Presbyterians to inhabit the moderate middle of Protestant notions about liturgy and the ministry of the Church, if left to their own devices they invariably descend to the nether regions of churchly sensibilities. So for Baptists on the way up, the Presbyterian option is a happy one since it rarely demands a significant adjustment beyond coming to terms with infant baptism.

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  9. Dan, complicated? You and me both, brother. The guy DG is citing in his blog post here, I found after my OP pastor in Summer of 2011 reading Fr. John McGuckin who broke down Christology via Cyril of Alexandria. That interlocutor read the same book, we connected over email, and I would defend imputation of active obedience of Christ (IAOC) with interlocutors at his blog last year. I learned the value of the proper doctrine of Justification via the hard line held to in the OPC, the church I found while in college at UCSB in 2001.

    Don’t sweat the small stuff. DGH is a good blogger to follow. Enjoy it, as I have.

    Peace.

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  10. *after my OP pastor in Summer of 2011 told me to read Fr. John McGuckin.

    At least that is how it should read. Christianity is a complicated religion, for we are divided, and for reasons pertaining to ideas (beliefs) since the time of the reformation (though the schism of the 11th century was already in the past as well, when Luther did his thing).

    Gotta run. Have a nice day.

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  11. I don’t want “mojo.”

    I want a church that will deliver the means of grace under respectful conditions and allow for edifying fellowship.

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  12. Chris and the PCA Mojo…

    So here we are nearly four years after that General Assembly where the denomination did not choose the path set forth in your piece. Looking into your crystal ball what will the AP say about the PCA in 2020?

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  15. Sorry Chris, I don’t know you well enough so far to put you on the side of the godly sinners or the goofballs just yet…

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  16. Here was (all about) me thinking out loud on the blog of this Olaf fellow. I am one who knows his real name, he seems to enjoy a good moniker and gets bored with one quickly. I’m glad he speaks with the EOs as he does.

    Peace out, blog-realm.

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  17. For clarification, the article was written by an Eastern Orthodox. The comment about Calvinism having no objective meaning was by me. I am a member of a NAPARC church.

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  18. I kind of was thinking of Keller, but one of my aims with these EO guys is to get them to understand Calvinism beyond a loose affirmation of predestination. I try to point them to guys like Muller and Turretin and they accuse me of innovation in Calvinist sources.

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  19. Jacob, nice to see you around here, a blog where I happen to graze. Reading your blog last year prodded me along to buy Turretin’s institutes, something I have found to be a valuable resource to reference in my dealings with RC interlocutors out here. So keep it up, for ‘frozen chosen’ like me who need a prod every now and again 🙂

    Take care.

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  20. PS This blog has some interesting posts, like the one where I commented on here, the post being about JGM’s dying words (like how I was talking about that on your blog in 2012). Anyway, brings back memories..

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