There's something about Georgia...

...that seems to attract anti-Calvinists.

The state is already home to The Secret 9, Johny Hunt, William Harrell, Jerry Vines, and Nelson Price.

Now it appears we can add yet another to that list: Emir Caner!

If this keeps up, I'm gonna move back to Florida!

Georgia Baptists "Engage the Culture"

Read all about it here...

What's Depraved? (Reprise)

Continuing the discussion from the previous thread and post I thought it might be ripe to reference Edwards more completely concerning the imputation of Adam's guilt as congruent with the depraved nature.

What is evident, as Edwards points out, is the condition of man is that of unrighteousness at conception. Unrighteousness he posits is the negative principle. That is, when God removed the constraining influence of the positive, the righteousness of the will of God, man was then left to his own natural propensity to self-love but without the highest regard in self-love which is the love of God. It then is resolved that evil is no positive influence created by God in man but is rather the result of the negation of righteousness.

Evil in man is still, as Edwards would confirm, a reality, a thing which is created, but through negation. God does not need to place in man evil created ex nihilo, but merely to withhold his favor and evil is without the will of God that which wills its own. His favor is that constraint which is called the righteousness of God, or his will. It is not the will of his creatures, firstly, as derived from them, for what is the clay? Man's nature is as a river, the heart of a king in the hands of God, and water by its nature flows according to the constraint of the course set by the banks. Can man make God to see? Who has been God's counselor? None. It is God who has made man and the eye and given it sight to see. And more than that, he has given all that can be seen. All things, purposes, plans and means are from his hand. The negative principle does not mean that the nature itself is evil created, rather, that by the negation of the positive influence of righteousness in both nature and mind, that which was created good, and fit, does by its own tendency bend toward its own destruction being left without the unifying principle of the law of righteousness. Further, the whole creation was subjected to sin and the like principle known in physics, according to its natural bent, finds its terminus via the law of entropy in chaos.

Adam's action is not alone, nor at first where guilt resides. It cannot be, for even the "good" acts of fallen man are accounted as evil. Guilt was by imputation. It is the judgement of the righteous God who cannot abide with unrighteousness. Indeed, guilt as Edwards describes, is congruent with the nature of unrighteousness. By imputation of guilt, then, we have a legal decree, the finding of God which is assigned, not to the act, but to the individual who acted and that because man who acts is one with his nature which acts in the totality of the being. Adam's sin then is not like ours seeing as he had the righteousness of God constraining his actions and was innocent in the beginning. What we know is that he was deceived into believing that the action that he would take was righteous.

Our first exposure is in Genesis 3, and Paul tells us in Timothy as confirmation that the woman is not allowed to teach the man to reflect the original order of creation, and, to remind us of the deception that was first in Eve, who being in transgression taught her husband. Further, that he was cursed because he both listened to his wife and ate. Genesis says that Adam listened and that it was the woman's voice he heard. Adam was made first and from him is derived the woman whose position is not the dominance of her will over his, but is to be in submission to his headship, i.e., his will as a help fit for the purpose. Adam reversed the order by submitting himself to her in violation of the type which is the order of creation, itself the reflection of God's headship and his will as the primary source of will in man. When Eve fell, the conclusion is that Adam also, being one flesh, fell with her. Even though she ate first, the guilt is imputed to Adam as her head. That is the reality, for in Adam, all sinned, including Eve even though it was she and not he who first sinned. The offense Godward is to make God over into the creatures image, reversing the order or creation, now corrupted by that which opposes the will of God, exalts the will of man, and supresses the truth in unrighteousness. It is to do what Satan intimated, to make God to be unrighteous and ascend to equality with him, even above him.

One must consider that the evil tendency (the negation of righteousness) was not in Adam, nor in Eve from the creation, contrasted to James who locates it in fallen man, and not external. Rather, they were created in holiness in the image of God. The evil resided outside of them in an influential spirit called the Serpent of Old, or Satan, who Scripture declares as being what he was from the beginning. His influence was directed toward the mind and not the nature of man which was righteous. The mind operates under the influence of the nature unless some other influence impinges upon it. Unlike we who have inherited both the guilt and corruption, the faculties of Adam's mind had not yet been infected with thoughts directed only toward self-love to the negation of love of God resulting in chaos. Theirs was a righteous nature and beside it was given a righteous commandment, another influence, to guide the mind. So we have the statement that Adam's sin was not in the similitude of the many sins of his posterity. We sin because the corruption that was introduced into Adam by deception (a contradiction of the commandment) is passed along to us and resides in us. To that effect, God has assigned to man the stature of unrighteousness, removing from him the constraints of God's will which is righteous. The effect of Adam's guilt was sealed to him by God's imputation of guilt and the removal of righteousness which leads to life, simultaneously. The result was that Adam became the condemned according to his nature. We then have the history of Scripture and of all mankind, that the likeness of Adam is now transferred to his posterity rather than the likeness of God. Such that, the unrighteousness that was imaged by Satan in the Garden, Jesus assigns to man. To that end, man is continually attempting to make others over into him own image just as his father the devil did.

I will add this paper also.

As Shedd says, the reality of sin is far deeper than the superficial reality that guilt inheres in actions alone as the Arminian would propose. Guilt inheres in the nature. Nature permeates the entirety of our being. But some will say, then how was Adam accounted guilty? Was it not in the action? Again, I say, no. Guilt has to do with the declaration of God as Judge, just as righteousness has to do with God's declaration of righteousness which is foreign to man, an action outside of himself given to him. Man was not in the beginning neutral having both tendencies, therefore guilt was external to him for unrighteousness was not in him. Guilt inheres in nature precisely because God has declared the nature to be unrighteousness, not merely in an abstract way, but in truth, man has been "unrighteoussed." So also, the guilt is imputed congruently with depravity. "In the day you eat you will die." Not, in the day you eat you will become guilty, then later die. But, at once, simultaneous. "In the day" is colloquial meaning at the point of time. So later, we have Scripture using the term judgement to connote both the passing of the sentence and the execution of it as simultaneous though temporally expressed. To our feeble minds we see things from a temporally bounded perspective. But, the reality is that though man is born with an unrighteous nature and will proceed to actual sins, those sins are nothing more than the expression of one thing, sin. And sin is guilty of offense toward the nature of God by its very nature, whether it acts or not.

Man was created in innocence, but not in moral neutrality. He was created righteous. As righteous he could not sin, but God had left the will to its native freedom, being that which chooses according to the highest regard of the mind (in this sense it means volition where Shedd rightly uses Will to mean essential being or nature and all the attributes of it including its actions). It was there, in the mind, that deception entered,

"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate."

To this Jesus adds, what a man desires in his heart, that is what he is. So that, a man lusting after a woman has already committed adultery. It does not become sin in action but in conception (the woman saw), and conception is accomplished in the inmost place where no one knows. The entrance of the deception was below perception, precisely the definition of deception. Then, it was at the point that Eve saw, that it was concluded that she had already eaten. The corruption though entered in disguised as a beautiful creature. This does not take genius, just attention to the texts. It was by imputation, in other words, by the introduction of the lie, beyond the view of consciousness, that she was corrupted, and obviously that without her consent for no true consent is given to a lie.

The text tells us that their eyes were opened, but what it means is that their eyes were closed, blinded by the darkness that had entered and they had chosen over the light. They saw themselves as naked, where God saw them as he had clothed them. Who said they were naked? Not God. Nakedness to them became shame but it was not so, God had clothed with righteousness and nakedness was what he had clothed them with. As we can see, the doctrine of imputation is demonstrated in Satan's very actions. For it was he who introduced deprivation into Eve and she into Adam. The deception itself is guilty. The corruption itself, at once the judgement, death sentence and execution. Through Adam we have, as Scripture declares, received God's curse, he having concluded that we were all in Adam, the whole of creation, subject to sin. Which is of course the truth even though the action of our birth had not yet occurred. Therefore David says he was conceived in sin. Not his, but his by imputation and that by the negation of righteousness as a result of the curse upon Adam's kind.

Guilt then is at once congruent with and consequent of depravity. That depravity is primarily the deprivation of righteousness. It is deprivation of righteousness in nature, nature being that which permeates the entire being, body, soul and mind. Righteousness itself cannot abide with any kind of sin, whether of nature, or of the actions of mind or body. In the entrance of sin into the world, God withdrew himself by removing the righteousness which constrains the will to love of God alone. Later we see this in the veil. It is not man who has placed the barrier to entrance between God and man, (see the Garden event), but God. In fact by God's action God prevents man from doing so by the unrighteousness of man's own will. In the reconciliation that is in Christ, that veil is removed to the glory of God, through Christ's flesh, through the imputation of Christ's righteousness, effectually securing regeneration in the elect so that they can enter. Christ, who has put to death sin in his flesh has reconciled them to God in himself for the benefit of the elect and secured them forever by the vital union of the Spirit. But, no sinful choice can enter and no sin nature would will itself to, either.

As Shedd concludes, this is the great rift between one set of theologians and the other. What was begun in the Reformation was a return to the doctrine of original sin and clearer understanding than that which was held by the Pelagians of all types who rejected the doctrines of the Protestation both before and after Luther. This is what separates us, today. Misunderstanding the doctrines of the fall is the seminal beginning of all errors and offense against the doctrines of grace. The Arminian faction would contend against Shedd's statement:

"The prayer of David is the proper prayer for us to the lay of our death:

"Search me, O Lord, and try me, and see what evil ways are within me; cleanse Thou me from secret faults."

A prayer, it may be remarked, that is utterly unintelligible on the hypothesis that there is no sin deeper than consciousness."

Far then from being that it is only the conscious sin that it under the guilt of condemnation, David is repeating what he had learned by the Law, as well from his own innate sense. We must remember that the Law was added because of transgression not transgression because of the law, even though the law would produce the effect of making sin recognizably, exceedingly sinful through the unavoidable violation of it.

Let's not forget that we wage our war not against flesh and blood but against every lofty thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (my compilation). It is not individual Arminians, or Romanists, or any other people of Pelagian persuasions who are the real enemy. And each of us shall give an account of himself to God. Our challenge is to declare the truth and let the sword of his word divide that which is his from that which is not. It is not a new battle and all of the elect at first fight against the kingdom of God until they finally hear, "Do you kick against the goads?" I did, for I did not begin completed with this knowledge, nor have I yet arrived at a full understanding of it. Like the disciples we all believe ourselves the possessors of our own destinies at first self-assured that we have found the way until we hear the Lord say, "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you."

With Isaiah let's us declare as we come into the presence of God, "Woe to me, for I am undone," recognizing that sin is the un-doing of God's will in man, of which we are all guilty. Humanistic concepts of will as mere volitions of single choices do not go deep enough into the soul well of depravity. Instead, rightly defined, Will is the entire being according to Shedd's usage as expressed by Isaiah's totally coming apart in the presence of the Lord, peirced to the deepest part, divided soul and spirit, searched in the inmost being, where secrets of the hearts of men so desperately wicked that no man can know it, reside. That depravity is not found just in the foaming of the surface waters, nor in the merky deep and darkness below, but issues forth from the very sping of its existence. A Reformation understanding then, is not that of the will as a ready instrument wielded distinct from self, but Will is the wielder, himself. Will is what Shedd says, in concert with Edwards, man is, and man is born bound by a creature's nature, a child of wrath, exhaustively unrighteous, thoroughly.

So we do not speak a common language when speaking of will. For we do not mean mere volition as the Arminian formula would have it. Rather, we speak of that which is reflective of the whole image of God into which we were created. It follows then, we also have a greater appreciation of what it means to love the Lord God with the whole mind, the whole soul, the whole spirit, the entire substance of our being and not just our volitions, and then why it is that total depravity is the only other reality, and being sin, stands guilty of hating God with its entire being and not just the actions that flow from it. Knowing this, we also gain a deeper appreciation for repentance, and forgiveness, for those who love much have been forgiven much by he who has become sin for us. With Isaiah we know our native state, but also who it is that has given us the righteous confession of the lips that comes from the throne of God.

Found At Provocations and Pantings

That's interesting. Saw it before. And I have heard the argument before. It was set forth by Billy Graham in fact on Larry King as is quoted in Ian Murray's Evangelicalism Divided. And we built a statue commemorating his soteriology! A soteriology, that by the "Biblicist" standard is nothing short of heresy.

Another question that this raises is the obvious ecumenical spirit that tags along with the Arminian/Calvinist divide. Two different soteriologies can be derived from the BFM. Which is all good and fine until the discussion becomes: just how is one saved?

Albert Mohler has said that no one will go to hell for another's sin. Though he equivocates on the matter, the inherited guilt of Adam, again, is a non-negotiable, and absolutely necessary for an orthodox soteriology. He signed and approved in his work on the 2000 BFM, of the reversal of the order of condemnation from the 1925 BFM, to what is now the BFM's definition of the nature of man after the fall since the 1963. (A bit of a culpability factor working there, maybe?) The denial at any level of the doctrine of original sin is foundational to all sorts of error, giving us notable myths like the age of accountability and LFW, as well as a labyrinth of sacramentalist religions.

You can see what I believe is at the heart of the world's confusion here, along with the rest of the series which began here. It is not them, it is we who allow falsehood and will not defend truth from error that gives them the right of dissent. Remove the strictures of total depravity and God's sovereignty in election, his drawing grace will fall, and there will remain only the conditions of man's vain imagination as the means of salvation. What is the difference between the typical SBC'er and an Oprah disciple if it is by synergistic means that people come to the knowledge of God? If in the end salvation requires some measure of man's effort, then the Oprahites or Osteenites for that matter, are justified in any scheme.



Osteen is the son of a former Southern Baptist. But, is that where he got his theology?





Perhaps, just perhaps, as Billy Graham said, "They may not know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something and I think that they are saved and they are going to be with us in heaven." Oh, we might well say that we are credobaptists and all the while deny that we are a credal people. However, according to some heros of the Southern Baptists, when it comes to the final assessment it might just be that God does judge men in deference to the light that they have and what they did with it,



and not by the standards of the only way. A Southern Baptist and fellow member of Sunnyside Baptist in Cheyenne, told me just that. Wonder's where he learned it?

There are some who do not bow to the hero icons, this one for example:



Nor would such stalwarts as Tom Ascol, or the inimitable James White.

Take notice Billy Graham's position has not changed since 1960. A mere three years before the 1963 BFM was finalized by former President of the SBC, Herschel H. Hobbs, a semi-Pelagian. What should be clear is that the accomodation of such heros while ostensibly forbidden, the BFM cannot exclude. One must question how Billy Graham could be honored by the SBC with a statue,



and reject the central tenant of soteriology in the SBC, salvation in the name of Jesus only.

The final assessment is that it matters what integrity we have in the eyes of the world when we make criticisms and expect credibility. What the world sees is a house doctrinally divided and unsure of its doctrinal foundations and history. What once passed the muster of love of truth in the Conservative Resurgence, must again come to the fore and reestablish the Protestant doctrines upon which the SBC was founded. But, as long as it holds to Romanistic free-will and humanistic goodness inherent in man, as opposed to the great hinge pin of the Protestant Reformation, the bondage of the will, and total human depravity, it will continue to feed the world the excuses it needs to not heed the call of repentance.

The only true revival will come when the truth is once again the SBC signature song. As Spurgeon said and I paraphrase, "These doctrines are the Gospel." Let the Doctrines of Grace be proclaimed and the Gospel will be reclaimed. It will cause hate and division, true enough, even attempts by the Secret 9 to subvert the truth. No matter. Truth is our life, is risen indeed and cannot die again.

The Root of the SBC's Problems

For more on that, please read:

Southern Baptists, An Unregenerate Denomination, by Jim Elliff

(This might explain why there's so many liars in church leadership positions as well!)

Conspiring Theories Breathe The Same Air And Inflame Passion

Having survived a near death experience hole free though a little singed I received another communication from a rat,

not a mole, but a rodent nonetheless. The information is disturbing and will serve as an appetizer to a review of the subterranean message of the commentary on The Baptist Faith and Message penned by Hx3.

I don't want to fan the flames and spread the fire of conspiracy or nuttin, but it is curious, is it not, that the dualism aspect of Hx3's theology is all so central to this mystical group?

Speaking of the Secret Nine



why is this pamphlet no longer listed as available from the NAMB? Or, is it?

The following is not supported by any evidence, but, just suppose that the CP can be found in this symbol:

Note the handshake, universal symbol of cooperative agents, and what if CP is really code for covert police, hmmmm?

Head over to Galyon's Place...

...and have a look at his article on J.L. Dagg's teaching on Election.

(Especially if you're in the SBC and a non-Calvinist!)

Announcing the "Romans 9:18 Conference"

Rhett Kelley Ministries Presents:

The Romans 9:18 Conference

Nov 6 and 7, 2008 at location T.B.A.

Did Jesus die on the cross for every person? Was I elected because I selected? Is God really sovereign? Did Calvin really murder Servetus? These and many other questions will be addressed.

This conference is not going to be a "Let's bash the Arminians" conference. This conference is going to be a biblical and theological assessment of and response to the inconsistencies of the "majoritarian" view of soteriology in the SBC and other Baptist movements. It will be helpful for lay people as well as preachers.

• $95 for conference only.
• $110 for the conference with two meals (dinner Nov. 6; breakfast Nov. 7)

Featuring: (exact schedule to be posted later)

Romans 9:18 -Rhett B. Kelley

Total Depravity - Dr. Tom Ascol

Unconditional Election - Dr. John Piper.

Limited Atonement - Dr. James R. White

Irresistible Grace - Dr. Thomas Nettles

Perseverance of the Saints - Dr. Wayne Grudem

Romans 9:18 and God's Purpose in Grace - Dr. Albert Mohler

- There will be a 60-minute Q & A session following the last speaker -

* There will be no live or archived audio or video of this conference via the Internet.
** If you are interested in being a vendor at this conference, please contact us via email. Space is limited so this will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

This conference is sponsored by: Rhett Kelley Ministries, The Reformed Mafia, and Calvinists everywhere.

If you'd like to be given ministry updates via email, please email us to join our ministry e-mail list.

A. W. Pink on the Modern God

I recently obtained a copy of A. W. Pink's book The Attributes of God. Yesterday I was skimming through the chapters and I came to the Pink's chapter on the Supremacy of God. The following comes from the beginning of that chapter. It really struck a chord with me because this is the very thing I believe is wrong with the "majoritartian" view of God in the SBC and other movements in our day:

"In one of his letters to Erasmus, Luther said, "Your thoughts of God are too human." Probably that renowned scholar resented such a rebuke, the more so, since it proceeded from a miner’s son; nevertheless, it was thoroughly deserved. We too, though having no standing among the religious leaders of this degenerate age, prefer the same charge against the majority of the preachers of our day, and against those who, instead of searching the Scriptures for themselves, lazily accept the teaching of others. The most dishonoring and degrading conceptions of the rule and reign of the Almighty are now held almost everywhere. To countless thousands, even among those professing to be Christians, the God of the Scriptures is quite unknown.

Of old, God complained to an apostate Israel, Thou thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself. (Ps. 50:21). Such must now be His indictment against an apostate Christendom. Men imagine that the Most High is moved by sentiment, rather than actuated by principle. They suppose that His omnipotency is such an idle fiction that Satan is thwarting His designs on every side. They think that if He has formed any plan or purpose at all, then it must be like theirs, constantly subject to change.

They openly declare that whatever power He possesses must be restricted, lest He invade the citadel of man’s "free will" and reduce him to a "machine." They lower the all efficacious Atonement, which has actually redeemed everyone for whom it was made, to a mere "remedy," which sin-sick souls may use if they feel disposed to; and they enervate the invincible work of the Holy Spirit to an "offer" of the Gospel which sinners may accept or reject as they please.

The "god" of this twentieth century no more resembles the Supreme Sovereign of Holy Writ than does the dim flickering of a candle the glory of the midday sun. The "god" who is now talked about in the average pulpit, spoken of in the ordinary Sunday School, mentioned in much of the religious literature of the day, and preached in most of the so-called Bible Conferences is the figment of human imagination, an invention of maudlin sentimentality. The heathen outside of the pale of Christendom form "gods" out of wood and stone, while the millions of heathen inside Christendom manufacture a "god" out of their own carnal mind." (A. W. Pink: The Attributes of God. Chapter 5)

Photo Credit: Providence Baptist Ministries website

Altar Calls: The New Sacrament

One of the great controversies about the Reformed resurgence within the SBC is that some Calvinists are questioning the practice of the "old fashioned altar call." In fact, some Calvinists are stopping the practice altogether! Of course, this is looked upon as a travesty by many non-Calvinists. Naturally, they use it to support their claim that "Calvinism kills evangelism."

What may surprise many people is that the "old fashioned altar call," isn't really all that old fashioned at all! As I've studied the Scriptures, I have yet to find this practice taught, yet hardly anyone questions it's validity or tries to correct abuses of the practice. In many churches, the practice has been elevated to such a degree that to question it's validity is nigh unto blasphemy.

I'm not totally against the practice of giving people the opportunity to come forward for prayer or to be saved at the end of a sermon. What I am against is how some men use the altar call to say anything and everything they can think of in order to goad people into walking down the isle. Because some preachers are so persuasive and seem to get great results, modern pragmatic minded churches and denominational leaders (like those that litter the SBC) don't like it when people begin to question the practice on Biblical and theological grounds.

It recently came to my attention that during certain mass evangelism crusades, many of the people we see respond to the altar call are not people needing to be saved, but councilors who are planted in the audience who are there to "prime the pump". They stand and proceed to the "altar" when the call is given. This is supposed to encourage others who are feeling shy to get up and come too..

I once had a pastor in the Church of God of Prophecy who taught that when a person responds to an altar call, that the act of coming forward is a suitable public confession of faith so that water baptism was not necessary! He actually said "the altar replaces water baptism". In another meeting, I heard a preacher confess that he once believed that the only place a person could be saved was during an altar call! I think these examples clearly illustrate how some people have made a sacrament out of this practice!

Some leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention condemn Calvinists for trying to examine the validity of this practice, but I do not. I believe we should be diligent to examine our practices and make reforms where there is a need. With fall-away rates as high as 90%, I think it's high time we take a hard look at our modern evangelistic methodology in light of Scripture and church history.

One interesting thing I want to note:

It's not just Calvinists who question (or do not practice) the invitational system. Many churches in the Restoration Movement (Churches of Christ) do not believe in giving an "altar call." Some ministers in that movement are almost Pelagian in their theology, so questioning (or abandoning) altar calls is not something only Calvinists are guilty of doing.

Here are some links to some articles that examine the topic of altar calls. Please examine their contents with a Berean spirit:

• The Dangers of the Invitation System by Jim Ehrhard



• Altar Calls and the First 1800 Years of The Church



• Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones on the Altar Call



• The Altar Call: Is It Harmful or Helpful? by Fred G. Zaspel



• Altar Calls, by John MacArthur



• 21 Flaws of The Altar Call, by David Wooten

Semper Reformanda!

Gettin' Set Up For The Kill!

Call me crazy, but I think perhaps SBC Calvinists are being set up for the kill.

Think this through with me:

A number of the elite SBC "non-Calvinists" have gone on the record saying that Calvinists need to make sure they put all of their theological cards on the tables for pulpit committees when being considered as a pastoral candidate.

Yet, even as they encourage "honesty" among Calvinists in this regard, we can see that they're working hard in the background to disseminate information against the Calvinist perspective so that when Calvinist ministerial candidates do "lay their cards on the table," the pulpit committee will recoil in horror and send the Calvinist packing.

This tactic reminds me of how deer hunters will use scents and lures to cause a buck to let down his guard long enough to expose himself to a 170 grain, supersonic dose of hot lead from the muzzle of a Winchester .30-30. The moment the buck lets his guard down thinking all is safe: BOOM! He's finished! The same fate will await us SBC Calvinists if we get lulled into thinking our esteemed leadership is really looking out for our best interests and interested in allowing our views to have a fair hearing before the masses.

I, for one, will no longer take them seriously until I see them stop misrepresenting our theological perspectives through books such as Trouble With The TULIP and scheduling conferences dedicated to an Arminian eisegesis of John 3:16...

Speaking of the John 3:16 Conference, yesterday I read that Steve Lemke has written that its "intended as a majoritarian Southern Baptist response to the 'Building Bridges' and 'Together for the Gospel' conferences."

I'm sure that apart from the few Calvinists who've fallen for the sweet smelling lure of Synergist double-speak, most of us aren't surprised to see this. In fact, that's what we've come to expect from our esteemed leadership!

While these SBC muckety-mucks give lip service to unity and cooperation between Calvinists and "non-Cavinists" in the SBC, I'm not about to let them fool me. It's plain to see that they're out to put a stop to the Reformed Resurgence by hook or by crook if they have to!

(Pic: me and an 8 point I harvested in Oct '03)

Calvinism, Honesty, and the SBC

This article details a subtle shift in what has previously been reported from SBC President Frank Page, in regards to "honesty" in the whole process when a Calvinistic pastor applies for a position at a church that has no particular, expressed preference with regard to Calvinism vs. Arminianism.

I mean, previously, Page has been reported as putting the onus for honesty on the man who holds to Calvinistic soteriology, and at least implied that some Calvinists have deceived their way into pulpits by not being up-front about their theology in the interview process. The notion has been that a Reformed man should bring it up and make it plain to pastor search committees from the get-go that he is Calvinistic.

But in this article, while rehashing some of that same ground, note the shift in emphasis. Page is quoted as saying,

"When pastor search committees approach pastors and seminary graduates about possible positions, they need to be very honest with these individuals about what they will allow regarding teaching in this area."

I am happy to see this. Surely, Page is not releasing the Calvinist from his responsibility to exercise integrity, but it is nice to see him acknowledge in this statement that the search committees should in fact shoulder some of the theological burden in the process.

But, the more I think about it, the less enthused I become. And the reason is this: I know too many Southern Baptist laymen.

Not one in a hundred gives a rip about theology. I mean, who are we kidding here?

I would love for search committees to do the heavy lifting involved to at least introduce themselves to theological issues, but I despair of ever witnessing a spectacle like that.

The most you will ever get is a committee that is chaired by a guy who read Dave Hunt's What Love is This, or Page's own Trouble With the TULIP, and now thinks he's all up-to-speed on the issue.

The other bit that troubles me is this part, from that quote above:

Page thinks the committee should let the preacher know "what they will allow regarding teaching in this area."

Yes, please do. Yes, Mr. Deacon, who attends maybe two out of every four Sunday services, and thinks the Left Behind series qualifies as a commentary on the Revelation; please do tell me what you'll allow me to preach. What a load that'll take off my shoulders: here I was thinking I was going to have to answer to God for all that.