Together for the Gospel ‘08 kicked off at the rather unusual hour of 2:30 PM. Attendance seems to be somewhere in the area of 5500. While registration is open to both men and women, it seems that there is hardly equity. I’d estimate that there are 20 or 30 men here for every woman.

As he did at the last conference, Mark Dever opened by giving some prizes to some of the notable guests—the man who came the furthest (turns out he is from India, though there were also people here from Thailand, Australia, Serbia, and other far-off places), the man who had been in ministry the longest (55+ years), and the man who had ministered the longest at the same church (and it so happens that it was the same man who had been in ministry the longest).

Like the last T4G, Bob Kauflin is serving as worship leader. There is no band—it is just Bob and a piano. He will be leading us in a variety of hymns and before the first session we sang a couple of classics: “A Mighty Fortress” and “It Is Well with My Soul.” After it we sang, “How Firm a Foundation.”

Each of the people attending here will receive a lot of free books (fifteen, I hear). I’ll be sure to let you know the titles we receive. Before the first session, each chair had on it a copy of If You Could Ask God One Question by Paul Williams and Barry Cooper and The Faithful Preacher by Thabiti Anyabwile. Al Mohler took a few moments to introduce these titles.

Ligon Duncan had the privilege of leading the conference’s first session. The title was “Sound Doctrine: Essential to Faithful Pastoral Ministry.” In an anti-doctrinal age or an age which thinks it is anti-doctrinal we need to look to the Scriptures to learn how doctrine informs and is essential for faithful pastoral ministry if we will effectively respond to the spirit of the age. And this was what Duncan sought to do.

He showed first that the very concepts of doctrine, theology and systematic theology are under duress in our times. From there he showed from Scripture that systematic theology is necessary, important and unavoidable. And then he showed what doctrine is important for. The first of these points received the bulk of the attention and, with time running short, the final point received the least.

Initially he looked to six biblical passages in which we see Paul and Jesus assert the importance of theology. He looked to John 17:13-17, I Timothy 1:3-5 and 8-11, I Timothy 6:2-4 and Titus 1. He showed that doctrine matters; that theology is for life. “Theology is the science of living blessedly ever after.” Yet our age is profoundly anti-doctrinal. Some say we need to embrace this postmodern aversion to truth and doctrine by rejecting doctrine in favor of narrative and story. But this is the exact opposite of what we need to do. We need to meet this postmodern aversion to doctrine by celebrating truth and doctrine and by unashamedly declaring doctrine. We need to outlive, outrejoice and outdie the critics of theology and doctrine.

The idea of doctrine and theology, and especially systematic theology, are head in great suspicion in the church today. “Christianity is a life, not a doctrine,” say the critics. They may think this is something that is greatly original, but in reality this was a phrase coined by nineteenth century liberals. If we are to remain faithful to the message of Scripture we need to remain Christians who love the systematic theology of Scripture.

For his second point he had time only to rifle through several examples of systematic theology in the Bible. He looked at Jesus on the road to Emmaeus, at Apollos in Acts 18:27-28, and at Paul in Acts 17. And then, in only a few moments he answered “What is doctrine important for?” And here he showed that doctrine is for God’s glory, for our assurance, for marriage and for joy.

Some time ago a reader of this site, a new Calvinist, wrote to ask, "If a person is ‘a child of wrath’ from birth due to Adam's sin and unable to choose God because of Adam's sin, how is he responsible for his actions if he was born this way (and has no ability of his own to choose God)? … If Christ didn't die for all men, yet all men were condemned for one sin (and by that sin, thereafter, unable to choose good), how is it just of God to condemn all men if they are ‘determined’ to be sinful by the action of Adam?"

This is one of those questions that could be answered in a few short lines, many sermons, or in a few great volumes. And it is probably best answered by someone far smarter than I am. But I will attempt it anyways, and hope to answer it satisfactorily, without going into laborious detail.

It is first important to understand that the Bible points us to a unity in the human race. Acts 17:26 tells us that "he [God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth." Some of the older translations read "he made from one blood every nation of mankind." Thus all of us are descendants of the one man and we have inherited his humanity and his attributes. The blood of Adam is in all of our veins. But Adam has passed down more than flesh and blood; he has also passed down sin.

John Piper writes, "The problem with the human race is not most deeply that everybody does various kinds of sins--those sins are real, they are huge and they are enough to condemn us. Paul is very concerned about them. But the deepest problem is that behind all our depravity and all our guilt and all our sinning, there is a deep mysterious connection with Adam whose sin became our sin and whose judgment became our judgment" ("Adam, Christ, and Justification: Part I").

Let's now try to come to an understanding of how Adam's sin affected the human race. This is one of the topics Paul addresses in Romans 5, a chapter that deals primarily with justification by faith. We will begin with verses 12 - 14 of that chapter. "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come." This is something of an awkward construct, for Paul begins a thought in verse 12, and does not conclude it until verse 18. Verses 13 through 17 are parenthetical, yet still crucial to the argument he is building.

We learn from these verses that sin came into the world through one man, and we know this to be Adam. We learn also that death entered the world through sin and that death spread to all men because all men sinned. The meaning of these last words has been in dispute throughout the history of the church. Somehow we need to reconcile the fact that when Adam sinned, every human being also sinned, even though they were not yet in existence. From the moment of Adam's sin, God regarded the human race as sinful. This is the meaning of verses 13 and 14, for Paul tells us that even before the Law was given, men still died. Thus before God gave the Law to Moses, men were already counted guilty by God on the basis of their forefather's sin. This is further reinforced in verses 18 and 19 which read "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous."

We see that Adam was more than the father of the human race, but was also the representative head of the human race—our federal head. God had determined this from before the time Adam sinned. Thus Adam's actions directly affected us. Consider the metaphor of the President of a nation. When the President of the United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, every citizen of the nation was also at war with Japan. Acting as the head of all those whom he represented, the President made a decision that affected each one of them. It is, of course, an imperfect analogy, but sheds some light on how one man can represent others. Adam made the decision to wage war against God, and this affected every aspect of his being. It also affected all those whom he represented.

Just as our physical bodies are descended from Adam, the same is true with our souls. A child is not given a perfect, sinless soul at the moment of conception, but rather inherits an already sinful soul from his parents and ultimately, from Adam. So when we read in Genesis that Adam "fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth" we know that Adam's likeness included a sinful body and a sinful soul. Just as Adam had sinned in the whole man, both body and soul, so Seth inherited that sinful body and soul.

There is a term here we ought to define. To impute is to "attribute or credit to" or, said otherwise, "attribute (responsibility or fault) to a cause or source." Adam, acting as our representative, sinned on our behalf and his sin was then imputed to us—held on our account. Hodge writes, "Such was the relation, natural and federal, between him [Adam] and his posterity, that his act was putatively their act. That is, it was the judicial ground or reason why death passed on all men. In other words, they were regarded and treated as sinners on account of his sin." Thus Adam's sin is regarded as our own. When Adam sinned, we sinned and are justifiably considered condemned in God's eyes because of this sin.

Naturally, there are objections to this view. I will outline two responses we can make against these objections:

First, anyone who protests that this is unfair has already committed a multitude of sins, proving his own sinfulness. He has sinned because he is a sinner. God does not place an innocent man under Adam's sin against his will. It is his own sins that will form the primary basis for his condemnation. Romans 2:6 tells us that God "will render to each one according to his works." Similarly, Colossians 3:25 says, "…the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality."

Second, if we deny that men can be declared guilty on the basis of one man's sin, we will have difficulty accepting the parallel between Adam and Christ, who is called the Second Adam. "As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men." Adam stood as the representative head of the human race and sinned, but God sent His Son to stand as the second representative head and through Him provided salvation. We are counted guilty through Adam's sin, but Christ, standing as the representative head of all who would believe in Him, obeyed God and now God counts us as righteous. To return to the word "impute," we can now have Christ's righteousness imputed to us, overcoming the sin of Adam.

Parenthetically, Wayne Grudem provides a third response, but seems to give it little credence. He suggests the view that any other human would also have sinned had he been in Adam's place. However, the Bible does not explicitly state this and by Grudem's own admission, "it does not seem to be a conclusive argument, for it assumes too much about what would or would not happen" (Systematic Theology, page 495).

So now we turn back to the original question of how it is that God can condemn all men on the basis of one man's action. Or said otherwise, how can He hold our sins against us when we are so predisposed to sin that we are unable not to sin? As we have seen, Adam's sin is our own as fully as it was his. This is just an unavoidable biblical reality. Yet this is not something we should regret or despise. Rather, we ought to embrace this, for if this is true, it is equally true that Christ stands as our representative and is able and willing to impute His righteousness to our account. There is nothing to be gained in objecting to the imputation of Adam's guilt, but everything to be gained in accepting it. As G.I. Williamson says, "Explain it, or explain it not, as we may, it remains true. It is also a fact that there is no salvation for such sinners as we are, except by the word of Jesus Christ as the representative of His people" (The Shorter Catechism Volume 1). We cannot have one without the other.

I am certain that there is no other book I've been asked to review more times than William P. Young's The Shack, a book that is currently well within the top-100 best-selling titles at Amazon. The book, it seems, is becoming a hit and especially so among students and among those who are part of the Emergent Church. In the past few weeks many concerned readers have written to ask if I would be willing to read it and to provide a review. Because I am always interested in books that are popular among Christians, I was glad to comply.

The blog tour for The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment continues today with a visit to Jollyblogger. If my memory serves me well (never something I can take for granted), Jollyblogger is one of the first blogs I began to read on a regular basis. David Wayne, a pastor in Maryland, doesn’t blog quite often enough, but when he does, his articles and reflections are always worth reading.

Reflecting his vocation, David asked the following:

In our denomination we ask those seeking to join our church to take five vows, the last of which reads:

Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?

As discernment is a discipline most often associated with protecting the purity of the church, how might this discipline be used to protect the peace of the church? Along with that it might be helpful to note whether you see peace as a subordinate attribute to purity, and therefore contingent on purity, or vice versa, or whether you see these as separate attributes which are equal in importance, or if the two have some other type of relationship I haven't thought of.

Read my answer here

Here is a list of the tour stops from last week and those still to come:

Yesterday I began a short series on the inerrancy of Scripture, looking at whether there are errors and contradictions in the Bible. You can read the first article and the response to it here: Are There Errors in the Bible?. When I first began to develop and understanding of this doctrine, I found that the doctrines of Scripture cannot be neatly separated, one from the other, for they are intertwined and interrelated. So in the first article I wrote about inspiration, canon, transmission and authority. Today I will turn to inerrancy, first explaining what it is not (often a good place to begin, I find) and then providing a working definition.

What Inerrancy Is Not

I find it is often useful to define what a term does not mean before I learn what it does mean, and I will do that with inerrancy. So let’s look at four statements dealing with what inerrancy does not entail. I should note that there is no authoritative body to which we can appeal to define what inerrancy means, for it is not a term that is neatly defined in Scripture. Thus I am presenting information consistent with the way it has been defined by scholars who have pursued the study of this doctrine over the past century and who have drawn what they believe from the Bible.

First, inerrancy does not preclude the use of ordinary language. A clear example of this in the Bible is where it speaks of the sun rising. We know that the sun does not rise at all but that the earth rotates to bring the sun into view. However, we can be consistent in our belief in the inerrancy of Scripture despite this type of ordinary, human, geocentric language (the kind of language we continue to use today).

Another way this happens in the Bible is with the use of numbers. Some time ago a friend was given some tickets to see the Toronto Rock, our local professional lacrosse team, and asked me to go along with him. Never having attended such a game before, I had no idea what to expect. I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the sport and was amazed at how many people were there to cheer on the team. At some point there was an official announcement of that evening’s attendance and I made a rough mental note of it. Later, after I got home, my wife asked how many people were at the game and I told her “10,000.” Now the actual number may have been closer to 10,243 or 9,678, but yet I had not told her a lie. My wife was clearly not interested in an exact number, but rather a useful gauge to know how many people attend such games. So when the Bible says that Jesus feed 5,000 people with just a few loaves and fish, He may have actually fed 4,998. Yet the Bible would still be inerrant when it says 5,000.

In the same vein, consider measurements. As many of you know, I live in Toronto, Ontario and my family lives near Atlanta, Georgia. When I make the long drive to visit them, people sometimes ask me how long the journey takes and I tell them it takes me 14 hours. Or they may ask me what the distance is, and I’ll tell them 900 miles. In reality the drive time varies every time we do it based on traffic, weather, the behavior of children, the anger of the border guards, the health of my car, and any other number of factors. In reality the distance, according to Mapquest, is 931.96 miles. And while we are clarifying, both my parents and I live in suburbs of our respective cities and I have offered Toronto and Atlanta simply because people generally know the locations of big cities but not smaller towns and suburbs. And I don’t drive a car, but a van. But have I lied in any of this? Is any of this truly contrary to fact or have I been inerrant in what I have said? Here is the crux of the matter and this is particularly important to our discussion: Inerrancy speaks of truthfulness, not the degree of precision with which events are reported. When I say that I drive 14 hours and 900 miles to get from Toronto to Atlanta, I have not lied. I have been truthful, but not perfectly precise. This is consistent with inerrancy.

Second, inerrancy does not preclude the use of loose and free quotations. Wayne Grudem makes a critical distinction between our culture and the New Testament Greek culture when it came to reporting the words of another person. In our culture we consider it a terrible sin to misquote another person; we believe that precision in quoting a person’s exact words is of tantamount importance. The Greek language, at the time the New Testament was written, had no quotation marks and really no similar construct. What was considered of utmost importance was to accurately represent the content of what a person said. There was no expectation that a writer needed to transcribe the speaker’s exact words when quoting him. Thus the Bible is inerrant if it accurately and truthfully describes the content of what a speaker said. Whether the actual words Jesus spoke are “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” or “I am The Truth, the Way and the Life,” the Bible is still inerrant in how it transcribed these words, for the content remains intact.

Third, the Bible can be inerrant even if it contains unusual grammatical constructions. It is commonly known that there are various writing skills represented in the Scripture. Some authors were stylistically excellent while others were much more rough and common in their style. Sometimes this means the writers did not follow the accepted rules of grammar or used stylistic irregularities. Once more, the issue of inerrancy is not precision but truthfulness.

Fourth, Scripture is inerrant only in its original autographs. It is critical to note that, strictly speaking, inerrancy does not apply to the transmission of Scripture through the ages and its translation into other languages. We affirm that only the original autographs, or original manuscripts, are inerrant. What we enjoy today is very good translations of very accurate reconstructions of the biblical text. We do not have any of the original documents—none of Paul’s original letters and none of the actual gospels written by the hands of the Apostles have survived. Yet through the science of textual criticism we have very accurate reconstructions of those texts and through translators we have excellent translations of them. So while we do not affirm inerrancy for any particular English translation of Scripture, we do have great confidence in the best translations available to us.

The impetus for this short series was a series of questions regarding so-called errors and contradictions in the Bible. Keep these four points in mind as you’ll see in our next article just how many of these errors are demolished simply by a proper understanding of inerrancy.

A Working Definition

Now that we know what we should not expect in inerrancy, let’s attempt to define it. I was surprised to find, as I consulted many books on this issue, that very few clearly and concisely defined inerrancy. Most use the term without defining it (or without thoroughly or accurately defining it). For example, James Boice, in Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace writes several pages on the topic, but provides no definition. In Scripture Alone, James White refers to the Council on Biblical Inerrancy and the desire of the participants to create a “concise statement on the meaning and importance of inerrancy” (page 68). He turns to and provides commentary on the council’s definition, which may be precise by theological standards, but still extends to 24 articles. Nowhere does he provide a concise definition. Of the few definitions or attempts at definition that I found, Wayne Grudem’s definition in his Systematic Theology seemed most clear. Here is a solid working definition of inerrancy: “The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.” It is that simple. So what we affirm in this definition, is that a perfect God moved human authors, by His Spirit, to perfectly transcribe what He wanted to communicate. This definition is based on the clear teaching of Scripture, several passages of which I presented in the previous article, as well as the character of God. If God is unable to lie and if he inspired Scripture, it must have been completely consistent with fact at the moment of transcription.

Conclusion

At this point we have defined our terms and indicated what we mean and what we do not mean by inerrancy. In the third (and final, I believe) installment in this series, we will turn to common objections and to the problems that may arise if this doctrine is denied. And then I’ll provide some thoughts on how to respond to those who are so eager to pull out the lists of supposed errors and contradictions.

Last week I wrote a brief article about apostasy and heresy and concluded with a portion that dealt with the difference between dialog and controversy. I quoted an article written by David Samuel. He dealt with this same subject and said

I think this explains the ease with which many in recent years have been able to enter into dialogue with Roman Catholics and even Muslims and Hindus. It demands a certain detachment from the truth to be able to do that. You are obliged to put a question mark over it, otherwise you are not genuinely engaging in dialogue, which means, at least in principle, you are prepared to change and qualify your beliefs. I think we must be very careful to distinguish between dialogue and controversy. Dialogue carries with it implicitly this assumption, that you will be prepared to modify and change your position, in the light of the debate, if it so requires you. But controversy, in which all the Reformers engaged, is quite a different thing. You start from what you know and believe to be the truth, and your object is to expose the error and confusion of the opponent's position and, if possible, persuade him of the truth. It was dialogue in which Satan engaged Eve in the garden. She would have been safe if she had insisted on controversy. When men have not a fervent love of the truth and no sense of abhorrence of error they are in the anteroom of apostasy. It is said that the apostle John fled from the public baths, where Cerinthus the heretic appeared, lest they should fall on him. Today some evangelicals would be glad to stay and engage in friendly dialogue.

He is correct that dialogue carries with it the assumption that there is a question mark hovering over my beliefs. It is consistent with a postmodern mindset, in that I acknowledge that though I believe what I believe quite strongly, it might just be all wrong. Certainty is sin. Those who dialogue enter into their dialogue with that attitude and it is no wonder that they are often persuaded that they are indeed wrong. As Christians we have no need, no right, to dialogue about our faith. We are not on equal footing with others when it comes to the fundamental doctrines.

In October of this year 138 Muslim scholars and clerics sent an open letter to Christian leaders and teachers around the world. “A Common Word between Us and You” was their call for these two faiths, which claim billions of adherents from across the globe, to peacefully co-exist. It was a call to base all future interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims to be built upon what these Muslim clerics believe is the common ground between the faiths. “The basis for this peace and understanding already exists,” they say. “It is part of the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbour. These principles are found over and over again in the sacred texts of Islam and Christianity. The Unity of God, the necessity of love for Him, and the necessity of love of the neighbour is thus the common ground between Islam and Christianity.” And our common ground should lead to this:

Thus in obedience to the Holy Qur'an, we as Muslims invite Christians to come together with us on the basis of what is common to us, which is also what is most essential to our faith and practice: the Two Commandments of love.

So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works. Let us respect each other, be fair, just and kind to another and live in sincere peace, harmony and mutual goodwill.

Their rationale is based in part on their Scripture and in part on matters perhaps more practical:

Finding common ground between Muslims and Christians is not simply a matter for polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders. Christianity and Islam are the largest and second largest religions in the world and in history. Christians and Muslims reportedly make up over a third and over a fifth of humanity respectively. Together they make up more than 55% of the world's population, making the relationship between these two religious communities the most important factor in contributing to meaningful peace around the world. If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world; with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants. Thus our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake.

And to those who nevertheless relish conflict and destruction for their own sake or reckon that ultimately they stand to gain through them, we say that our very eternal souls are all also at stake if we fail to sincerely make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony.

Four scholars at Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture chose to respond to this with a full-page advertisements in the New York Times (that was published on November 18). They titled this response “Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to A Common Word Between Us and You.” It was endorsed by over 100 Christian theologians, pastors and scholars, among whom were Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, Leith Anderson, Timothy George, Richard Mouw, Robert Schuller and John Stott. It has long been an observation that efforts of this kind create strange bedfellows. This is no exception.

The letter was one of penitence and delight—penitence for wrongs committed by Christians against Muslims, and delight for the efforts of the Islamic scholars to find this common ground between the faiths. Some might even see a tone of pandering. “As members of the worldwide Christian community, we were deeply encouraged and challenged by the recent historic open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals from around the world.” These Christian leaders agree with the common ground between these two faiths.

What is so extraordinary about A Common Word Between Us and You is not that its signatories recognize the critical character of the present moment in relations between Muslims and Christians. It is rather a deep insight and courage with which they have identified the common ground between the Muslim and Christian religious communities. What is common between us lies not in something marginal nor in something merely important to each. It lies, rather, in something absolutely central to both: love of God and love of neighbor. Surprisingly for many Christians, your letter considers the dual command of love to be the foundational principle not just of the Christian faith, but of Islam as well. That so much common ground exists--common ground in some of the fundamentals of faith--gives hope that undeniable differences and even the very real external pressures that bear down upon us can not overshadow the common ground upon which we stand together. That this common ground consists in love of God and of neighbor gives hope that deep cooperation between us can be a hallmark of the relations between our two communities.

The letter concludes with further agreement that this common ground ought to be the basis for further interfaith dialogue. It concludes with the promise that these leaders will continue to labor towards the goal set by these Muslim clerics.

“Let this common ground”--the dual common ground of love of God and of neighbor--”be the basis of all future interfaith dialogue between us,” your courageous letter urges. Indeed, in the generosity with which the letter is written you embody what you call for. We most heartily agree. Abandoning all “hatred and strife,” we must engage in interfaith dialogue as those who seek each other’s good, for the one God unceasingly seeks our good. Indeed, together with you we believe that we need to move beyond “a polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders” and work diligently together to reshape relations between our communities and our nations so that they genuinely reflect our common love for God and for one another.

Given the deep fissures in the relations between Christians and Muslims today, the task before us is daunting. And the stakes are great. The future of the world depends on our ability as Christians and Muslims to live together in peace. If we fail to make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony you correctly remind us that “our eternal souls” are at stake as well.

We are persuaded that our next step should be for our leaders at every level to meet together and begin the earnest work of determining how God would have us fulfill the requirement that we love God and one another. It is with humility and hope that we receive your generous letter, and we commit ourselves to labor together in heart, soul, mind and strength for the objectives you so appropriately propose.

So here is an example of dialogue. This is not controversy such as the controversy carried on by the Reformers during the time of the Reformation. It is not controversy like the controversy generated by Jesus’ Apostles as they took the gospel to the nations following the Lord’s death. Rather, it is dialogue, the likes of which we saw when Evangelicals and Catholics attempted to get Together. It is dialogue that, by all appearances, places Christians and Muslims on equal footing as they attempt to work together to arrive at some kind of agreement. Perhaps most shockingly, the documents takes for granted that the God of Christianity is the god of Islam. Nowhere in this document would one come to believe that the God of the Bible is different than Allah of Islam.

Nowhere in the Bible do I find Jesus telling us to find common ground with other faiths—with people who chase false gods and who are wholly committed to the downfall of the Christian faith. Nowhere do I see the Apostles, as Christ’s representatives, engaging in dialogue or seeking common ground in which to pursue God together. Rather, I see the promise of division and hatred. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth, “says Jesus.” “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”

Robert Munday read the document and the reply and offers six questions, all of which are worth considering. Essentially he asks, “Do the men and women who signed this document really understand what they have signed?” Do they understand that Islam always has been and always will be fundamentally opposed to the foundational beliefs of Christianity? Do these people not realize that Muslims will and must reject the authority of Scripture, the divinity of Jesus, the existence of the Trinity, the atoning death and the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ?

In a follow-up article Munday says, “There is much that is commendable in interfaith dialogue [He and I would feel differently on this point]. But if it is to have any real significance for Christian believers, those who engage in it must start with what Scripture teaches regarding the essential nature of the Gospel. Many of those who claim to represent Christianity in interfaith dialogue have already succumbed to a relativism that lacks such a foundation. And, increasingly, Christian respondents are so eager to find common ground, in light of the terrors that have occurred and fears regarding the future, that they are taking the course of appeasement in the face of Islam, eager to find “Peace for our time”--peace at any cost. It will not serve Christians well if they underestimate the true distinctiveness of the Gospel. And it will not serve anyone well if we underestimate the challenges that the world faces from the religion known as Islam.”

He touches on something important here. As Christians we have the Bible and within its pages we have the gospel. This is something that is distinctive to Christianity and something that has been given to us by God as a sacred trust. This is where we must begin. We cannot downplay or ignore the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we lose the gospel, we lose everything. There is no need, no call, to dialogue about the gospel. And there is no reason to dialogue with people who have and will and must reject it.

If you are interested, here are the documents (in PDF format): A Common Word and the Christian Reply.

What do you think? Do Christians have any business being engaged in dialogue with Muslims? If so, what would we hope to accomplish? What would our goal be? How can we defend this from the Bible?

Thabiti Anyabwile's new book is one where the title really says it all: "The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity." This is a book that traces the sad decline of the broad stream of African American theology from its orthodox past to its increasingly unorthodox, irrelevant present. The book makes what is, to my knowledge, a unique contribution to the study of African American theology. "What should be studied as the most central characteristic of the church--its theology--has been for the most part neglected by scholarly research and writing.

Over at “Cowboyology,” Clint Humphreys has posted an interesting take on the Baptist wing of the Reformed Renewal we’re experiencing today. A former Professor of New Testament at Toronto Baptist Seminary, Clint now pastors Calvary Grace Church in Calgary, Alberta. Looking at the landscape of Reformed Baptists, he identifies five streams and suggests that most contemporary Reformed Baptists will fit into one of them. They are:

1. The Neo-Evangelical Stream.
   Leading Example: John Piper
   Characteristics: Calvinistic convictions arrived at from within the broad mainstream Neo-evangelical ethos.

2. The Dispensational Stream.
   Leading Example: John Macarthur
   Characteristics: Calvinistic conclusions arrived at out of the generally ‘3-4 point Calvinist’ circles of ‘Dallas’ dispensationalism.

3. The Fundamentalist Stream.
   Leading Example: Spiritual heirs of TT Shields
   Characteristics: Distinguished from other Fundamentalists by Calvinism and at times non-Premillenial eschatology. Yet still Fundamental in ethos and association (cf. Paisley in N. Ireland, Bob Jones University, etc.)

4. The Reformed Baptist Stream.
   Leading Example: Al Martin, Tom Ascol
   Characteristics: Often connected with Presbyterians, possessing the same view of the Law’s implication for Christian living, particularly in the form of Sabbatarianism, and 10 commandments as normative for Christians.

5. The New Covenant Reformed Baptist Stream.
   Leading Example: John Reisinger
   Characteristics: Derived from the Reformed Baptist stream, but broke away from those circles over disagreement about Sabbatarianism and the relation of the Law to theChristian. Tended to emphasize a more Christocentric view of the Law (i.e. Law is fulfilled in Christ entirely, therefore the idea of Sunday as equivalent to a Jewish Sabbath is incorrect). Can draw from Progressive Dispensational circles as well as other eschatological perspectives.

To this list I would add one more:

The Actually Presbyterian Stream. These are people who are Presbyterian by conviction but who have not been able to find a God-honoring Presbyterian church in which to plant themselves. Instead, they joyfully attend Reformed Baptist churches, even while harboring hopes of someday being able to get their children baptized “properly.” John Piper’s church saw some much-publicized controversy about this group of people and many Reformed Baptist churches have plenty of closet Presbyterians attending (even if not as members). I’ll grant that this stream does not represent Reformed Baptist convictions, but it does represent a significant number of Christians within these churches.

Clint admits “There is often overlap between these different streams, and many Calvinistic Baptists would not be associated with any of them in a formal way. However the influence of the various teachers in these streams has had a significant impact within the broader Reformed Renewal of the 20th and early 21st century.”

I’d be interested in your feedback on these. Do you feel these are legitimate categories? Are there any missing? Which do you feel apply to you (if you are Reformed and Baptist)?

The comments section at Clint’s site is well worth perusing as there is some interesting discussion to be found there.

Election and Free Will: God's Gracious Choice and Our Responsibility is what I believe to be the first volume in a series called "Explorations in Biblical Theology" (at least I could find no mention of previously published volumes). This book is written by Robert A. Peterson who is also serving as the Series Editor. The series is to include two types of books: some will treat biblical themes while others will deal with the theology of specific books of the Bible. Written for college seniors, seminarians, pastors and thoughtful lay readers, the volumes are intended to be accessible and unobscured by excessive reference to the original languages or to theological jargon. "Explorations in Biblical Theology is committed to being warm and winsome, with a focus on applying God's truth to life."

Aileen and I were once members of a church that, after a few years of existence, began to de-emphasize doctrine. Some of the pastors seemed to reach the conclusion that “doctrine divides” and that the church really just needed to focus on evangelism and on “action.” They seemed to determine that a sound theological foundation held in common was unattainable and unrealistic. Therefore, doctrine should be laid aside and the church should rally around the things we had in common—a desire to reach others with the gospel and a desire to serve other people. It was a bit of a naive strategy, of course, and one that was bound to cause problems. Soon the church began to fracture into camps—those with backgrounds in one Christian tradition began doing things in one way while people from a different Christian background began doing them a different way. For a time chaos reigned. In some small groups members of the church would serve the Lord’s Supper, in others they wouldn’t; in some small groups people were baptizing each other and serving Lord’s Supper to children. There was no standard and eventually the pastors had to step in and intervene. By then, though, it was too late and many of these small groups “defected.” Having created their own theological identity and one that was at odds with that of the pastors, some of these groups left en masse. It was an inevitable result, I think, and one that proved to me that critical importance of doctrine being held in common by members of a church.

I found myself thinking about that church this weekend. I spent a good bit of my time reading the manuscript for Collin Hansen’s Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists, a book that is set to released sometime in the spring. The book discusses some of the resurgence of Reformed theology in our day and does so, in large part, through interviews with some of the pivotal figures in this resurgence. There was one quote by Josh Harris that caught my attention: “Once you’re exposed to [doctrine], you see the richness in it for your own soul, and you’re ruined for anything else.”

This is something I’ve experienced in my own life and something I’ve seen in the lives of other Christians. I once went on a weekend men’s retreat that featured teaching from several local pastors. We heard some interesting messages about serving our wives, about being men of integrity and so on. We had joyful times of worship and lots of time to blow each other away with paintball guns. The thing that has remained in my mind, though, was one of the sermons delivered that weekend. While we had received a steady diet of fairly typical evangelical sermons, one of the pastors stood and delivered what was, in effect, a biblically-grounded expository message. He simply opened up the Bible and explained to us what it meant and how we could apply it to our lives. He gave us real doctrine—true meat instead of mere milk. As we walked from the meeting room to our cabins I could tell there was a buzz running through the crowd of men. They had enjoyed the sermon and had been electrified by it. But they had no category for it. I heard comments like, “I don’t know what that was, but it was amazing! I wish we could hear more teaching like that!” I sat with a small group of men a few minutes later and introduced to them the concept of expositional preaching. Most had never heard of any such thing; neither had they ever enjoyed a sermon like it.

It was a pivotal moment for me. I drove home to me something that the Bible teaches but something I had never really seen before—that true believers want and eventually need to move from milk to meat. Though they may not have a category to describe what is missing from their lives they will feel a restlessness. The Spirit works in them to give them a craving for solid food. And when they take a bite of that food, their eyes light up and they know that they are experiencing something that they were meant to enjoy.

I saw this time and time again. The church was so good at bringing people in through the front doors. They would come in and very often would be saved. Many people were drawn in, became believers, and were baptized. But often they would not last at the church too long. Within a few months or a couple of years they would often step right out the back door. Few left the church and left the faith altogether. Rather, they would leave and head for churches where there was teaching that was more biblical. They would head for churches where the Word was the main thing. They would be drawn to stronger, more biblical teaching, even when they did not know how to express what they needed or what they longed for. Eventually they would find it. Needless to say, Aileen and I felt the same call. Though we stayed some time for the sake of our friends, eventually we, too, had to leave to find a place where the Word was central. And we could never go back.

This takes me back to Josh Harris. Once you’ve been exposed to doctrine you see the richness in it for your own soul and you truly are ruined for anything else. Just as a young child craves solid food, Christians will and must crave the meat of the Word. And once you’ve tasted it, there is no going back.