From the Antinomian’s Own Mouth: What is New Covenant Theology? Part 4; Living in a Narrative
Before I move on to part five which is Bresson’s NCT tenets on “Law,” let me take you into one more creepy interlude. NCT has no practical application for life or counseling; therefore, that void will be filled with abundant creepiness. Once again, I will reference one of Bresson’s readers to make a point.
In response to one of Bresson’s articles ( Abigail post dated 8/6/2008) promoting the idea that using Old Testament historical accounts for life lessons (or instruction) is misguided (a blatant rejection of many Scriptures like Nehemiah 13:25-27 and 1 Corinthians 10:6,11), a reader asked the following:
“I do have a question concerning ‘practical application’, you seem to diss it in the post (because it takes away from the central purpose). I am presently counseling a depressed person and I’m using Phil. 4:4-9. The passage seems to promises wonderful things for those who replace worry with right prayer and erroneous thoughts with true thoughts; namely, that Christ will guard our hearts and minds. Is this approach an improper use of the Scriptures, being practical application?”
Seems like a pretty straight forward question requiring a simple yes or no answer. But Bresson, obviously provoked by the question, responds with another post of 4800 words (Abigail post dated 8/14/2008) in an attempt to answer the readers question, because he couldn’t simply say, “yes, from the NCT perceptive, this kind of practical application of the Scriptures is improper.”
But the 4800 word “answer” led the reader to conclude the following:
“It seems that our primary concern is focus on the glory of Christ and the knowledge of him. This will produce the imperatives naturally. Also, history is still moving toward the return of Christ, by putting ourselves *into* the text, we recognize that we are the ongoing redemptive work of Christ, that didn’t end with the Scriptures. The Scriptures enable us to be part of the history. We are not making our own redemptive history, it is making us. We are between the beginning and the end, but all we need to identify with in Christ is bound in the Scriptures.”
Let me try to unravel that for you. It is the belief that the Bible is a meta-narrative (grand gospel narrative) that interprets our own spiritual life, which is also a predetermined narrative on a microcosmic scale. Therefore, all of reality is encompassed in the grand gospel narrative, or “Christ,” or “the gospel” (see Bresson’s NCT tenet # 1, as well as many other of his tenets in parts one and two). Therefore, the Bible produces a prismatic narrative in which to “see” our own life and interpret it via the gospel. When we understand, “see,” or interpret our life accordingly, it leads to “properly informed” spiritual outcomes, or what Bresson calls a “mere natural flow” regarding obedience, which isn’t obedience at all, but merely watching what Christ has already done for us in the constant unveiling of the “organic” gospel narrative.
So, we are to place ourselves into the narrative; and any attempt on our part to exert effort by following cognitive ideas from the Bible is an attempt to create our own narrative apart from God. Said by Bresson another way in his 4800 word reply: good preaching doesn’t take the text to the parishioner (ie., biblical principles to be learned and applied to life by the believer), but takes the believer to the text. This NCT concept, among many other antinomian / mystic ideas, was also presented by Paul David Tripp in “How People Change” when he said: “The big picture model [historical – redemptive] is the story of every believer. God invites us to enter into the plot!” (page 94). Tripp separates the grand gospel narrative (the Bible) into four categories: Heat, Thorns, Cross, and Fruit, which better enables believers to see where they fit into the grand narrative (supposedly).
In the midst of Bresson’s conversation with the first inquisitor, another reader asked Bresson where he could get more information on living life as a “divine drama.” Bresson replied with the following:
“If you’re interested in how we fit into the redemptive-historical *drama* :-), a couple of books that have interesting thoughts in this regard are Vanhoozer’s “Drama of Doctrine” and Horton’s “Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama”.
I don’t agree with everything they have to say, but I did find what they had to say about “participation”, “drama”, and Christ’s Incarnation to be thought-provoking. There are thoughts there compatible with what we’ve said here.”
Regarding the first reader, here is what Bresson had to say about the person’s aforementioned response:
“It looks like you’re understanding what I’ve said (a minor miracle, I know). I’ll get to your other questions shortly.”
There is no confusion of semantics or misunderstanding here, NCT is fraught with antinomian mysticism, and frankly, I find the Evangelical community’s willingness to associate with its proponents sickening.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Another interesting article, Paul.
These things you write keep leaving me wondering: How are you hoping to help the Evangelical community to stop going the wrong way and start going the right way? How many read your posts? What impact are your posts having? Finally, what are you doing outside of your posts to help? What, if anything, is beging effective? tw
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Good questions Tad, I’m glad you asked:
The doctrine is the epitome of boiling a frog slowly ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog ). Its covert nature is truly over the top. I sat under it for six years, and knew something didn’t seem right, but couldn’t put my finger on it. The doctrine’s framework has all the orthodox labels, but it redefines the essentials: justification, sanctification, repentance, obedience etc. It synthesizes justification and sanctification, changes repentance into “deep repentance,” and changes obedience into “new obedience.” Interestingly, though I’m sure its proponents don’t have regular meetings, there is a common thread among them: they avoid labels like the plague. It goes along with a deep-seated mentality that to accept a label is to acquiesce to some idea that their doctrine has not been the truth since the beginning.
So, this brings me to answering your first question. An enemy (the doctrine) cannot be defeated until you put a face on it. My primary goal right now is to label this hideous doctrine “Gospel Sanctification,” AND, to promote the idea that GS is, in fact, Antinomianism. Also interesting: when you talk to its proponents directly, and use that term, they don’t blink for a second – they know exactly what you are talking about, but they themselves never use the term, never. I might add that they fear the term and actually despise it for whatever reasons. A good example of this is the Antioch School in Ames, Iowa. When I called them, my first question was, “are you, and your school, proponents of Gospel Sanctification?” Shockingly, the representative of the school answered with a simple “yes.” Somewhat taken aback, I continued: “uh, in other words, the same gospel that saved us, also sanctifies us.” His answer? “Yes.” Let me interject some simplicity here. The gospel is the good news about justification / justification is monergistic / if the same gospel that saved us sanctifies us, sanctification is also monergistc / if sanctification is monergistic, that eliminates any use or application of the Law (or Scripture as a whole) in the sanctification process / that’s Antinomianism. By the way, I will soon be doing a series on the Antinomianoch School in Ames, Iowa.
Secondly, in regard to your first question, it is my goal to get better and better at articulating this doctrine in understandable ways while embracing the daunting task of not looking like I’m “dissing the gospel,” a smoke screen that serves its proponents in grand fashion. Men such as Jay Adams even recognize the difficulty in articulating a description of this doctrine.
Thirdly, in regard to your first question, it is my goal to get better equipped men (than me) off their asses to do something about this problem. I think my frustration may be reflected in the prior sentence. The doctrine is blatant Antinomianism invirtue of its premise, and needs to be stopped.
Fourthly, in regard to your first question, I intend to continually challenge better equipped teachers than I to stop loving their relationships with the who’s who of Evangelicalism more than the truth. I will also challenge them to love the truth more than the credibility of their diplomas. If their alma maters are propagating a false doctrine – love the truth more than your diploma.
Now in regard to your second question: I resolved in my heart long ago to do my best to write about this doctrine, no matter how many read my blog, until better equipped men address this problem. I have other goals in life; such as, I would like to go back to school and focus on counseling. With that said, the blog is experiencing a significant increase in readership (well more than double from the blogs conception in August of last year). But, it is what it is, and though the readership does number in the thousands, it just doesn’t matter, somebody has to speak-up any way they can.
Now your third question, “impact.” Five individuals have contacted me directly and said something like this: “Some time ago, our leadership seemed to be taking a different direction. I knew there was something wrong, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.” The blog, and my book, which was a huge struggle for a layman such as myself (my thanks to those who helped, especially my daughter, Heather), supplied them with an understanding of the doctrine’s major tenets and ramifications. I think it’s a joke that my book is the only work out there on GS. As I work on the second addition which will focus more on the Antinomian aspect of GS, I continue to pray for a notable teacher to say, “I will take it from here.” Regarding impact, there is some hint of a very capable person writing a book about the doctrine with my book as a “starting point.” That is what I would consider to be a significant impact.
Furthermore, I suspect many more people have made use of the blog that have not contacted me. From time to time, I will get a flurry of hits from a specific community for an extended period of time. I strongly suspect that it is parishioners trolling the web trying to figure out what the heck is going on in their church. When this happens, they are getting my three years of research dropped in their lap. Amen, couldn’t make me happier.
Lastly, outside of my blog, I am working on the second edition of my book, which I loose money on, and I write letters to prominent Evangelical leaders asking them to not associate with proponents of GS because it lends credibility to the doctrine. For example, I will soon be writing a letter to Al Mohler. I am going to ask him as a fellow Southern Baptist to not attend, nor speak at the 2011 “Together for the Gospel” conference, or T4G. This conference always features the who’s who of Gospel Sanctification, and like the Antioch School, is a major promoter of the doctrine. At some point, all of the letters I have written will be posted on my blog as a testimony to the fact that many of these men really don’t care about the truth, and only listen to those who they see as on par with their own greatness.
Effectiveness? Don’t know, but this I do know: This doctrine will eventually produce something really stupid that people will have to take note of. Because the doctrine has no face yet, its direct cause in situations like Coral Ridge are going unnoticed, but that will change. Also, this doctrine has had very ill effects in the area of counseling, and I have warned certain organizations by letter accordingly. But nothing is being done because when it gets right down to it, they don’t care. What matters is who they play golf with, who writes the forwards in their books, and who’s lunching with them at Applebees during the next scheduled conference.
Blessings to you Tad, and btw, I am still working through the materials you have sent me and have some returns.
Your brother,
paul
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Reblogged this on Clearcreek Chapel Watch.
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