Paul's Passing Thoughts

No one is better than David Powlison for throwing people under the bus. He will throw you under it, and in some cases, continue to run you over: first forward, then backing up and running you over again. Strangely, he will then publicize (either in print or publicly) his reasons for running you over while flavoring the reasons with compliments—if you’re elderly, apparently, the younger suffer full traction without compliments.

Larry Crabb has suffered Powlison’s wrath since the early 90’s for not being nuanced enough. Supposedly, Crabb and he never agreed on anything, and of course, Powlison was dismayed by Crabb’s book, “Inside Out” which claimed that Evangelicals denied an “inside life,” and all truth is God’s truth. Crabb also said in IO that the church needed Freud’s wisdom to figure it all out. Powlison has no patience for that kind of honesty: you’re supposed to accuse them of denying that the heart has to change first and refer to truth as stuff  in the Bible that the church forgets about. When rediscovered—you never, never, admit that God showed it to guys like Freud; instead, you cite really, really old Catholic bishops.

Apparently, Powlison now finds himself in the same dilemma with Paul Tripp who articulated his “Dynamics of Biblical Change” in a book authored by Tripp and Timothy Lane entitled, “How People Change.” Tripp plainly states in the book, among other things, that Christians remain spiritually dead, and passive endeavors such as changing our thinking to that of Christ is a denial of the gospel. Hence, I heard the rumor again last weekend: “Paul Tripp has taken DBC farther than Powlison intended.” Anybody smell diesel fuel?

However, the rumor must be working because Tripp and Powlison will be sitting on the new board of the Biblical Counseling Coalition together where they can once again giggle (because undoubtedly, the rest of the board thinks they’re orthodox), pass notes to each other, and sip lattés while cursing Moses under their breath. Only problem is—it’s a lie. I went ahead and copied documents for comparison purposes: things Tripp and Powlison wrote together at CCEF that can be compared to “How People Change.” It’s all the same stuff—stuff that the church has forgotten, but now interpreted in its “socio-historical context.” The information is almost identical, and was easily gathered in cursory fashion. It should be self explanatory, but I can produce more information if necessary.

Written by Tripp and Powlison in 2003:

“How people Change,” Paul Tripp, 2006:

CCEF’s  pilot / test  program prior to the release of  Tripp’s “How People Change”:

Tripp’s “How People Change” 2006:

Written by Powlison in CCEF’s Journal of Biblical Counseling:

Tripp’s  “How People Change” 2006: