The SBC’s “Founders Ministries” is a Fraud
Founders Ministries is an organization supposedly dedicated to bringing back the SBC’s Calvinistic/Reformed roots. Four years of research went into “The Truth About New Calvinism,” but I never had any reason to doubt that. And as far as New Calvinism in the SBC via Mohler, Dever et al, I figured it could have entered into the SBC in any number of ways after the explosion of Sonship Theology and it wasn’t worth pursuing.
Last night, I was reading an article written by John H. Armstrong. It was his article on Time Magazine’s assessment of New Calvinism, and the following statement caught my attention:
Look at the divisions in the Southern Baptist Convention and you will see my point. I have watched this movement for neo-Calvinism from its infancy. I personally attended the first meeting (and several more the years following) of the group that started this effort back in the 1980s. I personally knew the founder who dreamed up the idea of recovering Calvinism in the SBC and then spread the “doctrines of grace” very widely. He is now with the Lord. Look at the quarrels between these neo-Calvinists and the various strands of emergent (and emerging) Christianity. I was also involved in the various “gospel” recovery groups which were begun, now creating large gatherings of folk who believe they are the people who are preaching and recovering the “biblical gospel.”
Armstrong’s involvement with the original group seeking to spread the doctrine in SBC circles was of interest to me because Armstrong is one of the few who openly admit that he adopted his theology from the Australian Forum via Present Truth, the Forum’s theological journal: here , and here .
“I personally knew the founder who dreamed up the idea of recovering Calvinism in the SBC….” Hmmm, who is he talking about? I emailed a few of my sources and didn’t get a reply, so I started asking myself questions: “Isn’t Founders Ministries the one spreading Calvinism in the SBC? But which Calvinism? New or old?” So I went to their website and started poking around. I found a historical essay about the ministry here .
So guess who the founder was? Earnest Reisinger, one of the forefathers of New Covenant Theology. In fact, he goes way back before the doctrine was dubbed New Covenant Theology by Jon Zens. As I document in the book, Jon Zens and the founder of the Australian Forum worked together to develop NCT. According to Zens:
At the fall Banner of Truth Conference in 1979, Ron McKinney spoke with lain Murray, Ernie Reisinger and others about the possibility of having a conference where some aspects of Reformed theology could be discussed and evaluated by men of differing viewpoints.
That conference ended up being the first “1980 Council on Baptist Theology” held in Plano, TX. It was the coming out party for New Covenant Theology.
Furthermore, Ernie Reisinger’s “Law and Gospel” is a staple reference for students of Sonship Theology (Gospel Discipling—The Crying Need of the Hour: Stephen E. Smallman; Executive Director, World Harvest Mission, November 1997). The fact that Reisinger’s theology is based on New Covenant Theology can be observed in this article written by him and posted on the Founders blog: See article here.
The totality of my research on this will be compiled and added as an addendum to the second addition of volume one: “The Southern Baptist Connection.” Obviously, Armstrong’s deceased friend who started the movement was Reisinger, who passed away in 2004. And the movement he spoke of is Founders Ministries.
Founders Ministries is a fraud. They are not bringing Calvinism back to the SBC, they are ushering in what Walter Chantry called a contemporary “novelty” and selling it as Calvinistic theology. Chantry also called it “neo-antinomianism.” Think what you will about Calvin, but he was not an antinomian. It is all a big, fat LIE.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Paul,
As usual you have it wrong. Earnie Reisinger is without a doubt one of the prime movers in the recovery of Calvinism in the SBC. While he was pastoring in Florida, he, with the help of some in the church he pastored,
reprinted James Boice’s Abstracts. They gave this book to every graduate of every SBC seminary. From this, many became Calvinists.
Where you have it wrong is that E. Reisinger had nothing to do with NCT. The Article you directed your readers to makes that clear. He and his brother John couldn’t even agree on how to pronounce their last name. E. Reisinger was on the other side of the NCT controversy.
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That’s simply not true. The article written by ER that I cited makes that abundantly clear.
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Paul,
You certainly don’t believe the following statement by E. Reisinger is a NCT position do you?
“True, the Christian is not under the law as a covenant of works nor as a ministration of condemnation, but he is under it as a rule of life and an objective standard of righteousness for all people for all times.”
If this movement was so strongly influenced by Reisinger, it is difficult to see how it could have any connection to NCT and NC.
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SURE HE BELIEVES THAT–THAT’S ALSO WHY HE BELIEVES JESUS HAS TO DO IT FOR US.
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CHECK THAT, I NO LONGER THINK HE BELIEVES THAT.
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Check with anyone who knew E,R. They will tell you he was an avowed enemy of NCT.
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Suuure he was–that’s why World Harvest Mission recommends his book on Law and Gospel. He was a master of nuance –I will give him that. Again, ALL Newbees proclaim THE NEED FOR LAW. Yep, to SHOW US HOW WE CAN’T KEEP IT AND THE NEED FOR JESUS TO KEEP IT FOR US.
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Armstrong wrote, “This is why it is improper to speak of sanctification as being ‘by faith alone.’ Living a life of holiness depends on faith, but not ‘faith alone.’ The old Religious Tract Society published a little tract in 1840 that noted correctly, ‘True Protestants never maintained the absurd position that we are sanctified by faith only.’ Even Luther, often accursed of not having an adequate doctrine of sanctification, call living a holy life ‘active righteousness.'” This is contrary to what you have told us he believes.
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Again, OUR FAITH ALONE plus the works of Christ ALONE. Our faith–HIs works. Armstrong isn’t qualifying the two. SHOW ME ONE QUOTE WHERE ANY OF THEM SAY IT’S OUR FAITH AND OUR WORKS IN SANCTIFICATION. Good luck. .
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Thank you for linking to that article. It affirms much of what I suspected was going on in hindsight in the SBC over the last 30 years.
An excerpt:
“Reisinger heartily agreed that conservatives had to stay together to stave off the liberals in the Convention. He repeatedly told Paige Patterson, Adrian Rogers, Paul Pressler and other leaders of the conservative resurgence that the Calvinists in the convention identified with and supported the conservatives in the inerrancy battle. He recognized that the liberals would have loved to see a division among conservatives, and he was determined not to allow that to happen. ”
So they knew there was already a rift when they started the CR but chose to ignore it to gain power for “conservatives”. Ironically, the NCT have more in common with the former SBC liberals!
It was only putting off the day when the Calvinist zeal to “reform” the SBC would become a huge problem. And that day is now.
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Lydia,
The NCT/NewC/Gospel Sanctification/Sonship crowd has been picking everybody’s pockets for 30 years now. LOL!, ya, they believe, like the Emergent crowd, that the Bible is primarily in narrative form and therefore is not meant for propositional truth. Patterson et al are clueless as to what these guys really believe. They are well on their way to taking over Christianity all together. Tragic stories arrive at this ministry almost daily. This movement is splitting churches like no other movement I have ever seen. One out of every three seminarians coming from the SBC hold to this doctrine.
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If Armstrong says sanctification is “not by faith alone,” what else do you think he thinks is involved if not our obedience? And, take it from me as one who knew these two Reisinger brothers. Ernie had no love at all for NCT. He wouldn’t even speak to John because of it. NCT does not teach that the law is the believer’s rule of life. How do you explain E Reisinger’s statement?
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Anon,
Again, this is all classic NCT wordcrafting. When they say sanctification is NOT by faith alone, they mean our faith alone plus Jesus’ works alone. Notice how Armstrong and Reisinger both stop short of saying it is actually us learning and applying specific biblical instruction to our lives. It is all couched in nuance to sound orthodox. Like Piper and Carson, Ernest stayed aloof from being identified with the label, and like the aforementioned, criticized certain aspects, but held to the primary premise. They all endorse/endorsed the annual John Bunyan conference which is a NCT love-fest. Ernest Reisinger’s true position on NCT can be detected in the following statement, as referenced in this post: “Because there can be no true evangelical holiness, either in heart or life, except it proceed from faith working by love.” Oh really? Why did Jude call us “holy ones”? Really, the whole NCT package can be seen in this prior statement by ER: the total depravity of the saints; the necessity for ongoing perfect holiness to maintain justification; all true holiness is from faith alone (because true faith is offering the works of Christ and not ours); all OT law reduced to the law of love.
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Your problem still remains that E Reisinger was never associated with a John Bunyan Conference. He spoke often at Reformed Baptist Family Conferences, but never spoke at any NCT conference. He hated NCT. The position he espouses in the article you cited could not be further removed from NCT.
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Anon,
And everyone he started Founders with, Nettles et al, are advocates of NCT, but he hated it. Right.
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Paul,
I will give you $1,000. if you can find a New Covenant Theologian who holds to the following position:
But others ask, Has not the law been fully abrogated by the coming of Christ into the world? Would you bring us under that heavy yoke of bondage which none has ever been able to bear? Does not the New Testament expressly declare that we are not under the law but under grace? That Christ was made under the law to free His people therefrom? Is not an attempt to over-awe men’s conscience by the authority of the Decalogue a legalistic imposition, altogether at variance with that Christian liberty which the Savior has brought in by His obedience unto death? We answer: so far from the law being abolished by the coming of Christ into this world, He Himself emphatically stated “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets [or the enforcers thereof]. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law, till all is fulfilled” (Matt. 5:17, 18). True, the Christian is not under the law as a covenant of works nor as a ministration of condemnation, but he is under it as a rule of life and an objective standard of righteousness for all people for all times. This makes it important.
Because the power of a holy life needs to be accompanied by instruction in the pattern of it. In what does sanctified behavior consist? It consists in pleasing God. What is it that pleases God? The doing of His will. Where is His will to be discerned? In His holy law. The law, then, is the Christian’s rule of life, and the believer finds that he delights in the law of God after the inward man (Rom. 7:22). The Christian is not lawless but “under the law to Christ”, a phrase from Paul which would be more accurately rendered “in the law of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:21). Sin is lawlessness, and salvation is the bringing of the lawless one into his true relation to God, within the blessedness of His holy law. The law of Moses is not other than the law of Christ; it is an objective standard just as Christ is our pattern.
Because the Ten Commandments were uniquely honored by God, founded in love, and are obeyed out of affection for the One who provided redemption. A. W. Pink, writing about the uniqueness of the Ten Commandments, said, “Their uniqueness appears first in that this revelation of God at Sinai–which was to serve for all coming ages as the grand expression of his holiness and the summation of man’s duty–was attended with such awe-inspiring phenomena that the very manner of their publication plainly showed that God Himself assigned to the Decalogue peculiar importance. The Ten Commandments were uttered by God in an audible voice, with the fearful adjuncts of clouds and darkness, thunders and lightenings and the sound of a trumpet, and they were the only parts of Divine Revelation so spoken–none of the ceremonial or civil precepts were thus distinguished. Those Ten Words, and they alone, were written by the finger of God upon tables of stone, and they alone were deposited in the holy ark for safe keeping. Thus, in the unique honor conferred upon the Decalogue itself we nay perceive its paramount importance in the Divine government.” (The Ten Commandments, ([Swengel Pennsylvania: Reiner Publications 1961], p.5).
Because there is a need for a fixed, objective, moral standard. The moral law carries permanent validity since it is an objective standard uniquely sanctioned by God and goes straight to the root of our moral problems. It lays its finger on the church’s deepest need in evangelism as well as in the Christian life: sanctification. The Ten Commandments are desperately needed not only in the church but also in society. We live in a lawless age at the end of the twentieth century; lawlessness reigns in the home, in the church, in the school, and in the land. The Scriptures tell us that “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” The Ten Commandments are the only true standard of righteousness.
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Again, ALL OF THESE STATEMENTS lack the definitiveness of Christ’s description of our obedience: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
ALL OF THEM BELIEVE THAT’S “Jumping from the imperative to obedience.” NONE OF THE STATEMENTS YOU CITE exclude all obedience being preceded by gospel contemplationism in order to “present the works of Christ instead of our own.”
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This is Armstrong’s statement. There is no way one can nuance it. It says what it says.
2) “Faith alone” means that the righteousness which God has provided for our salvation is “apart from the law,” “apart from works of the law” and “apart from works” (cf. Rom 3:21, 28; 4:5-6). Luther referred to this as “passive righteousness: precisely because here all our efforts, works, cooperation and participation are shut out.”
THIS IS WHY IT IS IMPROPER TO SPEAK OF SANCTIFICATION AS BEING BY FAITH ALONE [notice the immediately preceding statement. Luther referred to this as “passive righteousness: precisely because here all our efforts, works, cooperation and participation are shut out.” WHY is it improper for us to speak of Sanctification as being by faith alone? Because righteousness by faith alone is PASSIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS:precisely because here all our efforts, works, and cooperation and participation are shut out.” We cannot speak that way of sanctification, not because Christ’s active obedience is put to our account, but because in sanctification our EFFORTS, WORKS, COOPERATION AND PARTICIPATION ARE NOT SHUT OUT–THIS IS WHY! This is why! This is why! IT IS IMPROPER TO SPEAK OF SANCTIFICATION AS BEING BY FAITH ALONE. There is no way to nuance that] .” Living a life of holiness depends on faith, but not “faith alone.” The old Religious Tract Society published a little tract in 1840 that noted correctly, “True Protestants never maintained the absurd position that we are sanctified by faith only.” Even Luther, often accursed of not having an adequate doctrine of sanctification, call living a holy life “active righteousness.”
The evangelical Anglican bishop, J. C. Ryle, once noted that “. . . not once are we told that we are ‘sanctified by faith without the deeds of the law.'”
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Yes, he hated it. If you doubt that, contact his brother, John, at Sound of Grace and ask him. I will guarantee he will confirm what I am saying. What he wrote in the article is anything but NCT.
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And I would believe him? Uh, no.
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