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 
I want to correct something one of your readers said a couple of weeks ago. He said,” I don’t think anonymous thinks you are stupid.” He was wrong. Too bad you already published you book and made a fool of yourself.
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Anon,
LOL! Yes it will posted alright. I am using it to make my point in an article I am working on right now. Thanks for the help.
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Its a new day! Ready to post the email Paul?
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This is a quote from an article in Banner of Truth about NCT: “This is a recent movement mainly among Reformed Baptists. One of its leaders is John Reisinger, brother of the late Ernest Reisinger. Happily, Ernest Reisinger was a strong contender for the view that the Moral Law is the rule of life for the Christian believer. However his brother John holds to the opposite position.” Ernest Reisinger was a staunch opponent of NCT.
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JSS,
Thanks for this, but Ernest R. was not an opponent of NCT. He didn’t hold to the view that the OT law was abrogated by the New, but he held to the same view of the law’s role in the Christian life as devised by Jon Zens and Robert Brinsmead. I am working on an article that will be posted tonight on this.
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But Paul,
Whatever Zens and Brinsmead happened to teach is irrelevant. Read what NCT have written and you will learn that NCT does not teach that there is any continuing role for the Law of Moses in the Christian’s life. This is not the position E. Reisinger took. He was an opponent of NCT.
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Anon,
Not exactly, NCT has 80 elements according to NCT guru Chad Bresson. It appears that Ernest agreed with many of them, especially the ones that Brinsmead and Zens cooked up together to develop the Centrality of the Objective Gospel.. Per our emails, you need to get me the beef on Ascol’s assertion that Founders published Barcellos’ book.
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Paul,
Read my lips! I DON’T CARE why Ascol wrote that. Re: Your statement that Ernest believed many of the thing Bresson wrote, I would first like to know what you are talking about. I agree with some of what Roman Catholics teach, but that doesn’t make me a Roman Catholic. Ernie did not agree on the essential distinctives that characterize NCT. If you insist he did, you are simply wrong. I helped define NCT back in the late 80s and early 90s. I know what we believe and I know what E. Reisinger believed. He was not with us.
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Paul,
Perhaps it would be helpful if you would identify which of the tenets of NCT E. Reisinger agreed with. I suspect that I can produce statements from the Reformers and the Puritans that would agree with anything in NCT Reisinger would have agreed with. There are many teachings in Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism that NCT accept as true. Just because Ernie agreed with some of these teachings, doesn’t mean he accepted the entire system.
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I’m hoping the article will be posted tonight.
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The following are some of the essential elements of NCT copied from Vossed World by Chad Bresson. If a person does not believe these tenets, he is not a New Covenant thinker. With which of these did E. Reisinger agree?
The Ten Commandments are not “eternal moral law” first written in the heart of man at creation and forever binding upon all mankind.
The Decalogue is not “transcovenantal”.
The Decalogue is specifically tied to the Mosaic covenant and is a covenantal expression of the two greatest commandments, loving God and loving neighbor (Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:37-40).
The church no longer has to do with the law in any other way than in Christ, being onnomos Christou (in-lawed to Christ). The Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, has been completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ which it typified in shadow and stone.
New Covenant believers are in-lawed to Christ through their union with Christ, and in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; they are not under the OC law of Moses.
Because the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, New Covenant Theology denies that the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue and its so-called “moral law”, is binding on New Covenant believers today. Yet, as the special revelation of God as fulfilled in Christ, the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, continues to inform behavior in the New Covenant.
New Covenant believers, no longer under the law but in-lawed to Christ, are under the grace personified by, expressed in, and given through Jesus Christ. This means that New Covenant believers are no longer under the covenant of Moses and its terms. Since New Covenant believers are no longer under the covenant of Moses, they are no longer under its covenantal law.
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Anon,
There are 80 of them. You picked the ones where the NCT/Australian Forum/COG crowd differ. One seeks to get rid of the law by saying it has been abrogated, the other seeks to talk about how great it is while failing to mention that we can’t keep it–Jesus keeps it for us. Both are antinomians.
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No New Covenant Theologian believes we are under the Mosaic Law. If a person believes we are under that Law in any sense, he is not a NCT. Read Reisinger’s article. He disagreed on an essential element of NCT.
I picked some of the tenets that are ESSENTIAL to NCT. I probably don’t even agree with all 80, but I agree on the essential elements of NCT. If the NCT/Australian Forum/COG crowd differ on these essential tenets, they do not believe in NCT. There are other tenets on which ER would have disagreed. I agreed with him about many things, but that did not make him a NCT. Just because people share some views in common, doesn’t mean there is an essential doctrinal link between their positions.
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According to Nettles and Carson, John Reisinger no longer holds to that view, so who’s to say?
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John Reisinger no longer holds what view? I would like to read what they said.
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He’s on the other side, so I guarantee he is no longer a New Calvinist.
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I have a good idea for you. I have been trying to think of someone you can trust to tell you what E Reisinger’s view was. Then I remembered that you are good friends with Walt Chantry, Jay Adams and Peter Masters. Why don’t you ask them? I’m sure they would know and would be happy to tell you.
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Chantry was not privy to Forum doctrine and did not know that NCT and COG share the same basic premise: the infusion of justification and sanctification. E. Reisinger said the two cannot be separated. Justification is monergistic, so you fill in the blank. Also, because Ernest was a superb master of nuance, it took me awhile to get to Ascol. He is an obvious, consummate example of New Calvinism. The Resolution he authored to the 2010 SBC conference speaks for itself.
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