Every Day Is Christmas For David Powlison
Going into the holidays one thinks the weapons of discernment can be set aside until the holidays pass. But no, everywhere one surfs, whether Facebook, or elsewhere, New Calvinists are busy putting their Gospel Contemplative twist on the Christmas season. In my case, just yesterday, another assault came as I innocently checked my email and read an article sent to me that was written by the Sultan of Nuance, David Powlison.
The article is full of the usual strange Powlison-speak. For instance, throughout the article, “Scripture,” “ministry,” and Jesus work with people, but any mention of other believers working with troubled people is conspicuously missing. What’s that all about? Who knows! For readers who have any discernment at all, his writings create way more questions than answers.
The article also contained a dominate element of New Calvinism: it’s all about the personhood of Jesus and an avoidance of objective biblical instruction like the Bubonic Plague. You see, Jesus is not a “cognitive concept we apply to life, He’s a person.” It’s not about what our king taught, it’s about His personhood which is very, very, very “deep stuff” according to Powlison. Ie., don’t try sanctification at home, you need Dr. Powlison to guide you through the very tricky business of applying gospel truth to every aspect of life. As I recently heard from another New Calvinist, “the depths of gospel truth will never be learned for all of eternity.” And since the whole Bible is about the gospel, well, you fill in the blank. Like Francis Chan says: “We are just clay vessels trying to explain this incredible treasure.”
Yes, that’s why we need the brilliant, incomparable Dr. Powlison. Throughout the article, he proclaims that the “person of Jesus” is the answer to all of the questions that he presents. While that is true, Powlison conveniently forgets to mention that answers also lay in what Jesus SAYS, not just who he is as a “person.” Apparently, that might temp people to “jump from the imperative directly into obedience.” My, my, we can’t have that—that’s a subjective gospel that was at the core of the Reformer’s contentions with Rome! Also known as the “first generation of biblical counseling.”
That’s why CCEF has a “research and development team.” At the 2011 TGC conference, he had a workshop to reveal all of the “latest developments” in biblical counseling. Where do these “developments” come from? He revealed that in an interview with the New Calvinist 9Marks blog. We must research all the teachings compiled throughout history to find stuff that the “church has forgotten” and lost over time because it was about Jesus as a person and that kind of stuff is easy to forget, like what He plainly says in Scripture. According to Powlison, even when CCEF’s research and development team rediscovers it, it must be reexamined in its “socio-historical context.” Like I said, don’t you dare try this stuff at home!
So many flat rocks laying upon the Earth with truth underneath, so little time. But do not fear, Dr. Powlison is busy everyday looking under those rocks, anxiously anticipating the next new gift he can share with needy, totally depraved Christians. That’s why every day is Christmas for David Powlison.
paul
My Plea: Support a Light in the Midst of Counseling Darkness
“INS is now a true light of God’s truth in this dark age of New Calvinism.”
I don’t like to talk about it, much less write about it. In, or about 1989, I sought counseling from a biblical counselor for serious depression. Though stunned that it could happen to a Christian, I knew better than to go to the psychiatric community that was never much help to me or others I knew that suffered from depression before I was a Christian.
Funny, back then, I would have scoffed at the idea that I believed in let go and let God theology, but the depression, when confronted with real truth, revealed that I functioned that way in life:
“Hi Paul, did you get your homework done?”
‘Sure did, and I also read Scripture and prayed all day on my day off!’
“Paul, I’m not going to tell you not to do those things, but the power is in the doing.”
‘Wha, what do you mean? You mean doing things will get me out of this mess?’
“Paul, your goal isn’t to ‘get out of this mess,’ your goal is to please God. That’s your new goal Paul. Also, according to the book of James, you are to work with God to let this trial do its perfect work.”
‘[Speechless, though a pastor at the time].’
“Look, I’m not saying that obedience isn’t curative, it is, that just can’t be your primary goal. Your primary goal is to please God and let the chips fall where they may.”
As I was driving home, this revelation filled me with hope. I knew medication wasn’t the answer, so when my mind was racing, I could put that energy to work to please God, and only take medication if I absolutely had to. I went to work to please God with a new perspective spoken by the apostle Paul: “We make it our goal to please Him.” I immediately started taking half of whatever my medical doctor told me to take.
With the help of that counselor who modeled his ministry after the counseling taught by Dr. Jay E. Adams, I learned more in that one year about the Christian life than I had in the five years I had been saved. And Frankly, I don’t think I have ever learned that much, that fast, since.
And today, my wife tells me that she has learned more about being a Christian in the year that we have been married than the fifty years that she’s been a Christian. By the way, it’s because we have been studying through the INS correspondence course authored by Adams. Not only that, Susan and I held hands and walked into what was perceived to be an impossible mixed family situation. Pastors and Christians looked at Susan like she was nuts when she told them what direction we were taking in our situation from what we had learned, but the results speak for themselves.
INS is now a true light of God’s truth in this dark age of New Calvinism. CCEF, NANC, and the upstart, “Biblical Counseling Coalition” are all based on Sonship Theology. Don’t deny it, unless you want to deny that David Powlison is the major figure behind CCEF, which infiltrated NANC, and then started BCC. Unless you want to deny what Powlison said himself concerning who his “mentor” was (Dr. John Miller, the undisputed father of Sonship theology). Unless you want to deny what Powlison said himself concerning the fundamental differences between him and Jay Adams. Gospel differences. See chapter 9 of TTANC.
Every day, while thousands are referred to gurus of Gospel Contempaltionism masquerading as biblical counselors for their real problems, few seem interested in maintaining Dr. Adams’ legacy, except Donn Arms. Many others who have seen the results of what Adams says the Bible teaches about life problems are strangely silent lest they lose a few friends and some speaking invitations. New Calvinists reward their cowardly Koolaid drinking yes-men well.
Think about it. Please, think about. We are talking about how real Christians get real help for real problems. We are talking about the blessed truth of God’s word. I will now share the opportunity INS has before them, and I plead with everyone who may read this: be a part of something that really helps our precious brothers and sisters in Christ. It will help more people in more ways than you will ever realize this side of home.
THE OPPORTUNITY LINK: Click on this link to help God’s people.
Because only truth sanctifies,
paul
The Uninformed Reformed
Most people in our day that call themselves Calvinists or Reformed are really New Calvinists. And most of them are young, uninformed, and misinformed when they are informed by New Calvinists calling themselves Calvinists. John Piper is an example of this. Is he a Calvinist? Hardly.
Furthermore, the word needs to get out that New Calvinism, New Covenant Theology, Gospel Sanctification, and Sonship Theology are the SAME thing and came from the EXACT same source—a Seventh-Day Adventist turned atheist named Robert Brinsmead. No wonder they constantly proclaim, “All truth is God’s truth.” I would also.
Neo-Calvinism is 41 years old, period. And the whole T4G, TGC bunch is the same bunch of antinomians who show-up and harass the church every 50-100 years. It’s the same bunch Ryle had to contend with and Baxter /Rutherford before him. Different doctrine, same goal: anti-law.
I was referred to the same old, worn out song and dance at the Facebook “Reformed Baptist Page,” where a member of the PPT peanut gallery asked a question about the connection between NCT and New Calvinism:
Is New Calvinism and Reformed theology the same Thing? The ones I was talking to think this doctrine is a combination of New Calvinism, Reformed theology and New Covenant theology all in one.
Well, she almost got the question right—NCT and New Calvinism are definitely based on the same doctrine. The uninformed Reformed Page then misinformed “Cindy”:
Hi Cindy,
Typically when folks speak of “New Calvinism” they are referring to the “young, restless and reformed” kind of Calvinism, the hip and cool Calvinists. Though the theology, when it comes to the five points is the same, their philosophy of worship, separation from the world, and other practical issues are not in line with historical Reformed theology and practice. As for New Covenant Theology, as was posted a few days ago is a modern hybrid between classical dispensational theology and biblical covenant theology. I think anyone who holds to New Covenant theology is simply confused, but certainly not heretical.
This is the typical take on NCT; supposedly, a mere attempt to find a middle road between dispensationalism and covenant theology. Not so. Jon Zens worked together with Robert Brinsmead to develop a view of the law that would fit with Brinsmead’s “centrality of the objective gospel.” Cindy then sought the following verdict from this source on Facebook:
Ok, is New Calvinism heretical then? Sorry for asking so many questions, I just want to be informed.
Notice that Cindy is confident that this source on Facebook will “inform” her. Hmmmmm. Makes one wonder how many professing Calvinists have read the Calvin Institutes? Or a Bible for that matter.
Regardless of the fact that many real Calvinists have condemned New Calvinism, the uninformed Reformed Page misinformed Cindy that it is not a heretical movement so now the misinformed Cindy thinks she’s informed. And that’s why she went to that page, because, “I just want to be Reformed informed.” We understand Cindy.
She then asked about Gospel Sanctification and Sonship theology and got the following answer:
The New Calvinists I know are solid on the Gospel Sanctification. Sonship theology seems to be a new name for antinomianism.
This reveals how shallow research is among this bunch. They call Sonship theology antinomianism, but the forefathers of Sonship theology, Tim Keller and David Powlison, are major figures in the New Calvinist movement. The whole “We must preach the gospel to ourselves everyday” was coined by the father of Sonship theology, Dr. John “Jack” Miller, who was Keller and Powlison’s mentor. Powlison based CCEF counseling on Miller’s theology.
I responded by posting a short history of the movement which was answered with the typical response: Nothing can be ascertained because everybody in the movement doesn’t agree on every jot and tittle. And the usual ratcheting back from any information that enables people to connect the dots, followed by personal attacks.
The informed Reformed Page didn’t challenge my post, they pulled it down, I guess because such information isn’t possible because that’s where the Reformed go to get informed. So, if they didn’t know about it, well, it couldn’t be informative. Right?
paul
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