Repost: Comment on “Wolves” Post
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Submitted on 2011/10/30 at 12:59 am
check out their church website and read their 60 page statement of belief. Some of the big names are in it. http://owensborochurch.com/ (under “about us”) “Seems to me if you are going to break fellowship with people, you should know what they are really guilty of.” Paul, I think people have a hard time putting their finger on it. After all, as you said, how can one go against the “Gospel” and the term “sovereignty of God”? But they are re-defining things and in their quest, their zeal is in your face. Their teaching is so convoluted they need 60 page belief statements. They speak in upside down infused grace justification/sanctification. It is all gobblygook that sounds so intellectually righteous. The weary, the poor in spirit, the uneducated don’t stand a chance with these guys. Perhaps the Association needs your book? So, the Association says, they have no kindness, humility, compassion, etc. Welcome to the world of Driscoll where you oust elders who dare disagree with you and form a coup to take over the church and install only few yes men elders. (My sources tell me it went from 30 elders to 4) Then declare in a sermon, you will go “old testament” on them for daring to speak out. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=445277 Or where you send a cease and desist letter from your lawyers to a small church (without even calling them first!)in Calif that has the same name:Mars Hill. Acts 29 churches have the Driscoll “spirit”. because they learn church planting at their “bootcamp”. And, guess what? The SBC is funding some Acts 29 churches through NAMB. Our new NAMB president is Mohler’s old pastor who loves Acts 29. I can understand the Associations concern. But they failed to make the case. |
The SBC is Shooting Innocent Wolves: is That a Good Thing?
We Southern Baptists have our standards. I have been a Southern Baptist since 1983, and we are notorious for not confronting sin in our churches, unless the sin happens to be Calvinism. Leave? Why? It’s way too much fun admitting our hypocrisy at SBC gatherings and watching the veins swell-up in people’s necks.
So, apparently, there is a Calvinism controversy going on in the SBC. Southern Baptists are concerned about an “aggressive Calvinism” that is growing in the SBC. The latest episode where those rascally Calvinists got a learnin’ was the rejection of Pleasant Valley Community Church’s bid to become part of the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association. The Association voted 104-9 to deny membership because, “It affirms the doctrine of election and grace. While we know the doctrine is not heresy, we do recognize that it is vastly different than the majority of churches within the DMBA.”
This particular association also voted to separate from a church in the association due to some sort of compromise that was deemed to be a serious issue. Therefore, they have something right that is rare today; they understand that church discipline is a universal matter. There are situations where Matthew 18:15-20 needs to be carried out between churches and the fourth step is the breaking of Christian fellowship between those churches. Church A will no longer fellowship with church B—this sends a very powerful message. Point in case: member/spouse A files an unbiblical divorce on member/spouse B. Their church leaders will not deal with the problem, other than to “pray about it.” Spouse B goes to the leadership of another church in the association and pleads for help. The other church tells the couple’s church to deal with the problem or they will. This would be the first step of church discipline between churches, and though I get a lot of flak for this position, I stand by it and believe it is 100% biblical.
So kudos for DMBA—except for the fact that Pleasant Valley Community Church is innocent of being Calvinistic. I checked out their website; they are New Calvinists, NOT (old) Calvinists. Big difference. In fact, old Calvinists don’t even like New Calvinists. One well known Calvinist said of New Calvinism:
….a seriously distorted Calvinism falling far, far short of an authentic life of obedience to a sovereign God. If this kind of Calvinism prospers, then genuine biblical piety will be under attack as never before.
And….
The new Calvinism is not a resurgence but an entirely novel formula which strips the doctrine of its historic practice, and unites it with the world.
Yet another well known Calvinist said:
This movement runs contrary to the Reformation and the Scriptures. It is dangerous and must be exposed and halted.
So, if real Calvinists are saying, “Ya, they are like us in name only, but they are dangerous and don’t obey God,” wouldn’t it behoove SBC folk to learn what the difference is? If they won’t fellowship with the devil they do know, what about the devil they don’t know? Seems to me if you are going to break fellowship with people, you should know what they are really guilty of.
Per the usual, we Southern Baptists are the best at making idiots of ourselves even when we do the right thing. The DMBA said, “While we know the doctrine is not heresy, we do recognize that it is vastly different than the majority of churches within the DMBA.”
Ugh. First, Old Calvinism is NOT “VASTLY” different from Southern Baptist doctrine. I have NEVER heard a Southern Baptist pray for someone to save themselves. Southern Baptist are only Arminians when they are evangelizing. After they get someone saved; trust me, they believe God does it all! Southern Baptists have a lot to learn from Calvin on discipleship. Then the DMBA said, ”…. we know the doctrine is not heresy.” That’s true about Calvinism, BUT NOT Pleasant View! Pleasant View Community Church does in fact hold to a heretical doctrine—Old Calvinists even say so!
So, the SBC is shooting “wolves,” but not the ones that are eating the sheep. Is that ok? After all, a wolf is a wolf, right? No, I have a better idea. The SBC needs to unite with the real Calvinists that have been in the SBC forever (and have never caused a problem) to get rid of New Calvinism. In the process, we might learn something from them.
New Calvinism is the New Covenant Theology/Gospel Sanctification/Sonship Theology wolf in sheep’s clothing. They are not honest about who they are and deliberately hide behind the ignorance thereof. Um, DMBA, did you go to Pleasant View’s website? They say that they are a “Acts 29 church” (the church planting organization). Acts 29 came out of World Harvest which was founded by the father (Dr. John Miller) of Sonship Theology, a theology that has been banned in many Presbyterian churches (the church founded by Calvin). Also, ever heard of the Emergent Church, and their ties to Acts 29?
Please, please, my fellow Southern Baptists, get your head out of, um, er, uh, the sand.
paul
John Piper: You’re Either With Us, or You’re With Rome
“Piper is an antinomian false teacher who has the audacity to proclaim, in essence, “You are with us (the New Calvinists), or you are with the Roman Catholics.”
Let’s take some time here to chat about how John Piper thinks he’s the elder statesmen of a modern-day resurgence of the original Reformation. Truly, his ego cup runneth over.
First, as established in “The Truth About New Calvinism,” Piper and his arrogant horde got their doctrine from the Australian Forum. The Forum believed the following about what the true issue of the original Reformation was: Rome separated justification and sanctification, and thereby “infused grace” into the believer via the new birth. The new birth constituted a righteousness that was inside of us, or a righteousness that we actually possessed within us. Supposedly, the Reformation reclaimed “the objective righteousness of Christ completely outside of us.”
To believe that we have an actual righteousness imparted to us through the new birth is supposedly to believe that our participation in sanctification can maintain and finish justification. In other words, the Reformers supposedly believed that sanctification had to maintain justification and finish it. Of course, mortals cannot do that. Supposedly, the Reformers believed that Christ not only died so that we could be justified, but He lived a perfect life for us also, so that His obedience could be imputed to us for sanctification, which can now complete justification because it is Christ’s works and not ours that is being presented. The Forum believed that living by faith is to constantly present the works of Christ to the Father to maintain justification, and not our own imperfect righteousness.
But the premise is false, and evangelicals believe that justification does not have to be maintained. We believe that justification is a onetime declaration that guarantees glorification (Romans 8:30). And the full righteousness of God has been credited to our account based on our faith ALONE in what Christ accomplished on the cross, and His resurrection. Evangelicals believe that sanctification can’t change that—it’s past tense—it’s a completely done deal. Evangelicals and old Calvinists alike utterly reject an infusion of sanctification and justification.
The truth of the matter is that the infusion of sanctification and justification is the bases for almost every false doctrine known to man because it leaves you with two alternatives only: First, faith alone justifies us and wipes out all of our past sin, but now our standing has to be maintained by what we do in sanctification, either by work or ritual. The other alternative is to say that Jesus ALONE does sanctification for us because everyone knows we are not even going to be faithful in the easier option of ritual to maintain justification; this second option is a Jesus obeys for us antinomianism.
Again, evangelicals don’t believe that justification has to be maintained or completed by sanctification. However, the Forum was formed to develop a systematic theology that made sanctification by Jesus alone for the purpose of completing justification plausible. They also taught ecciesia reformata semper reformanda which holds to the idea that the Reformation was not finished with Luther and Calvin.
The following charts might help to clarify the issue:
The following montage from the Forum’s theological journal confirms what they thought about the original Reformation and the new birth:
Then it happened. One of the original members of the Australian Forum did a series of lectures on the Reformation at Southern Theological Seminary. Piper, who usually stays aloof from his ties to the Forum—couldn’t help himself. He wrote an article about it:
Desiring God blog, June 25, 2009: Goldsworthy on Why the Reformation Was Necessary.
In the article, Piper shows his full agreement with the Forum on their ridiculous Reformation motif and false doctrine:
This meant the reversal of the relationship of sanctification to justification. Infused grace, beginning with baptismal regeneration, internalized the Gospel and made sanctification the basis of justification. This is an upside down Gospel.
In case one would think that Piper excludes evangelicals from this concern because of his mention of baptismal regeneration, consider what he said in the same article: “I would add that this ‘upside down’ gospel has not gone away— neither from Catholicism nor from Protestants….” Piper, like all New Calvinists, insists that justification and sanctification have a “relationship” (infusion), and of course, they reject the idea that we help in the completion of justification; that’s a “reversal” of the two and an “upside down” gospel. They therefore hold to option B: Jesus obeys for us antinomianism.
Piper also states in the same article:
When the ground of justification moves from Christ outside of us to the work of Christ inside of us, the gospel (and the human soul) is imperiled. It is an upside down gospel.
Like the Forum, Piper rejects the new birth as having anything to do with a righteousness that is possessed by the believer. This explains the continual pontification by New Calvinists that believers are no better off than the unregenerate. Paul David Tripp describes believers as dead and unable to do anything. Piper also got the “upside down gospel” phrase from the Forum. In fact, it was one of the major themes of an issue in their theological journal as can be observed below. BUT, also note that they even exclude a righteousness imparted to us by Christ within, and Him doing the work! In fact, to believe that Christ is doing the work within us “imperils(ed)” the soul!
Like the Forum, Piper lumps evangelicals together with Rome in the same article:
In it [Goldsworthy’s lecture at Southern] it gave one of the clearest statements of why the Reformation was needed and what the problem was in the way the Roman Catholic church had conceived of the gospel….I would add that this ‘upside down’ gospel has not gone away—neither from Catholicism nor from Protestants.
Piper is an antinomian false teacher who has the audacity to proclaim, in essence, “You are with us (the New Calvinists), or you are with the Roman Catholics. While Piper puts on the whole humbleness and wisdom of Yoda act, he is one the most arrogant and deceitful false teachers in recent church history.
paul
Robert Brinsmead’s Side of the Family Only Meets in the Desert
Why doesn’t Robert Brinsmead’s side of the family ever get invited to the big dances? You know, T4G and TGC. I know, I know, a little too close to the illegitimate Adventist children nobody knows about. But the Emergent Church side of the family gets invited to the big family reunions all the time! You know, Mark Driscol, Darren Patrick, etc. (Dr. John Miller’s chidren). And Geez, some of the Charismatic side of the family are keynote speakers! Yes, yes, I know, they are “Reformed Charismatics” (huh?), but hey, Robert Brinsmead was Reformed too! Not fair, just not fair.
Well, bless DA Carson’s little heart—he is willing to party with Brinsmead’s side of the family now and then. Ya, out in the desert, but it’s a start. He will do a little reunion with Fred Zaspel at “Clarus 12” held annually at Desert Springs Church and sponsored by TGC.
If you examine their family chart below, you only have Zaspel’s daddy, Jon Zens, between the New Covenant Theology clan (Zaspel would fall under “others less relevant” in the NCT box) and granddaddy Brinsmead’s Australian Forum. Jon Zens is known as the father of New Covenant Theology, and it is a well-documented fact that Brinsmead had a lot of input with Zens in the development of NCT. In 08, Carson did Clarus with Michael Horton and they discussed the Westminster offspring in a Q and A, but once again forgot to mention daddy Brinsmead. A shame.
NCT is the official position of New Calvinists but they won’t admit it due to the fact that Brinsmead and Zens concocted it. Brinsmead is now, as reported by many, an atheist, and Zens holds to Adventist-like beliefs. Though they put a good face on “all truth is God’s truth” they would rather not go there.
God’s people are not “ready” for that yet—the meeting and inclusion of all the family members.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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