On Women Pastors: New Calvinists Making Joyful Obedience Difficult
Whether John Piper or John MacArthur, we are now hearing how the Christian life is always “sweet, never bittersweet,” and obedience receives its moral certification when accompanied by joy. As Piper also pontificates: the true love behind a kiss is not in the duty, but in the exhilaration. And then this profundity by Francis Chan: “When it feels like work—it’s work, but when it feels like love—it’s love.”
But these guys are making it hard for me to feel the love on the issue of women being pastors. They are paid millions to communicate truth, but yet, the following videos are examples of what we get.
John Piper versus Marilyn Quayle
During the time that Dan Quayle was Vice President, the second lady was interviewed by Barbara Walters on 20/20. Walters asked her if she held to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Quayle, without hesitation, simply answered, “yes,” and said no more. Walters, taken aback by the simple and straightforward response, rephrased the question: “So, you think the Earth was created in six days and the animals really boarded Noah’s ark two by two?” Quayle, without any hesitation, simply answered, “yes,” and sat silently awaiting Walters’ response. There wasn’t any, and an uncomfortable silence followed that didn’t seem to faze Quayle in the least.
Now watch these two interviews with Piper:
Tim Keller Versus the Housewife on the Oprah Winfrey Show
Watch for the women in the white shirt towards the end of the clip:
Francis Chan Versus Anita the Street Preacher
Hey Steve, you’re a New Calvinist hypocrite because your New Calvinist pals don’t know either, and Anita is a better preacher than Francis.
Let’s Pretend: New Covenant Theology isn’t Connected to New Calvinism
Hmmmm, DA Carson and Fred Zaspel doing a conference together at a New Calvinist church. Say, isn’t Zaspel one of the New Covenant Theology big dogs? And the theme of the conference is Gospel Sanctification, weird. The conference is being promoted by TGC as well. It’s my theory that New Calvinists have stayed aloof from NCT because of its close proximity to Robert Brinsmead and the Forum, but as New Calvinist follows become more and more mindless, and willing to drink the Kool-aid at any cost, these kind of appearances between the two camps will increase. New Calvinism needs the NCT perspective on the law.
2012 T4G Divisive Advertising Tactics
One of the key objectives in advertising is to create dissatisfaction with what you have, and then offer a solution. In the email advertisements I have been receiving from T4G, that is exactly what they are doing in regard to our personal walk and our church affiliations. Think about that—the goal is to create dissatisfaction with yourself, others, and your church. Not only that, we Christians have a tendency to be hard on ourselves and even harder on our church to begin with. To point out the things that Christians struggle with in regard to themselves and their church, and then claim to have the solution, is a form of manipulation that is unbecoming of men who call themselves elders.
Not only that, it’s divisive. Say pastors, any of your people going to the 2012 T4G? Well, they are going to be taught how bad you stink as an elder! It wouldn’t be so bad if their solutions were the real deal, but such is not the case. Sure, we have a problem with churches in our day, but antinomianism is certainly not the solution! New Calvinists are simply offering another version of what got us where we are today: easy believeism; for example, Paul David Tripp’s “resting and feeding” description of the Christian life. We have gone from a lack of emphasis on sanctification, to saying that sanctification doesn’t exist at all because it is the same thing as justification.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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