C. J. Mahaney stepping down

I've posted twice before regarding SGM Sovereign Grace Ministries which was a look at structural problems in their discipline process and Sovereign Grace Ministries' use of demotivational methods which was a particular abusive technique they made heavy use of which was a distinctive. The leader of SGM C. J. Mahaney is stepping down. Note on his blog, note from the board, leaked documents regarding the dispute.  C.J. heads up Together for the Gospel, and is bringing in his friends from that organization to guide him during his stepping down.

I'd like to congratulate the people at the various SGM blogs: SGM Survivors, SGM Refuge, Spiritual Tyranny, Wartburg Watch, SGM Uncensored .  Mahaney has been a major leader in the whole New Calvinism movement.  So far the issues being discussed are internal problems regarding Mahaney creating problems with other pastors, rather than the more widespread  longstanding pattern of abuse of membership.  Its the authoritarian culture that's the problem, Mahaney, as dictators go is not unusually bad.  Part of being a dictator is terrorizing or at least intimidating those around you, that's the job.  If you don't like the behavior don't create authoritarian structures that necessitate it.

So the doctrinal and structural problems remain.  But what has changed is the problems are being widely talked about on the web.  When Joshua Harris rereleased Boy meets Girl the fact that 2 of the couples in his previous edition were getting divorced was public knowledge.  Stories about church facilitated sexual abuses have leaked.  Stories about embezzlement have leaked.  Stories about wrongful terminations, ruined marriages, and how miserable so many women are in SGM have leaked.   SGM is not able to act in secrecy anymore and the blogs above, and several others that were active over the last few years are responsible.

I don't have much to say other than this was an important step in people banding together to try and prevent the sorts of rampant abuses in authoritarian churches.  And the offer I made to Josh Harris 3 years ago remains open.  If SGM wants to start trying to build structures to stop abuses rather than to facilitate them I'd love to engage in constructive conversation.


____

Post Script (Feb 2, 2012)

It appears that way these allegations were handled was to create a biased board that investigated it and exonerate C.J. Mahaney.  The results are still not published, but the underlying facts to present Mahaney as having threatened someone to keep them silent years ago.   I'm not sure what is going to ever get published but I'll update here as more information becomes available:

• Response to SGM panal report from Larry Tomczak

____
See also:

• Al Mohler dismisses documents regarding Mahaney and abuse.  

Politics and inerrancy

Peter Francia made an interesting comment that opinions about the bible were highly determinant of voting. He classed voters into the groups:

• Fundamentalists -- who believed in biblical inerrancy
• Moderates -- who believed the bible was the word of God but could not be understood literally
• Minimalists -- who believe the bible was of human origin

	Blue State	Red State
Fundamentalist	28%	50%
Moderates	53%	38%
Minimalists	18%	12%

What is fascinating is the correlation with politics an inerrancy didn't just hold up on issue like abortion. But for example issues like tax cuts vs. balancing the budget (Fundamentalists favored an unbalanced budget), environment vs. military (minimalists favored large military cuts and increases on environment spending), etc...

Books like Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics that go broader. For example the correlations between spanking and support for Republican candidates:

Baptize young, before leaving the house

Mike Dever made an interesting point about Baptism:

Oh, a lot of things. I mean, spiritually, people’s affluence, people wanting to be served, consumers moving to urban areas where churches are close enough to where they compete for members, pastors not being taught this. I’m sure any real abuses that happen, and, of course, there were, anytime sinners like you and me are involved, any time abuses happen in church discipline, I’m sure those were repeated endlessly. And so I’m sure those stories would have been used against practicing it at all, because to practice it at all would have been in some way to have been involved in some kind of abuse of it. Now, I’m sure it’s just a combination of things like that. Also I think the theology changed and churches became more and more man-centered. I think people more and more misunderstood what it really meant to be converted. I think our evangelistic practices watered down the gospel. I think we started taking responses very quickly. We started baptizing people at a much younger age.


You know, I’ve been reading a lot of Baptist biographies in the last couple of years and noting baptismal ages. And if you look at all the Baptist leaders in the nineteenth century, they were all baptized at 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21. It’s when they get out of the home, or they have their first job, that’s when they’re baptized. Baptists these days baptize children at 12, or at even 8, or younger. It’s very hard. I mean, I’ve got kids. It’s hard to look at the kids who are pretty obedient, love their parents, and want to have the approval of their parents, it’s hard to know whether or not they’re really born again. I mean, of course they’re being sincere when they tell you something, but people can be sincere and be wrong, and I think we’ve just lost a lot of that subtlety of judgment. It’s not been encouraged among the pastors in our churches.

So what is your feeling. Is it a good idea to baptize before kids leave the house or not?

King James Onlyism Interview (Concluding points, part 4)

I've completed taking the stuff from Will Kinney's argument. You can read Part1 Part2 Part3 at these links. I will say that I did learn something important from the debate. It is essentially impossible to debate in favor of the "modern versions" vs. the KJVonly (MT/NA27 based) and maintain a belief in word for word inerrancy. 1 Samuel 13:1 is a perfect example from our conversation in the first part:

Even in the most conservative version around the ESV you drop the notion of word for word preservation:

Saul was . . .[a] years old when he began to reign, and he reigned . . . and two[b] years over Israel.

a. 1 Samuel 13:1 The number is lacking in Hebrew and Septuagint

b. 1 Samuel 13:1 Two may not be the entire number; something may have dropped out

Will gave another similar list:

The following short list is just a sampling of the divergent and confusing readings found among the contradictory modern bible versions. There are numerous other examples. Among these “details” are whether Jeremiah 27:1 reads Jehoiakim (Hebrew texts, RV,ASV, NKJV, KJB) or Zedekiah (NIV, NASB); whether 2 Samuel 21:8 reads Michal (Hebrew texts, KJB,NKJV, RV,ASV) or Merab (NIV,NASB), or 70 (NASB, NKJV, RV, ASV,KJB) being sent out by the Lord Jesus in Luke 10:1 or 72 (NIV), or the 7th day in Judges 14:15 (KJB, NKJV, RV, ASV) or the 4th day (NASB, NIV), or God smiting 50,070 men in 1 Samuel 6:19 (KJB, RV,ASV,NASB) or 70 men slain (NIV, RSV), or there being 30,000 chariots in 1 Samuel 13:5 (KJB, NKJV, RV, ASV, NASB, ESV) or only 3000 (NIV, & Holman), or 1 Samuel 13:1 reading - ONE/TWO years (NKJV, KJB, Geneva,Judaica Press Tanach), or 40/32 (NASB 1972-77) or 30/42 (NASB 1995, NIV), or _____years and.______and two years (RSV, ESV), or even “32 years old...reigned for 22 years” in the 1989 Revised English Bible!; 2 Samuel 15:7 “forty years” (Hebrew, Geneva, NKJV, NASB, RV) OR “four years” (NIV,RSV, ESV,NET), or whether both 2 Samuel 23:18 and 1 Chronicles 11:20 read THREE (Hebrew texts, RV, ASV, NKJV, NIV, NET, Holman or THIRTY from the Syriac NASB, RSV, ESV), or 2 Samuel 24:13 reading SEVEN years (Hebrew, ASV, NASB, NKJV) or THREE years (LXX, NIV, RSV, ESV) or the fine linen being the “righteousness” of saints or the fine linen being the “righteous acts” of the saints in Revelation 19:8, or where 2 Chronicles 36:9 reads that Jehoiachin was 8 years old when he began to reign (Hebrew texts, NASB, NKJV, RV,ASV,KJB, ESV) or he was 18 years old (NIV), or that when God raised the Lord Jesus from the dead it is stated in Acts 13:33 “this day have I begotten thee” (KJB, NASB, NKJV,RV, ESV) or “today I have become your Father” (NIV).

So then if you assume the scriptures were originally word for word inerrant and complete, I can't think of any way to argue for modern versions while maintaining a belief in word for word preservation, Will is correct here. You must have a more liberal definition of inerrancy, if you want your modern version to be inerrant. Thus if word for word preservation is true then some version must be authoritative. It is reasonable to suppose that if a preserved version exists it would be one of the more important versions in Christian history: Targum, Syriac, LXX, Vulgate, Old Church Slavonic, Geneva (German), King James, the Waldensians/Paterines/Cathar translations, Reina-Valera, Wulfila...

The LXX introduces the same multiplicity of versions as the MT/NA27 (for those readers interested in translation based on the LXX: NETS is considered best, and the apostolic interlinear seems quite useful). The Cathar bibles are lost. But some of the others do work, like the Vulgagte.

But at core the issue is really this for the English language speaking baptist they are confronted with a terrible dilemma. If the authoritative text are in another language then a class of experts is created undermining the meaningful priesthood of the believer in a sola scriptura environment. So instead a plausible but readable translation needs to be "God's word". In some sense the Protestant community faces a desire for:

• sola scriptura
• priesthood of the believer / perspicuity of scripture
• historical accuracy

with the rules they may only pick 2. Throwing historical accuracy overboard may seem like the least harmful option, the most spiritually enlightened option.

What clarified this to me was by coincidence I was debating conservative Catholics at the same time I was editing these articles. For them the issue is did Christ found a historical church, if so does it still exist today, "the gates of hell will not prevail”.

• There was a historic church founded by Jesus
• This church has existed through the centuries as the primary Christian church
• This church has remained perfectly faithful to the gospel, i.e. taught perfect faith and morals

Therefore the catholic church is the true church even today.

Again you run into the same problem. On almost any issue where you examine the churchs position over time you see substantial changes in its teachings with respect to faith and morals. If there was a historical church founded by Jesus it was James' church that was destroyed during the First Jewish Roman War (66-73); perhaps in keeping the John 4:20-4 Jesus did not want a distinguished church but wanted coequal congregations. But regardless. Christianity was far more diverse than just this one church in the first century and there was no single church of importance. The second through fifth centuries was where Christianity was pulled together from a broad based philosophical and spiritual movement into a single religion with a single governing body. Jesus did not found a historic church that survived, but Irenaeus, Ambrose, Tertullian, Constantine.... most certainly did. The Catholic church as we know it today was not the battle ground of the debates of the second through fifth century but rather the product of those battles. In the same way as the KJV is not the bible handed to the first century church by God but rather the outcome of a 16 century long process or redaction and modification.

But similar to the KJVonly case what are the alternatives?

• Be unfaithful to history and support the Catholic myth?
• Believe that some other church is the faithful remnant, the traditional Baptist position or the Mormon position.?
• Or believe that god did not in fact provide a perfect church and man has to decide?

While Catholics have no fondness for the KJV, and KJV supporters no fondness for Catholics it was interesting coincidence that I ran into exactly the same dilemma back to back like that. I had originally gotten interested in KJVonlyism because of the connection to ESVonlyism. ESVonlyism is a brand identity "the Yankees are better than the Mets" sort of movement, it has no intellectual content just a bunch of fallacious advertising pap put out by Ryken and Grudem. KJVonlyism though clearly dying is a much more interesting idea.

As an aside my own opinion of the KJV is that it is a historical landmark. It works wonderfully as a liturgical bible for high church (formal) type activities. Nothing "sounds like the bible" as much as the KJV. In terms of poetic excellence it is hard to find a translation that is remotely close, Robert Alter frequently talks about how strong a job the KJV did on capturing the poetry of the OT. As a translation it is rather formal (a 4 on my scale) and so picks up the advantages and disadvantages of formal. The KJV translation is based on old lexicons so much less accurate even when translating from the textus receptus than something modern and formal like the NRSV. Finally of course, I consider the textus receptus a large drop in accuracy to the originals from the Nestle-Aland.

See also:

• A discussion of the KJV only issue from some conservative youngish Christians.

KJVonly interview starting

I'll be starting a new interview series with a KJVonlyist presenting the case from a historical and liberal to neo-evangelical position. This will be one of my formal interviews (i.e. he gets to edit the final to make sure it reflects his views).

If you would like me to ask any questions or make sure any topics get discussed please feel free to comment here.

MacArthur v. Driscoll

I had figured this issue was going to die down but it seems that's its going into the fifth round or so. Essentially the question here is whether it is acceptable for a preacher to speak naturally on sexual topics or not. In other words can you as a Christian minister discuss sex the same way you would discuss auto repair or is hemming and hawing and being vague a requirement.

Since this charge is being led by MacArthur I think it makes sense to start by quoting him. All of the quotes come from a series of 4 sermons that MacArthur gave on Driscoll entitled "The Rape of Solomon's Song" (Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4)

[Y]ou can[not] make a biblical case for Christians to embrace worldly fads—especially when those fads are diametrically at odds with the wholesome speech, pure mind, and chaste behavior that God calls us to display. At its core, this is about ideology. No matter how culture changes, the truth never does. But the more the church accommodates the baser elements of the culture, the more she will inevitably compromise her message. We must not betray our words through our actions; we must be in the world but not of it. . . . . It's vital that you not send one message about the importance of sound doctrine and a totally different message about the importance of sound speech and irreproachable pure-mindedness.

Mark Driscoll’s response to that admonition and the things he has said since have only magnified my concern.

Mark did indeed express regret a few years ago over the reputation his tongue has earned him. Yet no substantive change is observable.

The first misconception some have regarding this debate is that this is new for MacArthur based on a particular television appearance. So I'd just counter this by noting that MacArthur has been arguing this case against Driscoll for years. For example he attacked Driscoll "vulgarity" in his "Grunge Christianity" article. And I have heard claims this is personal, and I don't think it is personal. Over the years MacArthur has attacked so many different people on some many different ideological grounds with these sorts of campaigns there is no reason to believe that this is merely a cover. His followers have broadly attacked Missional Christianity as per the image to the left.

What I really see though as the base underlying cause is not vulgarity, but rather postmodernism. In The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception MacArthur also attacked Driscoll as the cursing pastor. But the big issue in this book is epistemological. Driscoll is philosophically postmodernist while completely orthodox in his theology. Driscoll argues that Christian have a responsibility to engage the last 200 years of epistemology in an effective way. MacArthur in a book on epistemology displays a shocking ignorance of the topic. That is in many ways a replay of the classic question of Galileo, "Does the bible teach what moves the heavens or how the heavens move" just applied to another sphere of human inquiry.

With that preface lets hit the 4 issues in this debate

1. Legitimacy of cursing, or vulgarity.
2. Legitimacy of expositional preaching on poetry.
3. Legitimacy of expositional preachong on the Song of Songs in particular.
4. General attack on postmodernism.

First with respect to the first charge I'm not sure Driscoll is actually guilty a sin here. Here is the latest joke that everyone is in a tizzy about. What I should mention though is you'll rarely see the actual joke. Where I come from a statement of charges should be specific, not vague. If Driscoll is to be disciplined for "jokes" the specific jokes should be listed with citations of where they came from. OK here goes:

Question: What does the bible say about masturbation

Answer: Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might (Ecc 9:10)

OK, were you shocked? Not did you feel like you are supposed to be shocked; were you actually shocked? My guess is no, that joke is tame. The sort of joke that anyone who understands it isn't going to be shocked by. I can't even imagine anyone being aroused by it, which is core to the definition of obscenity, so I'd immediately dismiss any claims about this joke being obscene. Now I think the reason the joke isn't repeated is because it is so borderline, far better to say "I can't repeat the obscene joke on my site...." and convict Driscoll without even a complete statement of the charges. The fact is that this joke is so far from obscene that television censors had no problem with it during daytime. If MacArthur (who preaches in Hollywood) thinks that is an obscene joke there are about 5 of the country's top comedy clubs within 10 miles of his church, where he can find out how off base he is.

Now "corse jesting" is prohibited by Eph 5:4, as is "silly talk". Even if I were to grant that MacArthur has gone a lifetime without making a course joke, I'd say he's the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to this verse given the mountain of sillyness that comes out of him. So the question is do we want to remove pastors from office for Eph 5:4 violations and if so which ones would remain standing at the end?

So having dismissed obscenity lets move on to the second charge Driscoll's interpretation of the Song of Songs. First off, Driscoll has a dedicated site on Song of Songs, Peasant princess, where you can see for yourself he does a good job doing a very standard poetical deconstruction of a love poem. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary you wouldn't hear in any high school literature class taking apart a poem with lots of metaphor and allegory. The interpretation itself is not particularly unusual either, it is standard fare that you would find in most good commentaries. Adele Reinhartz opens his analysis with “The Song of Songs is the bible’s only extensive discourse on human, erotic love.” The idea that this erotic treatment is some innovation of Driscoll's is nonsense. Driscoll presents the material well but in a very direct way.

So now lets get to the charge, we have notes on Driscoll's sermon with "objectionable" parts highlighted. Now there is no question this is on the level of a 7th grade sex ed class in a sermon only given to people over 18 while discussing a love poem. Is this over the line? Is deconstruction of a biblical poem a legitimate activity. Tim Challis as well as MacArthur answered this question in the negative. I think this point can be immediately dispatched by noting that the Book of Hebrews is an exposition of the poetry of Psalm 103. God cannot forbid what is commanded.

So then we have to turn to a more specific question if there is something unique about Song of Songs that prohibits it. And in general the answer comes back to sex. That is the MacArthur position is that a preacher can discuss politics, law, history, theology, the news, sports, movies.... from the pulpit without hemming and hawing but you can't say things like "when woman are sexually aroused blood flows to the inner and outer labia". To prove this is sexually specific would anyone object to the equally explicit, "when a person is having a heart attack they often feel stabbing or shooting pain down the arms". Was the heart attack comment obscene? I'd say no, it was good medical advice. And that is precisely my opinion about the first comment as well.

But this is a tricky point. And it gets to the very core with the debate regarding missional Christianity. Missional Christianity rejects Churchianity and the standards of Churchianity when it comes to behavior whether in dress, attitudes towards body modification, in speech, in layout of the church. It says that it is going to walk away from some aspects of Churchianity to be able to actually reach people who would otherwise not be reachable. The bible never commands this sort of bashfulness, it is rather part of the "Christian culture". Paul lived in a culture vastly more explicit and open regarding sexuality than our own and never prohibited living in the culture, rather he demanded the opposite outreach.

What Driscoll did speak openly about a sex act he did so the the same way one would speak about grocery shopping or driving. And I think this is what people are reacting to, it was not the sexual content of anything Driscoll said but rather his lack trepidation in discussing it. Driscoll is not embarrassed to speak openly and sex that I think that not the content is MacArthur really found distressing. I had a similar experience on this board when trying to have an adult discussion of Christian Domestic Discipline. What I found then as well as every time this topic comes up, was that Churchianity's insistence on in treating sex differently than driving on adult boards is to impose upon sex the very obscenity that people like MacArthur are supposedly objecting to.

And this finally brings us to MacArthur's general attack on postmodernism. For MacArthur postmodernism is a chance to relive his hero's battle (see Spurgeon and the Down-Grade Controversy), (and Fed Up by Johnson). For Driscoll it is an opportunity for the church to reform its literature and make itself relevant to a culture which is altering its opinion on core issues about the connection between mind and world. The ideological struggle between Driscoll and MacArthur, deserves its own post and further should be broadened . Driscoll himself asserts that the primary division he has with MacArthur is over the contextualization of gospel.

MacArthur is Reformed, were he Arminian we could ask for a clear number like, how many souls should be lost due to an unwillingness to be missional: five, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, five hundred thousand...? How many would would just be "collateral damage" and not induce a policy change and how many would make outreach worth it. Since the answer is most likely in the millions, today I think this is a worthwhile question. MacArthur cannot reach the people that the missional Christian movement meets and reaches out too. So were he and his followers successful in delegitimizing it the number who would leave or never join the faith would hopefully only be in the tens of millions over the next century. But MacArthur is reformed so essentially he can be as ineffectual as he wants in outreach, since his works have no part in people being saved. So I close with question to readers who disagree with me, what your number?

See also:

• A defense of Driscoll to the left addresses the left wing critique
• iMonk vs. centuri0n debate: Frank1, iMonk1, Frank2, iMonk2
• A discussion by Tom Ascol, Chris Poe, Phil Johnson on this topic.
• A video by John Piper about Driscoll's style
• Preaching Dirty by Phil Johnson (one of MacArthur's employees)
• Freedom 4 captives (an anti-Driscoll website) this one is to the left of Driscoll. (See post which specifically addresses the Song of Songs issues)
• A direct video response of Marc Driscoll to Phil Johnson
• An excellent summary by theological persiflage
• A similar attack by Cathy Mickels
• Relit -- books by Driscoll
  

Salon on teens

Haven't posted for a while but I thought this was too good to pass up. Salon did a terrific "dear Abby" style column on teen rebellion.

When we are teenagers, because the world has not been designed around our needs but around the needs of the adults who run that world, it often appears that the world will not give us what we want unless we contrive to find it for ourselves, and that means breaking the rules. When a child turns 16 and suddenly has a set of new requirements for happiness -- a sudden need for companionship and society, for recognition outside the family, for a free, unfettered flow of experience full of novelty and risk -- and no one shows her how to meet these new needs (and how could anyone show her such a thing, her needs being new to her and impossible for her to express), then she naturally sets out to meet these needs. And if a few rules stand in her way, well, those rules will be broken.

Your daughter is trying to meet her needs. That is how a human being gets along in the world. Perhaps you can figure out a way she can meet her needs that is acceptable to you. It is not possible for you to meet all her needs directly, because one of her needs is to do it on her own. But within your vast area of control, perhaps you can create areas of seeming autonomy within which she can continue to explore and learn to make her own choices. That might help her. It might be what she needs.

Do you remember how awful it is to live in fear of your own parents? Do you remember that? I hope that you have not now reached adulthood repeating the catechism that whatever you endured under the rule of your own parents was all for the best, nothing you didn't deserve. I know adults who do say, look at me, I turned out OK, so it must be OK to treat my children in the same way I was treated.

It depends on how we view the human project. If we think of ourselves as components made to function dutifully within a society with fixed rules and fixed parameters, if getting and holding a job and raising a family are the primary goals, if existence is a preordained program of obedience to commands and right answers to tests, then yes, a somewhat punitive, controlling, rigid structure that denies the child the opportunity to fully master the multifarious arts of being may be just what is required.

But if you think that the child's project is much broader: to become, to unfold, to fully realize every merest spark of genius in her being, then you may agree that to accomplish that project, she needs more leeway to figure things out. She needs to make some mistakes.

You may not be able to prevent her from making those mistakes, but maybe you can be there to catch her when she falls.

Censorship and dishonesty in evangelical Christianity

So I'm coming off a debate on TeamPyro blog where bunch of my comments are being deleted to effectively shift what I'm saying. That is to say that Dan Phillips is deliberately misrepresenting me, lying in other words.

Now he is a well respected guy, and he was cavalier about it so I assume he does this sort of nonsense on a regular basis. What's interesting is not the dishonesty, but the pattern I've seen on these blogs. I have to wonder why is it that so many conservative Protestants do not consider dishonesty to be sinful in practice? This approach of casual misrepresenting what the other side has to say is considered perfectly acceptable on most conservative Christian blogs. I was just yesterday reading a review of the Voice translation which was quite good, but there was an underlying untruthfulness throughout the review. I've posted many times on the issues with the ESV supporters lying about the TNIV.

The patriarchy people have certainly done it as documented a zillion times here. Of course the various Christian cults do it. You don't see this among liberal Christians or atheists, they are generally upset if they have misrepresented someone's view, and quick to correct. You see it much more rarely among Catholics. I don't have a good theory as to why this is. So I'll open the floor up. What is your feeling about Christians blogs and integrity? Do think it is lower for conservative protestants? Is so any idea why this is? Does it come from Calvin's influence?

The Excommunication of Saint Paul

To Paul:

Glory be to God the Father above who gives us the truth and who allows us to grow in the knowledge of him. It is through possessing and guarding the purity of this truth that our relationship with the Lord prospers.

Our dearest brother, we are very encouraged to read how God has prospered your ministry and has brought many to a knowledge of him. We pray that God will mercifully guide you back to Jerusalem in complete safety, for we know that storms abound on the Great Sea at this time of year.

The occasion for this letter our dear brother is that we have heard some disturbing news about your teachings and doctrine. We are sure that it is all a misunderstanding and that you will continue to follow the true teaching that we profess and guard. Yet being that we have the daunting office of guarding pure Judeo-Christianity, we must confront you on several accounts. For various doctrinal positions exist on the way of Christ, but Judeo-Christianity is the true doctrine that we must protect.

As you well know, our Savior was born a Jew and preached his Gospel among Jews. All of his early followers were Jews and those in the highest Apostolic offices are all of Jewish lineage. Though it has been a rather difficult transition to navigate, we are doing our best to share the Gospel with Greeks on the Jewish terms in which The Way has been imbedded. It is our firm conviction that the Gospel must be preached in terms of our rich Jewish faith that we all trust you place tremendous confidence in. The Greeks must adopt the Jewish expressions of our faith, for to do any less would be to invite the very destruction of Jesus’ message. The only true understanding of The Way must be in keeping with the teaching of our Judaizing associates.

And this brings us to the point of our letter. We have heard about several clashes between yourself and our Judaizing associates. Is it true that you actually told a Gentile congregation, “To the Greeks I have become like the Greeks”? Are you not aware of the dangers in such accommodation to Greek culture? Can you truly believe that you remain a follower of The Way while arguing for such a blatant abandonment of Judaism? Do you not realize that Greek culture is antithetical to the Gospel since it believes in a pantheon of gods and has unbridled immorality?

What is worse than this is that you tell Greeks who would profess to follow our Lord that they need not abstain from consuming meat sacrificed to idols, making them double hounds of hell in their Greek accommodation and disdainfully pagan practices! In fact, in your attempt to “become like a Greek” you have even shared that you despise your Jewish heritage, considering it all for loss. And yet, it is this Jewish heritage and culture that bears the purest expression of our doctrine!

We are also greatly alarmed to hear of your sermon on Mars Hill in the hellish city of Athens. Though your speech was rich in quotations from pagan literature that is vile and of no use to Judeo-Christians, we have no record of you directly quoting a passage of scripture. Is it possible that you have reduced the role of the Bible in your ministry to a mere footnote at the end of your message? Surely even you can see that you have fallen down a slippery slope away from Judeo-Christianity in your neglect to cite the Bible in your teachings.

You may have love, but we have the truth. The truth is what sets us free, while you have accommodated to the Greek culture with your emphasis on love. To have only love without our doctrine is like a loud drum that makes a lot of noise, but never truly follows the score of the music, rendering it of no use. To have love apart from the doctrine of Judeo-Christianity is to ultimately have nothing. They’ll know we are Judeo-Christians by our doctrine.

Are you not aware that you are sacrificing the pure doctrinal foundation of Judeo-Christianity? You have accommodated to a culture that is completely antithetical to the Gospel message. The world is going to hell and yet you persist in playing with the pantheon of the Greeks and their “unknown” God!

If you dare to continue teaching a doctrine other than the pure Gospel message that is encapsulated in the Jewish culture, may you forever be anathema from Judeo-Christianity! You may call yourself a follower of our Lord, but you are surely not one of us. During our next meeting we will be voting on whether or not you should be excommunicated from our council. Your doctrine places you on the outside of our group and any hope of reinstatement rests solely on your return to the purity of our teaching on our terms.

May the grace and truth of our Lord be with you.

James
Peter
and The Judeo-Christian Apostolic Council

______

The above article is not mine. I found it on the TheOoze, and asked the author, Ed Cyzewski if I could repeat it here. He graciously agreed. Ed Cyzewski is the author of Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life and blogs at In A Mirror Dimly. The essay is an exploration of Christianity's interaction with culture and is not intended by the author to have an anti-Semitic message in any way.

Six Steps of a Fundamentalist Revolt

Successful fundamentalist revivals follow a predictable 6 step progression:

1. Fundamentalism starts with a claim to orthodoxy perceiving itself to be the recipient of and protector of the True Faith.
2. A modern faith emerges which is adjusting to a changing condition and Fundamentalism reacts against this.
   
3. Fundamentalism then selects sacred texts which support its beliefs, but rejects other texts which contradict its ideology narrowing the idealogical landscape
4. Fundamentalism attacks academic liberty, arguing for discussion only within a narrowly defined parameter.
5. Fundamentalism then moves on to a simplistic view tending to define issues in the conflict in terms of light and darkness, good and evil, heaven and hell – leaving little room for paradox, inconsistency, parable, allegory or metaphor.
6. Finally if the revolt is successful fundamentalism establish an orthodoxy of absolutism and certainty.

This of course creates a new material reality which creates a new modern faith and the cycle of conflict repeats.

Sovereign Grace Ministries

Sovereign Grace Ministries (SG) is a family of churches of the charismatic baptists led by C. J. Maheney, with a reformed theology. That is a reformed baptist outlook that is on the far right but not outside the American Christian mainstream. Pictured at the right is the well known "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" author Joshua Harris, who now leads Covenant Life Church, a flagship church for Sovereign Grace. Recently a discussion board by the name of Sovereign Grace Uncensored has been founded which aims to critique the church without the censorship which the blog maintainer (who goes by krismum7). During a thread Your Questions and Concerns a point was raised about church discipline and one of the posters recommended your humble author. So During the discussion your author actually found himself arguing that he saw no evidence that SG was anything but quite open and upfront that they practiced church discipline and that they expected their discipline to be respected by other churches. I agreed to do an analysis of a church covenant and the one currently pastored by Joshua Harris (hence the choice of pictures).

For readers with no association with the SG the main point of interest is that this covenant was written after the Norman Hancock ruling and thus explicitly comes into compliance with the law in a way that many Southern Baptist churches have not done yet. It also presents an opportunity to teach how one should read through one of these agreements in some detail and read between the lines.

Appendix C which is referred to several times in the document, the "Statement on Church Discipline"

As members of Covenant Life Church we take seriously our responsibility to “restore” members who fail to allow God to discipline them personally for their sins. This means that beginning with private confrontation and, if necessary, leading to public rebuke, we seek to help one another overcome any refusal to repent of those words and actions that the Bible clearly defines as sin. This includes not only sinful words and behavior, but also refusal to turn from heretical doctrine.
Jesus outlined a process for addressing another believer’s sin in Matthew 18:15-17.5 As a church we agree that this is the way for us to approach someone who refuses to appropriate God’s grace for change. (Appendix C)

Two points worth mentioning:

1. The church does punish heresy but as indicated below they don't have mechanisms for a heresy trial. Many of the members on SGUncensored complained of the repressive atmosphere regarding teachings and the origin of the problem is here.
2. Everyone uses the "Matthew 18 process" this is standard and is covered in depth on my walk throughs section.
   

The document then goes on to describe parts 1 and 2 of Matthew 18. From here there is another clause worth discussing in detail:

When the church begins to formally discipline a member, the church’s pastors inquire with the individual member in question to confirm fact and to appeal for change. If change is not forthcoming, the pastors will inform the church of the member and his sin, urging members to contact the erring member and appeal for repentance. During this time, the member under discipline may not participate in the Lord’s Supper or attend meetings for the purpose of fellowship. Instead, his participation with members should revolve around his need for change. If, after a reasonable period of appeal, no repentance if forthcoming, the pastors will inform the church again, this time announcing that they must revoke membership and that the church must now treat the unrepentant person as they treat unbelievers: in other words, when they interact with this person they should not have “fellowship” as the Bible defines it, but they should appeal for the former member to put his faith in Jesus’ work on the cross for him and turn from his sin.

The Matthew 18 process is quite vague as it names 5 steps yet there is a tradition of a 4 step process:

1. Individual confrontation
2. Confrontation by 2 or 3 others
3. Notification of the church
4. Suspension of the Lord's supper
5. Excommunication

Every church has the problem of exactly which steps to combine (interesting the Lutherans do actually make it a 5 step process). In the case of SG steps 3 and 4 are combined which is not unusual. The other common alternative to combine steps 4 and 5 and identify excommunication with suspension from the supper. These two positions have quite different idealogies. Combining 3&4 generally sees the process as progressing through ever increases circles of authority:

1. Step 1 = an individual Christian, usually a 1st party to the events
   
2. Step 2 = a small group of Christians, that is neutral 3rd parties
3. Step 3,4 = Church leadership
4. Step 5 = The church session which empowers the leadership
   

Conversely those that combine 4&5 have an ideology of levels of proof:

1. Step 1 = An individual makes an accusation (like a complaint to the police)
   
2. Step 2 = The accusation has grounds and is of the sort the church address (D.A files)
   
3. Step 3 = The accusation has been confirmed by evidence (person is found guilty)
   
4. Step 4, 5 = Punishment and then increasing punishment (think probation and then jail after a probation violation).
   

Both systems are reasonable and backed by centuries of tradition. However both systems have a concern with due process. In the 3&4 system it occurs with a series of very different bodies each examining the case. In the 4&5 system it occurs mainly in Step 3, the trial. To use a 4&5 system without a trial procedure and moreover expect the full session to enforce punishment sounds, quite frankly, like cultic behavior unworthy of a church or organization with close ties to SBC leadership.

Now there does appear to be some sort of a clause here where the leadership meets to "confirm fact" however:

• What if they don't receive confirmation but they have strong evidence?
• What if they receive partial confirmation?
• What if they receive confirmation but there is disagreement on interpretation of fact?
• What is there is disagreement on law?
• What is there are complex extenuating circumstances and thus one party sees the acts as situational?

None of this is addressed. A policy like this begs for abuse. I should however mention so far no evidence has been presented as to whether this is an error (an act of ignorance) or a deliberate attempt to create a cultic atmosphere (an act of malice). I will be inviting SG to comment and my hope would be that I am misunderstanding the document or that there is another document which comments in much more detail on these questions, and what is above is a gross simplification of the process.

In the membership agreement the membership specifically agrees to uphold this process, in particular they waive a right to review cases before engaging in corporate punishment:

I will watch out for church members and admonish anyone whose practice of sin requires it. If one of our number requires corporate discipline, I will support the efforts and direction of the church, as led by its pastors, to call that member to repent of his sins. I agree with the church’s doctrine and practice of church discipline. (Appendix A: Membership Agreement)

Now as mentioned above they are in compliance with the law:

At times a member may seek to withdraw from the church to avoid church discipline and its consequences. Just as a good shepherd will go after a sheep that has wandered from the flock (Matt. 18:12-14; Ezek. 34:4,8,16), so shall the pastors and members of this church seek to restore a wandering member to the Lord through biblical discipline. Therefore, discipline may be instituted or continued either before or after a member seeks to withdraw from membership if the Board of Governing Pastors determines that such discipline may serve to guard and preserve the honor of God, protect the purity of the church, or restore the wandering member to the Lord. While the church cannot force a withdrawing member to remain in this congregation, the church has the right and the responsibility to encourage restoration, to bring the disciplinary process to an orderly conclusion, and to make a final determination as to the person’s membership status at the time withdrawal is sought or acknowledged. In doing so, the Board of Governing Pastors, at its discretion, may temporarily suspend further disciplinary proceedings, dismiss any or all charges pending against the accused, or proceed with discipline and pronounce an appropriate censure.

After having blasted them for the above I should mention that this passage is fully compliant with the law, and I applaud SG for that (as I did above). It acknowledges that church membership is a voluntary association which can terminated at will by the member. The church most certainly does have the right to determine status of an exiting member (i.e. they can excommunicate a member who wishes to leave under discipline) but they cannot continue a disciplinary process against their consent to remain a member. If you are an SG member attempting to leave (How to leave a church) addresses your issues, if you want to examine your options (including information on how to circumvent and undermine a disciplinary process, how to survive discipline)

The final section was the point of inquest:

If a member leaves the church while he is under the scrutiny of the disciplinary process or while a censure against him is still in effect, and if the Board of Governing Pastors learns that he is attending another church, the Board may inform that church that the person is currently under church discipline and may ask that church to encourage the accused to repent of his sin and to be restored to the Lord and to any people whom he has offended. Such communications enhance the possibility that a person may finally repent of his sin, and, at the same time, serve to warn the other church to be on guard against the harm that the accused might do to their members (see Matt. 18:12-14; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 5:1-13; 2 Thess. 3:6-14; 2 Tim. 1:15; 2:16-18; 4:9, 14-15; 3 John 9-10).
Once the pastors make a sin publicly known, they commit as well to inform the church of repentance and restoration to fellowship as appropriate to the situation and the good of the church.
Christians who attend Covenant Life Church and have been excluded from fellowship from another church will not be allowed to participate in fellowship in Covenant Life unless they repent of their sins and make confession and restitution with their former church or the pastors of Covenant Life are able to determine that the former church did not apply church discipline according to Scripture.

Basically what this says is that SG respects the discipline of churches provided they would have acted similarly (that is they reserve appellate capacity) and at the same time expect other churches to uphold their excommunications. They also specifically commit to contacting other church to facilitate this. I'm not sure how to expand on my debating point here, SG frankly couldn't be more clear.

So in answer to, "As much as I admired and respected our SGM pastor, would I really want him (or, for that matter, any group of human authorities) to be able to dictate, for the rest of my life, the conditions of my church fellowship ANYWHERE?" that is precisely what this membership agreement asserts. Moreover this is not the only place they assert it, as I mentioned in the discussion on SGUncensored, one of if not the leader in the SBC for bring back pre civil war discipline is Mike Dever of 9Marks and Maheney wrote on the back cover that, "This is the best book I have read on this topic of critical importance.” Dever is also a founder of the "four friends" along with people like McArthur who have been preaching and practicing this sort of discipline for decades.

I find it curious that the SG membership didn't understand this position. Hopefully this point gets addressed in the discussion. And I will welcome SG leadership to comment on the above, in particular the complete lack of due process which neither Dever nor McArthur supports. There is no better way to undermine Church discipline then to create excommunications which the membership does not support but is required to uphold. History is replete with examples of the damage of invalid excommunications(see our QE series for examples). For a person looking to leave the church, a disagreement with these clauses in the membership agreement strike me as a very defensible reason for your letter of disaffiliation.

See also a later article on methodology of abuse.