"About last night...", or "the CNN GOP debate in review"

  A few people specifically requested I do a write-up of last nights' clash of titans, or approved of my stated intent to do so.  Never let it be said that I don't do requests.  Hoping this won't be overly lengthy, but also hoping this will wet my thirst to return to regular updates.  We'll see.
   Without further ado, a brief summary of each persons performance, with a 1-10 scale.  Note that the ranking is not based on agreement or disagreement with the person's policy positions or ideology, only how well I feel they did in the debate.

Rand Paul

He is, as the kids say, "my boy", and he had a golden opportunity in this venue that I would say was only "partially seized".  He stumbled falling out of the gate, because while he may have been able to play the persecution card regarding the usual Trump ad hominem, his opening statement did not take full advantage of the time allotted, and he seemed to lack an ability to connect with the audience. (Minus that one guy who clapped for everything he said, who I suspect is the same guy who travels to golf events to yell "get in the hole" whenever someone putts.)  This lack is not surprising, as the Paul family appears to share my occasional delusion that the truth is it's own defender.  It would be, and is, in the scope of providence, but here a little more pathos might be required.
   He finished strong, I thought that he accurately and directly summarized his views and he shines most when he diverges from the Republican mainstream, as on the Middle East and weed.  Personal bias is playing a role there for me, of course, but I will leave it to the viewer to judge how much.  Ultimately he was most damaged by a weak opening and a weak conclusion.  Come on, the secret service isn't going to use a three word phrase for a codename.

6/10

Mike Huckabee

In the past I have not been a Huckabee booster.  I have still not gotten over the inanity of the typical fundygelical crowd's Dolchstosslegende during the Romney campaign.  I continue to find the man's theology eye-roll inducing.  All of that being said, he acquitted himself well Wednesday night.  He had limited opportunity to speak (even with three hours, eleven speakers is a hard row to hoe), but on each of his presentations, he was unafraid to speak truth to power, particularly on the issues that matter most to Christians.  He also had one of the strongest opening statements.  I wouldn't give him an official "winner" label, as I doubt he can, or intends to, reach the broad conservative mileau, but the hour suited the man from the Christian perspective.

8/10

Marco Rubio

A clear winner on Wednesday.  Looked intelligent, capable, well-spoken and ready to lead.  Dominated Trump on the question regarding Trump's prior foreign policy gaffes.  I doubt very much I am in the Rubio camp personally on foreign policy issues, and I think tactics like calling Vladimir Putin a "thug" reflect the typical neoconservative fantasy that we are still living in the 1980's and still dealing with the same Russia.  But that does not reflect his score, and he showed a competent and polished blend of "compassionate conservatism" (his appeal to Spanish-speakers was a masterstroke) and no-nonsense American exceptionalism that plays to the base ("the American military was not designed for pinpricks" was similarly excellent).  I saw concerns that he came off too scripted in the moment, but I don't doubt his commitment to his convictions, and after President Teleprompter, I don't doubt that most things would be an improvement.

9/10

Ted Cruz

Yawn.  Disappointing performance of the night goes to this guy.  On top of the sheer moroseness of his mannerisms (one participant in my facebook drama during the live coverage wondered if the Clinton family was shooting his dogs whenever he answered a question), Senator Cruz meandered into generalized talking points rather than giving policy specifics.  I thought essentially refusing to give an alternative to the Iran deal while insisting on the "tear it up" approach probably hurt him with "moderates".  For those inexperienced with Ted Cruz, I recommend his Senate floor presentations over this debate.

4/10

Ben Carson

Numbers don't lie, this guy is within 3-5 points of Trump right now, although how much he's getting the benefit of some obvious voting tactics I'm unsure.  He presented as dignified and confident throughout the debate, although the seeming lack of passion in his calm demeanor may hurt him with the right of the party.  Was called one of the big losers of the debate on CNN, but I doubt his numbers will fluctuate much after his sticking to his guns.  He was also one of three men on stage willing to talk about former foreign policy gaffes on the part of this country, which the media consistently underestimates in terms of impact on the white 18-30 crowd.

7/10

Donald Trump

The debate format was structured essentially to give the other lobsters in the pot an opportunity to claw at the one on top, which they efficiently did.  I had a whole post started on this man, but haven't finished it and am unsure that I will.   Suffice it to say I think he showed his true colors in this event.  Swaggering, blustery and utterly unconvincing on women's issues (he was actively booed when going after Bush on funding for women's health), the man has (hopefully) shown the American people that he cannot, in fact, be trusted to govern.  He proved vague on immigration, nasty and issue avoidant in engagement with specific candidates, and paranoid and shallow on the issue of vaccines (Carson's line about doctors was particularly adept.)   He also served as a near-bottomless fount of easy wins for Fiorina, which I doubt he grasped.  On the other, hand, I think I'm probably awarding him a full point for his Secret Service codename joke.

3/10

Jeb Bush

Started out slow, giving me the impression he would sink to his common perception of being too soft. He later rallied, and I thought took an impressive stand on Planned Parenthood.  While I disagree with him on minutiae of marijuana legalization, I thought he came off as honest and forthright with the American people on the issue, as well as humble.  That moment alone was a high-water mark.  Bush showed himself to be particularly adept at attack by defense.  As the primary target of calumny from Trump, he showed a remarkable willingness to stick to his guns and defend both his family and his policy statements, which I think people will like.  I doubt I'd vote for the man in a multi-option primary setting, but he displayed a deftness on Wednesday that will help him more than his copious cash reserves.

7/10

Scott Walker
There is not a lot to say here, as Walker didn't appear to have a lot to say there.  What he did say was correct, but in mannerisms and terminology he appeared to have accepted the status of an also-ran.  The appeal to Wisconsin experience was valid, but the lack of engagement with other candidates' specific statements made him look almost disinterested.  It's telling that I am having a hard time remembering specific things he said.

5/10

Carly Fiorina
Had the title of clear winner snatched from her by the presence of Rubio.  For every thrust Trump had, she had a parry, and she proved herself serious and competent even during the seeming throwaway questions.  Her closing statement and answer to the "woman on the ten dollar bill" gave her the appearance of a leader and an adult, and gave the audience what any debater should: take-away memories.  She was accused of being "unsmiling" in the aftermath, but I think many conservatives will recognize her as a serious woman for a serious hour in this nation.   Bonus for being one of the candidates to engage on foreign policy and present more than vague keyword phrases.

9/10

John Kasich

In one sense, he did was he needed to do: present himself, implicitly rather than explicitly, as the voice of reason among a pack of extremists, while also showing himself direct and assertive (he probably led in direct confrontation with the "moderators", who on a side note showed themselves unworthy of the title).  On the other side of the coin, he failed to convince anyone that all his talk of unity and compromise means anything other than the failed tactics of capitulation that the Graham's and McCain's have made a source of nausea for  consistent conservatives.  He dodged a bullet on not having to answer any questions about Kim Davis.  But I think the informed GOP voter will know *why* he didn't answer any.

5/10

Chris Christie

The man's record does not make him a viable choice for right-wingers, however he might try to spin himself.  Someone in the aftermath panel said a storyline of the debate was "magically, Chris Christie is a conservative", and in fact, he scored serious points speaking to his record as governor and his stances on the issues.  Both he and Dr. Paul may have lost more than they gained on the marijuana tiff.  He did, along with Kasich, show a seriousness and maturity in asked to hurry through the "fight with Trump" questions to the real issues.  In a hypothetical general election, however, his record would be his undoing.

6/10.

All in all, it was a fairly riveting three hour marathon.  Personally I'm hoping the current status of the polls will be shaken (or overthrown) by the exchange.  The clear winners were Fiorina, Rubio, in one sense Huckabee, in another Bush.  Cruz and Trump probably hurt rather than helped themselves.  I would look forward to voting for any of them that aren't named Trump, given the alternative.

~JS

Law/Grace Balance as central to the Gospel, or "yes, yet more musing on the law".

   Shout out to my friend Nathan, whose advice from the last post was "don't be Doug Wilson".  I regretfully informed him that much of my style, word choice, views, etc. were shared with him before I knew who he was, but it was good advice.  It would be uncharitable to liberals for there to be two of him, thereby causing their heads to explode.  That being said, we press on.
   I have several disparate categories of thought swirling around at the moment, and I'm going to try to connect them even if it only makes sense to me.  Lots of stuff has been in the news lately, and somehow my feebly sparking synapses have been unable to relinquish the notion of a connection between the recent decision of the General Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist church to (fairly narrowly) reject women's ordination, and gospel preaching in the post-Obergefell kerfuffle.  In fact, I'm actually going to link both of them with why I disagree with NCT's view of the law.  So I guess you could call this "the month of Notes from the Shore in review".  If this blog were popular enough to have themed nicknames for trends of posts, that is.
  Years ago, in my ignorance (well, greater ignorance), when I doubt I was saved at all, and my systematic theology, such as it was, constituted a fear of hell coupled with semi-biblical deism, I would have described myself as "an Old Testament Christian".  I had back then a loathing of intellectual laziness and shallow morality systems that makes modern James look tame (it's possible, trust me), and untethered from rigorous commitment to two central Bible concepts (those being grace that is free, but never cheap, and Biblical support for robust Trinitarianism), I fell off a number of internal cliffs of thought. 
   The one most easily spotted as error by just about any regenerate heart was my acceptance of a standard hermeneutic of the "Christian left", at least some of whom are humanists playing religious dress-up. (In Obergeville, you'd better believe that's going to get more obvious.  Quickly.)  This principle is the juxtaposition of the God of the Old Testament, who is about icky, uncomfortable things like wrath, judgment, personal holiness, and law, with the God of the New, who is represented by the icons of Jesus the robed European Soccer player who can't continue styling his hair, only because he's too busy holding the adorable lamb and softly glowing in gold-pink hues.  This God, say our friends the ideological transvestites, is sweetness and light, acceptance and "love", knows all 271 verses to "Just as I Am" (and some he wrote himself), and is knocking meekly at the door of  human hearts to offer mankind the lollipop of forgiveness for things we couldn't help much anyway.  This God, say grown men who should know better, is a gentleman (or perhaps vampire), who will not cross that threshold to our precious feelings-bosom unless invited in.  And I, the little-Deist who couldn't, accepted the existence of these two deities.  I merely reversed the normal preference.
   The truth, of course, is that neither of these "Gods" exist.  The God of the Old Covenant, the God who thundered on Sinai, loves mankind, and offered grace that men may turn and live.  The God of the New Testament (who is the same being) reigns in a blood-stained robe with a rod of iron in His hands, and will (and is, and has) crush the nations in the wine-press of His fury.  And I am grateful (and hope to remain so eternally) that God, in resurrecting me from the dead, did not do the gentlemanly thing and wait around to ask permission from my corpse.  However, in believing an error in this arena, I developed a consequent, yet more subtle one, even after I had formally rejected the first. 
   Justification by faith became a doctrine for sluggards and intellectual freeloaders in my mind, even after coming to terms with the Holy Trinity and at least assenting intellectually to the inter-testamental unity of purpose in the Godhead.  I had come to see enough antinomians and those who pervert the grace of the gospel into licentiousness (Jude 4), or even enough just-plain mutton-heads, to believe that only a God who demanded self-justification by law was capable of being Holy and Righteous, and that only a God who stood over the shoulders of the redeemed with a clipboard was worthy of being worshiped, when in reality the gospel in all it's world-foolishness is the exact opposite.  And this brings me to my overall point: the risk of Law/Grace imbalance.
   Balance between Law/Grace is vital to the Reformed faith, and to the apostolic faith, because one can fall off the horse on either side; and men often do.  If a man believes that the prayer he prayed when he was four allows him to prolong his relationship with his live-in girlfriend, he commits the error of Jude.  If a woman believes that God has given her firstborn the chicken-pox because she missed her devotional on Thursday, and will make up for it with three tomorrow (which she will later commend herself heartily on for two weeks), she has committed the error of Galatians.  A God who delivers His Son, and thereby His very Self, to agony on behalf of spiritual worms is too Good to deny gratitude; and too Holy to mock by attempting to add to His work.  But if I could hazard a guess without being either telepathic or a perfect judge of character, I would bet that all of us do so, and most of us tend to one more than the other.  To apply the "split-God" hermeneutic much more accurately to our foibles than to God Himself, this creates "Old Testament Christians" and "New Testament Christians", and both types are imperfect by virtue of their category.
   This principle can be expanded easily to the macro-level, as churches, denominations and societies are little more or less than groups of men, humanistic theories to the contrary notwithstanding.  Just as there can be Christians who love the best seat at theological conferences and pray loudly to thank God that they are not like that man over there, who doesn't know the definition of "supralapsarian" (self-righteousness can be theological, too), there are churches who will put 18 year-olds in front of ecclesiastical courts for being alone with a person of the opposite sex.  And just like there can be Christians who think that Jesus' payment on the cross was sufficient to cover their offices' stapler (and three other things) too, there can be denominations that wink at sin, because after all, grace will abound.  Here's mud in your eye, Episcopalians.*
   I was forcefully reminded of all this by the recent news of attempted shenanigans in favor of women's ordination at the upper echelons of Adventism.  While there will be further repercussions as a result of what may amount to de facto rebellion on the issue in large swath of the North American branch of that denomination, it must be said that, as a church for whom cheap grace has seldom been a problem, SDA held the course in our "progressive" age where other organizations would have sold out.  That does not take Adventism off the hook on the other end of the stick, though.  This is not an Adventist-bashing post.  Were I to write a church-bash post (perish the thought), I would have a teeming horde of more profitable targets.  But an organization that maintains the centrality of original Sabbatarian commands and holds a belief that, at least in more conservative SDA circles, amounts to a covenant republication of portions of the ceremonial dietary law has reasons for low risk of antinomianism, not all of them the most healthy. 
   With that convenient ripped-from-the-headlines example in mind, I would apply the same principle to societies as a whole, and I would take the idea of balance, which we have already looked at in men and churches, and say that it is key to gospel proclamation in a societal context.  With all apologies to NT Wright, who is much smarter than I, Second Temple Judaism was a decidedly law-emphasis society.  Although, in fairness, it was probably much easier to have an "Old Testament God" mindset so close in history to the Old Testament.  The intellectual descendents of that mindset got Paul's most blistering graphe in the form of Galatians.  However, if I could rock a few boats for a second, legalism is (dare I say it?) not the predominant theological crisis in 21st century America.
   Calculated underexaggeration aside, in fact, the number of pastors who preach on Deuteronomy or Leviticus, the number of men who can quote or understand them at all, and the number of twenty-somethings who've read any of them after they were shaving or driving is, um, low.  The number of theologians who believe them to be inspired, or even relevant, is likewise less than stellar.  One can only speculate as to the number of 30-year old laypeople.  And this is why I believe that many Christians, even, perhaps especially Reformed Christians, are going about evangelizing this society the wrong way.  Permit me to speak boldly. 
   I have already commented on the fact that the particularly egregious forms of synergistic preaching are calculated to attract sinners without changing anything about them ("what a coincidence!  I love me and have a wonderful plan for my life, too!").  However, in our zeal for the gospel, Reformed Christians can tend to put the cart before the horse in more subtle ways.  "Jesus died for sinners", we say, "and you can be forgiven.  You can have a relationship with your creator".  All true, Amen and Amen, I got so excited I temporarily became a Baptist.  However, what do we do with a person, what do we do with a society, who responds to that message with "sinners do not exist because sin does not, and therefore I am not one"?  To them, I fear our response, if we are to awaken people, is to do what the classic "awaken-ers" like Jonathan Edwards did, e.g., bring the hammer.  We must be willing to say, if it costs us (and it will), if it gets us called hypocrites (and in once sense it will make us hypocrites, as we ourselves are sinners), if we see no fruit but derision for years, "you are a sinner, and this is why.  Activity x displeases God and without holiness, no one will see the Lord".  In saying this, I have been met with well-meaning responses of "no one will listen to that!".   People listened to Edwards.  And that's because, outside of the loosest of senses, Edwards was not speaking.  The Holy Spirit was.  On this front, the average American could stand a refresher on Calvinism 101.  The Spirit blows where It wills, and God does what He pleases.

    It is for these reasons, first and foremost, that I fear the ramifications of the NCT hermeneutic (and others like it) regarding the law and Americans.  While the NCT men who exist right now are Calvinists, and gospel men, and lovers of the New Testament witness to morality, the one thing I feel Americans do not need more of is greater covenant disunity, that is to say, more reasons to disregard the text of the OT, and specifically the law.  I do not say that the NCT scholars disregard the OT themselves, merely that read in one light, the idea of such concepts as abrogation of the decalogue continues to kick up silt in the already hopelessly muddied pond of American ethics.  And while I know that this does not attribute guilt specifically to the nuanced and conservative positions held by these men of God, I can just hear the application of "love God and love neighbor" as NCT ethics chair passage to the rallying cry of the previously discussed Christian left.  "Love thy neighbor shall be the whole of the law", cry the camouflaged secularists, while promoting their neighbors' lifestyle choice of moral filth, and in response we must be willing to say that the buck stopped long before that, when tablets carved without hands were brought from Sinai to a people who I suspect we would leave in the dust in terms of riotous living.
   I have commented before that now is an age, and this is a nation, that is desperately in need of a proclamatory people.  I do not blame fellow Christians, including Reformed men, for a love of the gospel, for a genuine desire to bless their unbelieving neighbor, or for a natural human preference to bring good news before bad.  But we must follow the apostolic example. Lumps struck on the anvil of the gospel are made into tools for the Creator's hand, but they are struck by the hammer of the law.  But because this is offensive to men, does not make it impotent. One Spirit gave us life.  One Spirit gave the Apostles their victories.  That same Spirit can bring hope and change to us and to our fallen neighbor in the most unlikely message.  Men who God has known in eternity past will trip over the stumbling stone of the law and in doing so, see Golgotha in the distance.  We have marching orders and a conquering King for a general.  "Son of man, can these bones live?"

In Christ,
~JS

*I fully realize there are saved, and even Reformed men and women in general American Episcopalian circles.  To you I say: "come out from among them and touch no unclean thing, and I will be your God and you, my people."

Obergefalling all over ourselves, or "the causality of catechesis".

   In what may be my inflammatory link of the month (year?), Joel McDurmon (who else) posted here and here on the blame for gay mirage in America resting with eschatological pessimists generally, and dispensationalism more specifically.  While I am inclined to believe the AV club has something vaguely approximating a point, at least pertaining to the more....cavalier folks in the pop-dispensational camp, (here's lookin' at you, Hagee and Hunt!) I think that they are missing the forest for the trees.  In other words, the truth about the church and potential culpability in the mirage is not smaller than the problem of cultural defeatism in eschatology, but it may be bigger.  While conservative Christians can weep, gnash teeth and rend garments in a panoply of #thanksobama hashtags, most of us are complicit in the modern calamity to greater or less degree, and I will illuminate some broad stroke reasons that I feel this way below.

   1) McDurmon does have a point.
Without belaboring the issue, it is difficult to make progress one is neither expecting nor working for.  Theonomists have not been alone in presenting the problems with the sort of mindset McDurmon describes in the "rapture silver lining"camp. Suffice it to say I find the "escape hatch to heaven" doctrine both inconsistent with the overarching theme of Scripture and conducive to practice that has already cost multiple generations of Christians dearly.  However, as others will spill more than enough ink on the topic, I move on to other more pressing items.

   2) Christian complicity with State education.
Doug Wilson and others have written books, typed blogs and heated microphones to a steady radiance on the simple fact that Christian parents err grievously in handing over the time, energy and thought life of their still-developing children to as anti-Christian an institution as the US Department of Education.  If the fact that light has no fellowship with darkness is insufficient to make the point, said Department's joining the recent rainbow logo fetish should be demonstrative to believing parents that State educators have a vested interest in de-magnetizing their childrens' moral compass.  Plenty of parents whose children apostatize after years or decades in secular education express shock and dismay in the event, including parents who felt strongly that their child(ren) would be salt and light in the education system.  Too often this is the equivalent of housing your nursery in a dingo preserve and expecting an end result of vegetarian dingos.  Culturally, of course, the heirs of the legacy of Dewey (and by proxy, then, of Marx) are simply getting hungrier, as people perceiving increased proximity to their goals are apt to do.

   3) Christian underestimation of the power of media.
Many of the same kids (including my peers, who are no longer children) left the hours a day, five days a week of secular catechesis they were already experiencing in order to pick up secular extra credit for additional hours and days in the form of secular tv, film and books, particularly television.  I am no Luddite.  In fact contrary to the stance of JD Hall or others, I do not feel that only television programs depicting a minimum of sin are edifying, or that consuming tv that depicts sin constitutes celebration of same.  However, even if children, particularly young children (it is too late for much of my generation) are spared from exposed breasts and gunplay, the IV drip of poison continues in the form of ideological confusion.  Sit down in front of the average program on "ABC Family" and count the number incidents of a) endorsement or outright celebration of homosexuality or other "alternative lifestyles" b) confused or absent ideas of what a "family" or "parent" constitutes c) promotion of herd mentality, particularly in the form of generation splitting (the out of touch mother or the workaholic father are proven less wise than the main character, usually a teenager's, friends, who of course all agree on whatever it is) d) presentation of anyone over thirty as backwards or out-of-step with reality and anyone over sixty as racist, obstreperous or senile e) flattening out of the concept of love into a conglomeration of sentiment, sex and tolerance.  Prepare to be amazed.  With the number of people my age who went directly from school and homework to tv every day of the week, it's honestly a wonder there are any twenty-somethings without a rainbow filter on their Facebook.

   4) Christian ignorance of history.
We have been rendered impotent in the face of some of the most shallow and facile historical arguments I have seen on any issue.  The slavery and race comparisons are so utterly bad that to be flustered by them is worse than admitting defeat, it's snatching it from the jaws of victory.   Additionally, the inheritance of pietistic moralism in post-protestantism has resulted in a muddle of confusion on the distinction between sins and crimes, which results in the same regarding the states' role in either.  To issue the example that cuts to the heart of the matter the quickest, the segregationist business owner who attempts to hide his bigotries under Christian terminology is a sinner in need of repentance.  As soon as police officers force the desegregation of his business, he is now a resentful unrepentant sinner who is also a criminal.  The bigot has learned nothing, and what society (especially the parts of society who control the police officers) has learned is that it can dictate morality.  And a State dictating morality is not guaranteed to dictate only the kinds you like.

   5) Christian ignorance of the Bible.
We cannot teach what we do not know.  And I am not just talking about ordained ministers, but about parents, especially Fathers who are called to be the minister in their home.  I didn't keep a running tally of statements on social media that betrayed a mind-bogglingly bad knowledge of Scripture, but I probably should have.  These statements varied in content, but a fairly common example was, paraphrase permitting, "well, we all know that nothing in Leviticus or Deuteronomy [or the OT period] is applicable for Christians today, therefore...".  These are young adults, active in a church (in some cases, I may be stretching my definition), with a existing, English-speaking first world pastoral staff and two professing Christian parents.  Both the church and the parents are problems.  But since I'm going to assume readers of this blog are on board with modern applicability of Old Testament texts, we all need to be committed to starting with Deuteronomy 11:18-21. 

  The above issues are not new problems.  They did not arise overnight, which means that Obergefell v. Hodges did not arise overnight, and if there is to be counter-revolution, it will not happen overnight either.  As always though, change, if it is to come, must be Holy Spirit-driven, which is to say gospel centered.  Starting with our children and our next door neighbors, the answer to the modern American crisis is not the Republican party (or any other political institution), but rather the identity of the Church as, first and foremost, a proclaiming people.

In Christ,
~JS

Book Review: "NCT: time for a more accurate way", or "Covenants, Kids, and Commandments".

   Without further adieu, here 'tis in all its glory, my review of the relatively new work by Gary D. Long on "New Covenant Theology" (hereafter NCT) that Richard Barcellos called the best yet.  Barcellos does good work (for a Baptist, sorry, had to) on the subject, addressing it over at 1689 Fed as well as in his work on NCT and the Decalogue, and so I figured after getting the bare-bones basics of what is the new kid on the block (even relative to Dispensationalism, zing!) in the world of hermeneutics under my belt, I thought I'd start here.  If my thoughts aren't very organized....well, welcome to my mind.  Don't get lost.  Of note before I get started: I am currently coming from what I would call the "Strawbridge/Wilson" perspective on the covenants, which some might call "moderate Federal Vision-ism" but I would prefer to call "consistent Westminsterianism".  In other words, I'm as distant from Gary Long's perspective as I could get while still being willing to call that perspective a form of covenantalism.  I'm open to having my mind changed, though.  Unfortunately(?), as will be seen below, this book will not be the one to do it, for the reasons enumerated below.  While this post was originally intended to be a sparse few paragraphs highlighting strengths and weaknesses of the book, as my reading developed alongside this posts creation, it evolved into a full-fledged response to the book, and to the NCT position generally.  In other words, there's a lot to get to, so I'll start.

1) Child-kidnap, sprinkling, and other baptismal horrors.

   I have been told, without seeing the scene(s) in question, that a sequence on the television show "Lost" features a Roman Catholic denizen of the island in question, kidnapping an infant to guarantee its baptism.  Given the language on the question of paedobaptism in the book, which at times borders on the monotonous in its repetitiveness (a quirk I find bad editing on top of bad theology), one would almost expect this to be Long's belief on the tactical goals of covenant-baptists as a whole. Indeed, were Long's assertions about traditional Covenant Theology to be taken at face value, and were I a Baptist, I'd half expect Presbyterians to be hiding behind every rock and tree, lying in wait to merrily sprinkle every child within reach.  Consistently, Long continues to make the bare assertion that Westministerian Covenant Theology (hereafter WCT) leads inexorably to infant baptism, without providing additional commentary in the immediate context.  (See for example, 7441, where Long "...affirms that infant baptism of covenant children is the Achilles' heel, a fatal weakness in the whole system of WCT...").  Why is covenant baptism an Achilles' heel, precisely?  Predominantly because Long presupposes (and in this text, the claim very much IS presuppositional) that "...the Bible was silent regarding infant baptism" (303).  Now is not the time or place for me to go into an exegetical defense of the Westminsterian position, but suffice it to say that works such as that by Gregg Strawbridge, Doug Wilson and John Frame, as well as commentaries on the Standards themselves have sufficed to establish me in it, insofar as the Bible can speak to the nature of baptism outside of explicit reference to it's mode or subjects.  However, given Long's repeated insistence on the unbiblical, indeed dangerous nature of covenant baptism, it is evident to me that the first major challenge to WCT mounted by the book, that of the notion of the classical Calvinist understanding of the Covenant of Grace, is rooted in a presupposition, namely credobaptism as the only consistent Biblical position.  This weighs the book down in three ways: in terms of audience, in terms of historical perspective, and in terms of self-consistency. 
    The book is not a beginners' guide to the credobaptist position, and in fairness is not intended to be, but I cannot recommend it to a covenant baptist as a starting place on differences in the positions (for that I would refer you to any of the marvelous work by Drs. Barcellos and Renihan, or a solid exposition of the LBCF).  Neither can I recommend it in historical commitment to Reformed tradition, should that be something one is looking for.  Again, this is not something NCT typically claims for itself (the very name of the movement describes that which is fundamentally "new"), but a thorough, if not exhaustive historical exposition of the Reformed confessions (that is, the paedobaptist ones) raises each documents' stance on baptism and the covenant, and criticizes all of them and their authors as flatly wrong.  On this, Long and the movement can be commended for pulling no punches and not being afraid to hunt big game.  However, at risk of signaling some lingering papistry in my present position, the simultaneous claims of pure biblicism in the book, coupled with rejection of so much of Reformed history, sails close to the ill wind of failure to acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of giants.  The greatest raise of the eyebrows in the historical arena came from Long's seeming affinity with the Anabaptists of the Swiss Reformation, specifically advancing the theory that Zwingli developed the confessional position on the Covenant of Grace (see below) unilaterally and out of whole cloth in order to pacify the sacralists of 16th century Switzerland (370).  Leaving aside the historical validity of Zwingli's theorized capitulation to such men (which is hardly set in stone), Long himself admits not only that the Anabaptists, including the Swiss Brethren, "had some major doctrinal deviations" (391) but also that Zwingli himself used preexisting analogies between the covenant signs (that is, circumcision and baptism) and an already present hermeneutic of "a unity of the testaments" in advancing his case (370).  If these elements pre-dated Zwingli's debate with the Swiss Brethren, one can hardly say that Zwingli is spinning theological gold from situational straw.  And I am certainly not alone in questioning the wisdom of aligning Calvinistic baptists with the 16th century Anabaptist tradition, as JD Hall and other 1689 adherents have pointed out.
   Returning to the historical-confessional issue, the criticism of the documents in question (that is, the WCF, the SCF, the Heidelberg, the Belgic, the First and Second Helvetic and the Directory of Public Worship) centers on the notion contained within each that God has made one Covenant of Grace with man, purposed from eternity past, which has existed under various "administrations" but bears the same substance.  Perhaps the most famous and perspicuous enunciation of this position is WCF VII's language: "There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations".  Long states not only that paedopatism is "the doorway to the heart" of WCT, but that in reverse (citing theologians such as Bavinck) that the covenant of grace in the Westminsterian understanding is the foundation of Reformed infant baptism.  In other words, in studying confessional history, Long has (correctly) come to the conclusion that "the one covenant of grace and infant baptism teaching of [WCT] are interdependent (416).  This concept of interdependency will be important later in discussing Long's view of the Decalogue, but insofar as he exposits the confessions, Long's factual analysis is correct.   However, his analysis of the Covenant of Grace as a theological/Scriptural concept leaves much to be desired, and may even ride on standards he does not apply to other concepts from the confessional/historical position, as we will see.

2) Long's rejection of the Covenant of Grace

   Fundamentally, NCT, insofar as it can be said to be a common body of belief, is a Reformed Baptist perspective.  Therefore there will be a number of areas both of agreement and disagreement on the issue of the covenant of grace, and both will be fairly predictable (although NCT does, as Long affirms repeatedly, differ in certain ways from the typical LCBF position).  The predominant areas of disagreement relevant to the average covenant baptist are A) NCT's assertion (in common with the vast majority of Reformed Baptists) of the unmixed nature and substance of the New Covenant, that is, the identification of members of the New Covenant with the elect.  Particularly vital for this viewpoint (as for the Reformed Baptist stance at large) is the use of Hebrews 8:11 and following as a "chair passage" on the nature of the New Covenant, a use made very popular in Reformed apologetics by Dr. James White.  B) The "birth of the Church" at Pentecost and it's limitation to the post-Resurrection era.  C) The notion that water baptism is not a sign and seal of the New Covenant, in contradiction to the Westminster Standards and similar confessions.
   I remarked some time ago on social media that the use of Hebrews 8:11 etc to confirm the New Covenant as unmixed is deeply flawed because of passages elsewhere in Hebrews noting that apostasy from the New Covenant is possible, that one can experience it as an objective reality, and in fact that that very covenant has judgement stipulations directly paralled with those of the Mosaic administration.  Chief among these texts is Hebrews 10:26-30, although other passages, particularly in Hebrews and the gospels join that texts' witness.  There are a variety of possible interpretations of Paul's citation of OT prophecy in 8:11 then, but the use of it as a supreme text on an unmixed NC administration is not one of them.  To present two possibilities in brief, both of which could hypothetically be true together or separately, either 8:11 is addressing the specific effects of the New Covenant on its regenerate members, or there is an eschatological component to the promises of 8:11 that remains unfulfilled in totality to this day.  Leaving aside the fact that the universality of language in 8:11 dovetails nicely with a postmillenial eschatology (but I digress), this idea, despite being heavily criticized by Dr. White and others, fits in with the mixture of present reality and eschatological promise in the book of Hebrews, which is a very "already/not yet" book.  (See for example the contrast of our present possession of a kingdom which cannot be shaken [12:28] and the "coming short of entering the rest of the people of God" at 4:1 and following).  Unfortunately, for Long 8:11 overrides contexts like these and seemingly settles the debate, but I for one, would demur from that view. 
   I don't wish to spend too much time on the NCT doctrine of Pentecost and "spirit baptism", as I agree with Long's cessationism, his identification of the various "Spirit baptisms" of the book of Acts with in-grafting and confirmation of the gospel message with diverse groups of then-yet unreached people groups, and the greater measure of residence of the Spirit with believers in the post-resurrection age (931) (else, what did the Savior mean when he spoke of the Comforter "coming" to the apostles at Pentecost [John 16:7] when he allowed them to receive it for gospel binding and loosing prior to that event? [John 20:22])  I will comment, however, on the fact that Long does not make a strong positive presentation on the nature of the salvation and relationship to the Spirit of the saints of the Old Testament.  To what measure did David possess the Spirit?  What does it mean that John the Baptist was "filled with the Spirit from the womb"?  We are not told.  Perhaps other NCT adherents have relayed a more detailed position, but when the author has already allowed that Israel was "an ekklesia in the wilderness", it would behoove him to elaborate on the distinctions in the outworking of the spirit between Covenant dispensations, if in fact he intends to prove covenant discontinuity.
   In quoting John Murray on the union with Christ effected by baptism, Long accuses him of inserting confusion into the issue by calling water baptism a "sign and seal", when the Holy Spirit Himself is said to be the "guarantee of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:14), and Jesus explicitly calls the Eucharistic cup "the sign of the covenant in his blood."  These things are precious truths, but the actual passages on baptismal covenant efficacy were left untouched by Long.  One would like to think this was for the purposes of satisfying editors, but to be honest, I remain uncertain to this day what any Baptist does with the notion that Baptism clothes us with Christ (Gal. 3:27).  The fact that baptism is not called "THE sign or seal" of the New Covenant does not strip it of the New Testament terminology surrounding it.
   To conclude on NCT and the CoG, Long notes that OT saints were "in Christ by covenantal promise" awaiting their ultimate salvation by the promised New Covenant in the blood of Christ. (955)  This is consistent with the rest of Long's viewpoint, given that NCT teaches that OT saints were unified with God in heaven in the fullest sense at the event of Pentecost, but does prompt me to ask if it really benefits Long to affirm that men can be in Christ in more than one sense.  To do so would seem to leave the door open to my primary opposition to the NCT rejection of the overarching CoG hermeneutic, that is, the concept of the NC as unmixed.  Before moving on, however, there is much to appreciate both about Long's willingness to site WCT sources, and to affirm the essential position of the covenant hermeneutic in a Reformed reading of Scripture.






3) Long's new take on the Covenant of Works concept, and the rejection of the Covenant of Redemption.



   Less ink need be spilled on the Covenants of Works and Redemption, as the disagreement with the WCT position is more moderated in Long's work.  A few points of interest do exist, however.  Richard Barcellos has noted that Long's acceptance of a pre-fall covenant with Adam so as to preserve the federal union of fallen man with Adam (and thereby the justice of the grounds of redemption in federal union with Christ) is a relatively new development within NCT, and a welcome one. (1096) However, Long's primary issue with the CoW as traditionally understood (and his ground for calling his conception of the pre-fall covenant something other than "the Covenant of Works" is that reference to a hypothetical promise of eternal life for Adam is inconsistent with the infallible foreknowledge and plan of God and the notion that the free gift is not like the trespass (Rom. 5:15) (1050).  This, it must be said, is odd coming from a self-described Calvinist, as the notion of hypothetical promises of life upholds the typical Calvinist understanding of the universal offer of the gospel.  Additionally, the idea of eternal life for Adam contingent upon obedience to the pre-fall covenant stipulations (mirrored in the "do this and live" statements of the Mosaic administration) does not contradict the sovereign plan for better things in Christ, as God's infallible knowledge does guarantee that the Fall will come to pass in God's decretal will, but it would seem unjust to me to presume that eternal life was not offered to Adam in his already deathless pre-fall state, as death comes by the violation of the law of God.
  Meanwhile, it is not my intention here to defend the existence of a Covenant of Redemption as understood by Michael Horton as vital to the system of WCT.  It has long struck me that while the language of a covenant among the persons of the Godhead remains consistent with the overall hermeneutic of Covenant as the Reformed position, that many elements of the principle beyond that extend into the realm of needless extra-Scriptural speculation.  This is particularly notable because the idea of a Covenant of Redemption is left untouched in the WCF itself.  However, it must be said that both of Long's specific arguments against the CoR are faulty.  A) The idea that the CoR constitutes a "sovereign administration" of persons of the Godhead over each other, and therefore an introduction of disunity into the Trinity, (1306) is a misreading of a specific definition Long assigns here to the term "covenant".  In fact, I would prefer the definition Long identifies as older which includes the concept of an agreement between two parties.  This preserves not only the equality of the persons in the Godhead in a CoR, were we to assume one exists, but also the concept I laid out early of stipulations of judgment in the New Testament administration of the CoG.  B) The citation of the CoR as a violation of Biblicism (1306, end of section) smacks of inconsistency.  The standards identify both the explicit text of Scripture, and that which may be derived by "good and necessary consequence" therefrom, as the foundation of valid Christian doctrine, and it is the very principle of good and necessary consequence that Long has, at this point in the text, just finished using to demonstrate the validity of the CoW in light of Romans 5!  What is good therefore, for one, should have at least some bearing on the validity of the other.

4) NCT and the law of God.

   It seems fitting to continue the response to Long on the nature of God's law given the prior posts have dealt with the position of Theonomy as known by Bahnsen et. all, but where Theonomy stumbles over the stumbling stone in one direction, NCT (which I will not repeat Theonomy's error by calling "antinomian") decidedly lapses in the other.  Specifically, NCTs position on the law of God diverges from WCT in the categories which follow.  A) A denial of the three-fold division of the law. B) The introduction of covenant disunity not present in the confessional standards vis a vis the abrogation of the Old Testament law to be replaced with "the law of Christ".  C) The rejection of the Decalogue as a summary reflection of the eternal and unchanging moral standards of God, referred to by Calvin and the Divines as "the moral law".  Long's section here, despite being both the most radical departure from confessional Reformed theology as a whole and a wholesale acceptance of certain assumptions of traditional Dispensationalism, is hardly exhaustive, and in fact to my mind appears brief, given the complexity of the subject material.  I would like to presume this brevity of coverage is not a result of the topic having nothing to do with the spine-tingling error of infant baptism, but that may be too much benefit of the doubt for me to extend.
   Following a historical examination of the exposition of the threefold distinction concept in the WCF, Long lays forth the exegetical case that Romans 2 (reflecting the idea that Gentiles "as a law unto themselves" acknowledge the righteousness, at least in part, of the unchanging Divine moral standard) and Genesis 1 demonstrate that Jesus' "two greatest commandments" (love God and love neighbor) are themselves that unchanging standard. (1416)  He then cites various statements by Calvin and the standards regarding the Decalogue's dependence on love of God and neighbor, and the summary containment of the moral law (not it's exhaustive exposition) in the Decalogue, concluding with the literary throwing up of the hands marked by the phrase "what confusion!". (1460)  Regrettably, it must be said that here I feel that Long is straining at gnats.  The idea that this is an either/or proposition (Decalogue=moral law or "two greatest"=moral law) is deeply flawed for the simple reason that both can be true.  Long's confident assertion that Christ's statement that "the Law and the Prophets hang on" the "two greatest" make a direct equivalence between the eternal moral standard and the "two greatest" is seeking to bear a burden of proof it cannot support.  As cited later in the chapter, Calvin would have agreed that the summary content of the moral law is reflected in love of God and love of neighbor, (1588) but this does not mean that the same is not done in the Decalogue, nor does it invalidate the fact that Jesus, who said he came not to abolish but to fulfill, affirmed repeatedly the great and abiding realization of those two loves in the Decalogue, or for that matter, Israel's civil code. Here might be a good place to pause in order for prospective Theonomic readers to heave a sigh of relief that I don't disagree with them on everything.
   Long goes on to discuss the concepts of "absolute" and "covenantal" law, with the established NCT claim being that all law-codes in the OT, including the decalogue, were administered for a time but no longer abide, while God's "absolute law" as reflected in "the two greatest" continues in perpetuity.  The primary defense of this hermeneutic is then mounted by a fascinating exegesis of another "chair passage": 1 Corinthians 9:20-21, which Long calls "NCT's central passage on the law of God". (1522)  Long asserts that the word "Mosaic" could be reasonably inserted as a controlling adjective for each occurrence of the word "law" in the passage up until Paul's reference to "the law of Christ", which Long annotates as "the NC law of Christ".  Several claims are made here.  Perhaps the most odd to me is that while Long is demonstrably aware of the typical threefold division reading of this passage, up to and include the contextual clue that the surrounding verses of 1 Corinthians have to do with eating and drinking (e.g., the ceremonial dietary laws previously confirmed as no long binding consciences in the book of Acts), he argues that verse twenty makes sense if "Mosaic" is inserted, but not "ceremonial".  I have followed his admonition to insert ceremonial into the verse several times since initially reading the book, and for the life of me, I cannot say I come to the same conclusion.

   Long also notes that being "under the law" (hupo nomon) is descriptive of unsaved Jews that Paul is seeking to win, while "under the law of Christ" is not not speaking of unsaved Christians, and that therefore "the law of Christ" in context cannot be synonymous with "the law of God" taken as a general category.  This is very true, and I don't know any adherent to WCT that would take a position otherwise.  Rather, the "law of Christ" in my understanding is synonymous with that very eternal and unchanging moral standard reflected both in the Decalogue and in "the two greatest".  Long concludes his exegesis with the statement (in bold, no less) "the law of God and the law of Christ in this verse: intimately related, yes!totally equated, no!" (1568)  But this is straw-manning.  Westminster did not "totally equate" the "law of Christ" with the entirety of Mosaic law in the sense of perpetuity, but rather equates the law of Christ, the Decalogue, the "two greatest" and the pre-Abrahamic moral will of God, e.g., his eternal moral purpose written on the heart of the regenerate.  Therefore, I would have 1 Cor. 9:20-21 read "to those under the ceremonial law, I became as one under the [ceremonial] law (though not myself being under the [ceremonial] law, that I might win those under the [ceremonial] law.  To those outside the [ceremonial] law, I became as one outside the [ceremonial] law, not being outside (anomos, lawless) the law of God [that is, without the broader category of God's moral standards generally], but under the [moral] law of Christ [which he came to fulfill and not abolish] that I might win those outside the [ceremonial] law."  Do you see the flow in the context of the threefold division?  Paul abides by the standards of the ceremonial law so as not be a stumbling block for unsaved Jews he seeks to bring to faith and repentance, but by virtue of the new and better, glorious covenant administration in Christ's blood, he is not himself under those strictures of diet etc. as a rule of life.  Meanwhile, he does not demonstrate rigorous adherence to ceremonial law which is no longer necessary in order to win Gentiles, but this does not make him lawless!  On the contrary, he is in-lawed to Christ, who fulfilled all the law on Paul's behalf and wrote God's moral law (here the law of Christ, that is the law still proper and binding to the New Covenant) on Paul's heart.  Long's exegesis fails, because it is dependent on the presupposition outlined above: that the "two greatest" are a distinct entity from, and abrogate, the principles of the Decalogue.




   Long concludes his section on law by asking a variety of leading questions designed to allow people to question and wrestle with the notion of the threefold division.  In reply, I have a few questions of my own for NCT.  A) Does the law of Christ include specifics on how one loves God and loves neighbor?  More importantly, does it necessitate specifics?  B) Given that Long appears to believe that specifics are included, up to and including a republication of nine of the ten commandments and "fulfillment of the fourth in Sabbath rest for the people of God", why is it that it is so vital to abrogate the Decalogue and how does this support the idea that the law of Christ is not the same entity as the Mosaic law?  C) What about commands in the Mosaic code that are not reissued in the NT?  D) As a narrowing of the range of c), can NCT with confidence say that the term "sexual immorality" in the New Testament allows God to forbid the full range of sexual sin forbidden in the Old?  Why or why not? 
 
   A final note on the law issue, I feel, would edify before wrapping up with Long.  Long quite purposefully seems to omit the issue of the Sabbath from his discussion of the Decalogue, minus a fleeting reference, (1605) and I find this odd.  In fact, the Sabbath issue would seem to be the major area where NCT could "score points" on the issue of the law, at least with other Reformed Baptists, which appear to be the primary audience of the book.  (Presbyterians on the other hand, have far more rigorous Sabbatarian language to wrestle with confessionally, which brings its own difficulties but at least consistently preserves the single covenant, multiple administrations conception of the 16th and 17th century confessions.)  For those Calvinists without a specific doctrine of the Sabbath, it would behoove you to look at the issues and questions raised by NCT and ask if your position is sufficiently consistent to allow you to say why you disagree.

5) Wrapping up.

   Despite the rather rough treatment it might appear to have gotten from me, Long's book raises valid and timely questions and challenges adherents to traditional understandings of the covenants, credobaptist and paedobaptist, to reexamine some notions they may have held uncritically.  As theology, it remains  unconvincing to me, as exegesis it suffers from unwarranted assumption in places, but as comparative systematics it is fascinating and as writing it is approachable and refreshingly easy to grasp in the sense of avoiding unnecessary technicality.  It's rating for me was greatly enhanced for a rather ironic reason: the book mounts the best short and simple Biblical defense of the Covenant of Works I have seen so far (minus the terminological quibbling around ("hypothetical" and "works".)  Despite the efforts of the Barcellos bunch, I predict NCT to be a rising force as the new generations of Calvinists feel their oats, not least because it offers a view of the law that will appeal greatly to many American Christians from Baptist and nondenominational backgrounds, and this will make it an important book as well as an entertaining read.

3.5/5.

In Christ,
~JS
  

Theonomy follow-up, or "Spoiler alert: I am not a Theonomist"

   Prefacing this whole post, which will be a follow-up to my review of Hall/McDurmon debate, I want to say that I have read as much of American Vision and Pulpit and Pen's blog posts in the aftermath as I could get my hands on (which, by the by,  introduced me to two great men and two great blogs), and I have listened to all the episodes of the Pulpit and Pen Program addressing the Theonomy issue both pre-and post debate.  Aside from this material, the booklet-length post-mortem/victory declaration made by JD Hall can be found here.  I wanted to make some brief summary points regarding corrections to my prior post, expansions of my knowledge base, changes of mind (I do have them) and the summary hullabaloo (did you know Firefox spell-check has a correct spelling for that word?) that is the Theonomy debate in the modern Reformed community.

   1) This is an important issue.  But it is not a thing of first importance.

What was of first importance in the Apostolic witness was the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ in perfect substitution for the sins of His people.1  Insofar as I believe the men at American Vision and those at P and P (and those in their respective camps) to be Christ-followers in saving belief in His good news, the sowing of division among brothers on this issue is not good.  Some of the tactics and language in the Hall/McDurmon interchange specifically and much more so this debate more generally have smacked of the same sort of hyperbole and grandstanding, particularly in the realm of eschatology, that has marked traditional dispensationalisms' criticisms of "replacement theology".  I urge my Reformed brothers and sisters to be bigger than that.

   2) I reiterate my prior statement that I agree with neither position.

Rather, it would be better said that I agree with neither *personality in the "great debate" (more on that in a minute).  Hall's premillenialism, his commitment to the Reformed Baptist position on the newness of the New Covenant, and his somewhat cavalier dismissal of things he does agree on with Theonomists makes his approach not only unnecessarily acerbic in places, but also radically different from the angle I would arrive from.  All of that being said:

   3) I am not a Theonomist.

One may notice I have insisted on ubiquitous use of the capital T throughout this post, and the reason is that the most unpleasant thing, to me, coming out of American Vision in the last few months has not been intrinsic to, or even directly based in their position, but is instead tactical.  As JD has highlighted repeatedly on the PP blog and show, the folks at AV, dat Postmil podcast and others have been seemingly willing to settle for "theonomic-ish" when some of those sharing their links, retweeting their posts and mouthing their jargon do not share the true distinctives of their position, beginning with the call for precise reapplication of the Sinaitic penology and inclusion of some or all of the civil code as part of the moral law.  More alarmingly, I would say egregiously, Joel and co. seem ready and willing to take the dead captive in this maneuver, as will be illustrated by the recent back and forth on the aforementioned blogs regarding the legacy of AW Pink on the civil dimension of the law.  I think it can be readily demonstrated to a non-dogmatized reader that Pink did not hold to the two above Theonomic positions, which makes him not a Theonomist, regardless of whether Joel is "totally willing to call him one", which I find an interesting (ironc?) phrasing.

It is on these two positions that I must side with JD and Pink, after relatively intense (but by no means completed or exhaustive) study of the issue since late March.  Particularly illustrative was the series of debate essays in the "Counterpoints" series entitled "Five Views on Law and Gospel", which included an essay on the Theonomic position by the late, great Dr. Bahnsen himself, an essay which, relative to that on the "Traditional Reformed" position (which seemed admittedly scattered in places), honestly seemed to be focused more on open-ended questions than on answers.  The typical understanding of the summation of the moral law in the Decalogue, and its recapitulation in (not replacement by) Jesus' "two great commandments" is greatly undermined by Bahnsen's position on the exact nature of the civil code, which he appears to have at least partially blended into the eternal and unchanging standard by such quotations (some of which can be found in JD's "Embers" booklet) as pg. 304 of Theonomy in Christian Ethics, wherein Dr. Bahnsen called the "subdivision" of the law into "moral and civil categories" (?) "latent antinomianism"(!). 

This brings me to a larger point, and a partial retraction of comments made in March about the debate.  I have said multiple times that this is a debate that may have been better never to have happened, or rather, to have (continuted to) happen in writing, not only because of the passions (some ungodly) inflamed by the event itself, but also because consistency and solid reasoning for a preexisting position were much more on evidence in the written material, particularly post-debate.  Nowhere is this more evident than in JD's actual dragging out of page numbers and other specific references for the now-infamous "boogeyman quotes".  I said previously that North and Rushdoony's work has to my mind frequently generated more heat than light and that on issues related to, but distinct from, their position on the law (ranging from racism to soteriology), I have had cause for alarm, or even grave concern.  Nothing in recent further study has alleviated these concerns, but rather exacerbated them.  Meanwhile, I awarded debate points, perhaps decisive ones, in what I still believe to have been a close contest (grandstanding by the participants aside), to Joel due to the "Bahnsen is a liar" portion of CX in which the notion of Bahnsen holding to the (highly Westminsterian) threefold division came into question.  Regrettably, further study has informed me that Dr. Bahnsen presented as at least confusing on the issue, if not outright dangerously wrong.

The heart of the matter lies in the threefold division for me, not just because it is a matter of confessional importance (which I said in March it is), but because it is of Scriptural importance.  How one derives a consistent, systematic position in which Paul and the other apostles teach that the civil magistrate is to exercise the civil code as written, at risk of incurring the divine wrath, from the New Testament, is beyond me.  Certainly 1 Timothy, a book resoundingly about church discipline (we do in fact derive the Biblical qualifications for eldership therefrom) does not offer a governmental system, anymore than Romans 13 (which must be applicable to the authorities as the first century church experienced them) makes all governing authorities executors of the divine wrath only contingent on their application of the civil code with it's system of precise sanctioned activities and commensurate penalties.  And here we come to another issue that I addressed more fully than the above in my prior post, but which bears repeating because it has grown as I have read: Theonomic inconsistency on penology.  The puritan colonies, and other societies which Theonomists have held up as examples of law-keeping, have universally not held precisely to the punishments for various crimes in Bahnsen's "exhaustive detail", which brings us back to the concept of "theonomic-ish".  It would not be enough merely to practice the death penalty for certain things, for example: unless stoning is carried out in every case that it is in the Levitcal code, the society in question is, at the least, swerving from the perfect justice of that code.  After all, there is more at stake in penology than appearances.  Community participation, number of witnesses, time and suffering involved in the punishment of the offender are all encapsulated in the prescribed penalties of the code.  It would not be enough to merely say that "well the death penalty happened so justice was done".  The Theonomist has painted himself into a small corner of his own making on the issue, whereas I believe the Massachusetts colonists in question were not adhering to Bahnsen or Rushdoony's exhaustive detail, but rather the Westminster Standards "general equity", which brings me back to the confessional issues previously addressed.

It is known to many students of Calvin's sermons on the law (some of which have in fact been republished in works by Gary North) and the Institutes that Calvin's insistence was on the bare fact that that which is prohibited in the Law and not explicitly abrogated by Christ be punished, not that the punishments be universal and specific, or, in my reading, even carried out by persons specifically motivated by Scriptural standards.  Whether North would agree with this, I do not know, but obviously Calvin's position was repudiated by Joel in the debate.  The Westminster Divines, consummate Calvinists if ever there were some, were certainly aware that penology was, to the mind of Calvin, a matter of differing covenant administration2, and this, to my mind, makes a compelling case for the non-theonomic reading of the Standards regarding the "general equity" of the civil code: punishment for crime but not rigorous application of Sinatic covenant administration courts and penalties.



In summation, I believe that the Theonomic (large T) position fails.  It fails Scripturally.  Importantly for Presbyterians, it fails confessionally.  It failed in the mind of Calvin.  This does not, as I said before, make JD Hall the keeper of the secret fire on covenant theology (as if you were worried I'd say that), but it is my position nonetheless.  Feel free to comment here or PM on Facebook should you disagree.

   4) The Law is good, if one uses it lawfully.

Far from affirming Joel's position on that text, the reason I have spilled lethargy-inducing volumes of digital ink on this topic is that I think this debate is not merely academic for three reasons.  A) Theonomists confuse laypersons into believing they are in a camp they are not in through misrepresentation.  As seen recently in the case of Pink and others, and in the skirting of the general equity clause by Bahnsen, there is a subtle undercurrent in Theonomy that divides Christians into Theonomists and antinomians.  This is simply not the case, and it threatens to imply that adherents to the very position of Calvin are heretics (and antinomianism in its full-fledged sense is heresy).  The term "civil judaizing" is a regrettable one.  It brought as much lightless heat as any of the screeds of North, as it seemed to equate Reformed, solas-affirming men like Bahnsen and Joel with the accursed ones of Galatians.  But the idea behind the term stands insofar as the more inflammatory remarks by Theonomists to their kin imply that deniers of the continuance of the civil code are soteriologically deficient, or at least involved in a matter of sin, much as the Judaizers implied the same of Apostolic Christians who invited Gentiles to the free grace of Christ without the encumbrances of the ceremonial law.  To use the law lawfully in the New Covenant should mean to avoid even the appearance of asking believers to "submit again to a yoke of slavery".3  B) On a related note, the most well-known advocates of the position (North, Rushdoony, Marinov) have sown dissension among brothers over what, as I said at the beginning, should not be a matter of primary gospel importance.  C) Theonomy is a very real issue for confessional Presbyterianism.  I hold Dr. Bahnsen, God rest his soul, in high regard, but there is a reason Theonomists have lost positions and prestige over this issue.  Laypersons need to know that not only does the one covenant, multiple administrations hermaneutic not require the Theonomic position, but that the position is contrary to the historic faith of the Standards.  For men and women who care about such things, and go to churches that do, this is a matter of historical consistency and potentially church membership.

    As I said before, dialogue on the issue is welcome, and I am not done learning.  Someday I will make it through By This Standard, and maybe even take a crack at Theonomy in Christian Ethics.  Unfortunately, I have a lot on my plate right now, especially with Shaw's exposition of the Standards and Schaff's History of the Church in the on-deck circle.  This is not, nor will it ever be, my pet issue.  I hope this can be illustrative to at least one person, and if not, it's been good to get back in the swing of things.  Stay tuned for my forthcoming book review of Gary D. Long's book on NCT, which will at least be in the same ballpark as this issue.  Thanks for reading.

In Christ,
~JS.

1. 1 Cor. 15:3 and following.
2. For this specific language on the part of Calvin, see Institutes II.11.  Credit to JD in Embers for the reference.
3. Gal. 5:1

Civil Discourse, or "the McDurmon/Hall debate post"

   I lied.  This post will not be a continuation of the critique of Anthony Badger, which is on hiatus.  Rather, I will be discussing this.

    The short answer to "who do I think won" is Joel McDurmon, the reasoning for which is below.  The short answer to who I agree with at this point is "neither, entirely".  Each person failed to convince me of their thesis (which both participants had, as Hall was making a constructive argument as much as he was denying the affirmative).  The issues at stake, to my mind (at least the ones addressed) were four-fold: 1) the issue of Scripture, 2) the issue of history, 3) the issue of confession, 4) the issue of Bahnsen.  I will try to deal with each of them briefly here.

  1) The issue of Scripture.  This issue was affirmed to be the most important by both participants, and I wholeheartedly agree, but this issue is why I'm hesitant to say the exchange had a clear winner.  The core of McDurmon's constructive was the notion of the civil law (and its accompanying penalties and sanctions) not being abrogated unless explicitly stated to be so in the New Testament.  Insofar as this was based on McDurmon's simple affirmation that "if they were just then they are just now", this strikes at the heart of an unstated presupposition on the part of JD Hall, e.g., an assumption of key Baptistic notions of substantive distinction between the covenants.  There is nothing wrong with JD Hall holding this axiom per se (he would be a rather shoddy Reformed Baptist without it), but McDurmon didn't allow it to stand unchallenged, which made it a good debate.  Hall, to my mind, failed to prove this (largely silent) assertion from Scripture, and this was made glaring by Hall spending a large part of a rebuttal period affirming the glory, truth, holiness and justice of the Civil code of Israel, a fact which towards the end, McDurmon pointed out meant that Hall was seemingly moving from firm didactic opposition to the Code as "obligatory", to merely asserting that it was one of a number of good governmental options.  As an additional example, Hall dismissed the notion of the Puritans executing a man for bestiality by saying "pssh, do we really need the Civil code to know that bestiality is wrong?".  This strikes me as a canard.  It is by means of the law that men are brought to the realization of their sinfulness (witness the postmodern soup of sexual deviancy our nation is slipping into divorced from God's standard), and without the Civil code, it could be argued that the ethics of bestiality remain largely a matter of public consensus, but the societal response to it does not.  In short, I remained unconvinced by the meat and potatoes of Hall's exegetical case.
   This does not let McDurmon off on this front however.  In the midst of all the acontextual chicanery on what Joel called "the boogeyman quotes" from North and Rushdoony (more on that in a minute), JD landed on a solid argument, albeit one I would have advanced differently: what is the soteriological implication of transmission of Israel's "penalogy", whole cloth, into the New Covenant administration?  McDurmon deeply disturbed me in not providing clear teaching from the Theonomic position, even in broad strokes on key questions here.  Would a Theonomic state apply the penalogy of the Civil code only to nonbelievers, and how does this jive with Paul's admonition not to judge outside the Church?  If the Civil code penalties are applied to Church members, even those making a credible profession, of what benefit are the merits of Christ to professors relative to the Old Covenant?  Is the "libertarian" regime pushed by North and Rushdoony merely an excuse to slip Theocratic fascism binding the consciences of the unconverted in through the largest back door possible?  And what exactly would the nature of doctrinal disagreement within such a state look like?  To leave these questions unanswered means that I can't say Joel "won" in this arena any more than JD did.

Verdict: no clear winner.

2) Joel, in my opinion, wasted a lot of time after a valid point had already been made spending what amounted to his entire first cross-examination on naming hosts of persons who he believed supported his reading of the Westminster standards and on the law.  Even if he could have shoehorned more compelling argument into the time allotted, however, his point was made.  Opinions on the standards regarding this issue have not been clear-cut or historically monolithic, and the idea that the Theonomists' usage of "general equity" stretches the bounds of credulity, as JD would have it, was adequately demonstrated to me to be in error.  On that note, I believe McDurmon came out ahead here (but see below).

Verdict: McDurmon.

3) Even if the historical positions on the standards regarding the nature of general equity are multifaceted, in my personal opinion, granted the language of "expired together with the State of that people', the Theonomic (big T) camp has some hard and serious questions to answer regarding the role of the movement within historic Presbyterianism.  No matter how stretched the big tent of the phrase "general equity" gets, McDurmon failed to convince me that presbyteries would not be right to sanction ministers for denial of tenets of the standards if they refused to affirm the expiration of the judicial code.  While it's true that Scripture is the final and infallible arbiter, for that to be a position to which McDurmon hastily fell back ceded the point Hall was making: that on a confessional level, McDurmon is being inconsistent.

Verdict: Hall.

4) A defining moment of the debate for me was Hall's claim in 1ACx that he would refuse to believe Bahnsen if he said he had a tripartite distinction in the law.  Why defining?  Because this was merely the most dramatic example of a consistent cascade of misrepresentation of the Theonomic source material by JD Hall.  I firmly believe if you picked a Bahnsen work remotely touching the subject material of the debate, even at random, and began to read you would identify Hall as a caviller on the actual position of Bahnsen.  Full disclosure being made, I am no real fan of Rushdoony and North as men and conversationalists.  It could even be that there was fleeting occasional substance in some of the accusations leveled against them by Hall (specifically as touching the aforementioned soteriological issues).  But to devote this much of an entire rebuttal to the litany of deliberately de-contextualized quotes designed to scare people into (among other things) the idea that Gary North doesn't believe regeneration enables law-keeping, that the Theonomists make the moral and civil law coterminous, or that Greg Bahnsen denied justification by faith(!), is patently absurd.  If you start watching the debate, the reason you should finish it is that McDurmon is allowed time to respond to this, and he picks it apart, as he should.  This area of the debate is the area that would have scored the most points if I were sitting at a judges' table, as I believe that McDurmon exposed direct abuse of contrived evidence by JD.  Your mileage may vary, but I suggest you delve into the authors in question yourself.

Verdict: McDurmon.

In summary this was a great match-up between two men who came prepared and stuck to their guns, and like many great debates between brothers in Christ, it leaves as many good questions as it answers.  I'm still in the in-between on the issue, but I can tell you that on points, this was a contest with a winner, albeit narrowly.

Winner: McDurmon by a half-stride.


In Christ,
~JS.

How my garden grows, or "A response to Anthony Badger, pt. 1"

  The nature of this posts' titular garden is, of course, "full of tulips".  And it is that set of doctrines that I am setting out to defend as regards a series of articles posted by Anthony B Badger in the journal of his own Grace Evangelical Society, the beating heart of the Zane Hodges "free grace" perspective.  The faith statement of GES can be found here, and the first of Dr. Badgers' articles, which I will be addressing, here,
   I will pass over the background to the TULIP acronym and the issues of church history that preface the article series, which it must be said were commendably accurate and concise, and I credit Dr. Badger for allowing Westminster and the Calvin-crowd to define their own terms as regards total depravity (pg. 42 in the article).  It is immediately following that definition however, that the wheels begin to come off, and I will be focusing on a few diverse statements of Dr. Badger on the doctrine of depravity, namely his repeated assertion that faith logically (and temporally?) precedes regeneration (a key hermaneutical stance on which much of later argumentation hinges), that consistent with Dr. Norman Geislers' stance in Chosen But Free (on which Dr. Badger heavily leans), mans will, despite the Biblical testimony to sin, is at least "partially" self-determinate, (pg. 54), and the typical GES misapprehension on the nature of saving faith and the presentation of a saving faith divorced from repentance and thus reduced to a form of "assent."
   Does the new birth, the regeneration of man and the promised giving of the heart of flesh (a divine action promised in Ezekiel 36:26), logically precede faith, so that the inability of man in self-determination to salvifically believe, as presented in the Westminster Standards, is upheld?  Or is faith the means by which man, in his own choice, becomes regenerated?  It would have been the context of Ezekiel 36, speaking of the promise to sprinkle Gods people with clean water, that Nicodemus would have had in mind in John 3.  While the chapter is most famous for the exposition of faith as the means of eternal life  in vs. 16, textually and in the exposition of Jesus, it is the second birth that Jesus mentions first, and this second birth is spiritual.  Jesus contrasts the activities of the flesh in strict dichotomy with spiritual actions, (vs. 6), and asserts that the Spirit brings the new birth by its own power, and even without perfect human knowledge of its purposes in doing so (vs. 8).  It is only in the context of the absolute necessity of a second birth, accomplished by the will of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus goes on to locate eternal life in belief in himself.  Similarly, in John 6, Jesus says that all that the Father gives to Him will come to Him, and that the giving of the Father, and the Fathers will for the Son, is the grounds of those being given being raised on the last day. (vs. 36)  No one, least of all Reformed theologians, would deny that the "coming" of John 6 is a coming in faith, a faith that views Christ as our very spiritual sustenance.  But what is the grounds of that "coming"?  A giving of the Father.  Above and beyond that, in direct contradiction of "whosoever will-ism", Jesus directly asserts that no one is able to come to Him unless drawn by the Father, and that all who are drawn come! (vs 44, 65) The Greek construction there for "no one is able", udice dunatai, allows precious little wiggle room, and implies that the initiation of salvation rests solely on God and precedes the action of man. 
    It would seem in this regrettably brief overview of Jesus' interpretation of the ordo salutis that divine action in making people alive, does in fact, logically precede that faith, but results in it nonetheless.1  I will move on to briefly demonstrate that Paul shares this hermaneutic principle with Christ before addressing "Geisler-isms" on the human will (and one may be able to see my proverbial eschaton from the beginning).
   In Romans 8, Paul sets out the same stark contrast between flesh and spirit (not in a dualistic sense, but in the idea of human deadness, which will be important later) that Christ does, but with even stronger language.  While Jesus gave us a portrait of human helplessness in the analogy of the new birth (how many babies have a say in their birth?), Paul divides the world into two camps, and asserts that minds set on the flesh are dead (vs 6), and do not obey Gods law because they cannot (vs 7).  Perhaps more importantly the activity of the spirit in bringing life is the grounds of the promises of Romans 8:30.  In context of the gracious, life giving action of the Spirit, those who are called are said inevitably to be glorified.  In this, the "golden chain of redemption", Paul continues to expand on Jesus' assertion that those who are given come, and those who come are raised.  But the second birth, the giving of the Father, the life-giving call, precede, textually and logically, the response of the new heart in faith.  Similarly, Paul describes, in his first letter to the Corinthians, the fact that "the natural man...is unable to understand the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned" (1 Co. 2:14).  Is not Faith in Christ "a thing of God"?  Must not the Spirit then, give verse 16's "mind of Christ" (along with Ezekiels "heart of Flesh") prior to the understanding of the things of God?  Dr. Badger must account for texts like John 3, John 6, 1 Co. 2, and Romans 8 in order to be exegetically credible on the order of salvation.

   As may be apparent, the passages I am addressing are monergistic.  There is a lot about the Triune God accomplishing His purposes, about the spiritual death of men, about the sovereign bringing about of the new birth and the glorification of those called.  There is very little about the intrinsic capacity of the unregenerate man to believe.  I do not adhere to "The Princess Bride" theology.  Man is not only mostly dead.  Dr. Badger does an admirable job of providing the historical context of various theories regarding mans deadness in Adam, but then it must be said, radically departs from that context in favor of Dr. Geislers "biblical self-determination".
    Dr. Geisler's analogy of self-determinism on pg. 54 reads "Self-determinism might be likened to a person acting on what he perceives to be good or desirable, to obtain pleasure, or to avoid pain. We can actually decide whether to eat junk food or a balanced meal apart from any externally compelled duress!".  Simply put, Dr. Geisler protests too much.  The question is not whether one desires the "bacon" of sin or the "salad" or Christ, but whether or not Jesus and his apostles consistently taught in the Scriptural witness whether our wills are enslaved to our sinful desires, for as Christ taught "everyone who sins is a slave to sin" (John 8:34).  The question is not whether we are "free to want" but whether or not our "wanters" are broken by sin.  It must be reemphasized that the metaphors of death and birth and slavery continue to recapitulate pictures of human inability, not of self-determined creatures "able to choose otherwise"; and let us not deceive ourselves, the battleground we are on is that of "libertarian" free will.
   Geislers position on the distinction between "person and will", also on pg. 54, is question begging.  Synergists: find Scriptural evidence that a human person is the first cause of their actions, contrary to Genesis 50, the witness of the book of Acts to the use of mans sin in the Crucifixion, and the wisdom of Solomon that The Lord both "directs the steps" of man (Pr. 16:9) and "turns the heart of kings" (Pr. 21:1), or retract your statement.  The entire section of the article on the alleged ability of unregenerate man to believe is bereft of a single Scriptural citation or even footnote, and I submit there is a reason for it; the argument being made lacks a Scriptural witness.
   Leaving aside Dr. Geisler's misrepresentation of Gospel efficacy in Calvinism (it is the Reformed position that the proclamation of the Gospel in human mouths is the secondary cause of regeneration and therefore the claim that Reformed theology "renders useless [the] gospel message to the sinner" (pg. 55) is utterly spurious), I briefly want to touch on the GES position on the nature of Faith and depravity.  The analogy of the man in the well goes far farther than to assume that regeneration follow faith: it challenges the Reformed (and might I be so bold, Scriptural) definition of regeneration.  The man is not waiting for our Fireman's steel cable; the man is dead.  The well is filled with water, and probably sharks.  But when the man is resurrected, he does not come out of the well with Wilkin's faith that is "a conviction that He is the Guarantor of eternal life"(pg 57), or rather, he does not come out of the well only with the conviction that the Fireman drew him from the well.  The man, who is a recipient of resurrection power with the prophesied heart, mind and Spirit of Christ, brings the Fireman into his life, and (since the analogy breaks down as Christ is greater than any human savior), turns "the Fireman" into the model of his character and life.
   Robert Wilkin, in his 2005 debate with Dr. James White on the issue of the nature of Faith was pressed into acknowledging that faith in Christ is a mere intellectual assent, comparing faith in Christ's salvation to "faith in the projector" (on which slides for the debate were appearing) being the acknowledgment of the existence of the projector.  Dr. Badger, as giving the "free grace" position, must answer for what regeneration actually accomplishes in light of James 2.  I submit that this "assent to the drawing of the Fireman" is not only sub-biblical in its anthropology as illustrated above, but sub-biblical in its soteriology.  The ESV renders participles in James 2:14 in such a way as to render the verse "can that faith save him?"  Which faith?  That faith that is without works.  What does that faith look like?  The belief "that there is one God", which even the demons have!  It is vital to harmonize the book of James to avoid imbalance.  On the one hand we find Roman Catholicism and similar systems, which make 2:14 join works to faith as intrinsically justifying before God.  On the other we have Dr. Wilkin, who denies that a faith without works is dead.  Dr. Badger has of course, not echoed Dr. Wilkin verbatim in this article, but it is absolutely vital to question those who share Dr Badgers convictions on faith and depravity to ask: "does saving faith sanctify, or not".
   Dr. Badger states that his view of depravity "... may be seen as a separation from the joys of God’s presence, a non-appreciation of His virtues, and an inclination to fall short of His character in our actions. The lost-ness of the human race, however, does not mean that man acts as badly as he is capable of, that he cannot think logically, that he cannot hear and understand the propositions of the gospel, or that he is unable to believe the truth. Man is rightly considered to be dead in sin, and by nature the child of wrath, but he still retains the image of God in his being. That image seems to carry with it an ability to believe the gospel"(pg. 60).  Again, question-begging.  Again, a dearth of Scriptural witness.  If we are dead children of wrath, can we believe prior to divine assistance?  I believe I have laid out a preliminary case to spark research but also to respond negatively.  I must also conclude with the assertion that stating that logic, while marred in the unregenerate person, is not totally effaced (although the gospel itself is "foolishness to the world"), and that all men do not act as badly as they can (which is refuted in every notable Reformed systematics text), are positions I hold.  These are frequent canards, which as is regrettably common in anti-Reformed polemic, are joined to true statements about the Reformed standpoint.  Man is in fact incapable of understanding without the Spirit, and incapable of belief without the prompting of God.  That is why there is a T in my Tulip.
   Join me next time in pt. 2 of this response, regarding the infamous doctrine of "unconditional election".  As we move forward, I will build on prior information in order to demonstrate that the following points of the TULIP acrostic build on each other both Scripturally and in logical order, making this something of a "cascading argument".  Pressing on, I urge readers that as the Father sends the Son and gives him a people, the Son dies on behalf of those given, and the Spirit works on the hearts of men to apply that redemption, consider the question: "does the sovereign God in His Trine will save men, or make men savable?"

In Christ,
~JS.

1. Not for nothing am I only using gospel passages from the gospel of John, as it was the late Dr. Hodge's perspective that the gospel of John is the only one written to Gentiles and because it does not contain the explicit word "repent", supports most out of the four gospels his position on faith and repentance, an assertion I would sharply contest.