Theology Central
Theology Central exists as a place of conversation and information for faculty and friends of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Posts include seminary news, information, and opinion pieces about ministry, theology, and scholarship.To Ash Or Not To Ash
An interesting perspective on Ash Wednesday.
Liberalism Is Alive and Well
As I sat and listened to the talk, I could well have been in the early years of the twentieth century listening to an old liberal like George Burman Foster or Shailer Mathews, noted modernists of the University of Chicago. Though Foster and Mathews have long been dead, the ethos of their theological liberalism is alive and well on the fringes of modern day evangelicalism. To be clear, the presenter spoke as if the term “evangelical” no longer describes him. But he was at one time a professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary—until his book Inspiration and Incarnation was published, leading to his (forced) resignation. Today, he is at Eastern University.
I am writing about Peter Enns. The Enns story is old news in evangelicalism, his departure from Westminster coming nearly ten years ago. But Enns happened to be in town last week speaking at St. Philip the Deacon Lutheran Church, affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The church is just a few miles from Central Seminary. Several of us went to the hour-and-a-half presentation, in which Enns lectured for forty-five minutes and fielded questions for the rest of the time. In the lecture, he gave us a sampling of his views. In the Q&A, he took questions mostly on the implementation of those views into the world of today. It was enlightening to be sure.
Enns is an engaging speaker. His was no dry lecture of boring research, painfully presented. He is humorous, self-effacing and light-hearted—just the kind of guy you want to lead a movement. He is controversial on several levels, which also makes him interesting. His publications, most notably Inspiration and Incarnation and The Evolution of Adam, evidence a very low view of Scripture. The Bible simply cannot be taken at face value. It is full of myths that need to be measured and interpreted. It does not tell us information about human origins, and its presentation of God is, in many places, deeply flawed. Last week, Enns did nothing to mitigate his writings. The crowd of several hundred, for the most part, just soaked in his words without objection.
Because of the theological transformation that has occurred in his life, Enns has had to learn to live with a significant amount of uncertainty. In fact, the only thing that Enns was “certain” about was the “uncertainty” of most everything else. We just need to learn to live with the clouds of doubts. He has and so should we. Several of us who attended the lecture met the following day for lunch to discuss what we had heard. It was “certainly” a stimulating discussion as we discussed the illogical nature of Enns’s certainty about uncertainty.
As you can imagine, Peter Enns’s uncertainty leads him into other more serious theological problems. One statement he made was particularly telling. He would not believe in “a God who would kill Jesus to keep from killing us.” The notion of the vicarious, substitutionary death, long held in Protestant circles, is detestable to Peter Enns. While this is the core of the doctrine of the atonement, it has long been a theological sticking point for liberals. Many could accept the moral influence theory of atonement or the governmental view of the atonement. But the penal substitutionary view? They find this abhorrent.
Beyond his uncertainty and his view of the atonement, Enns peppered his lecture with comments on creation/evolution. Again, there were no surprises here. Enns has been denying the biblical declarations here also. The creation account is merely a myth, not to be taken literally. But what does denying the biblical witness on creation say about the rest of the Scriptures? How often does God tie his work back to creation? What does denying the Genesis record do for one’s acceptance of Colossians 1:15 that declares that by Jesus “all things were created”? I know Enns has answers to these questions, but when you begin to slice off parts of the Bible, you must face questions like “how much is left?” and “where will all this lead us?”
To his credit, Enns is forthright. When a man comes out and tells you what he actually believes, you have something to work with. In the early days of theological liberalism, there was a certain amount of obfuscation. Liberals in general and the Chicago men in particular were careful to dissimulate in such a way that they sounded orthodox, keeping their heterodoxy under the radar. An exception was George Burman Foster, whose plain speech brought the University of Chicago under continual fire. He was kicked out of the Chicago Baptist Ministerial Association and William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, finally transferred him out of the Divinity School into the University. However, his influence on the students continued unabated until his death. In the end, he abandoned any semblance of orthodoxy and became, at best, a Unitarian. To really understand the trajectory of a man like Enns, one need only to read Foster’s The Finality of the Christian Religion. Foster there argues that Christianity need not be the final human religion. Like everything else, religion evolves. Enns implied as much at the end of his talk when he suggested that the doubts of some might lead them beyond Christianity. Lead them where?
Let’s be clear what we are talking about here. What Peter Enns said last week in Plymouth, Minnesota, is nothing less than new iteration of old theological liberalism. Casting doubt on the Genesis record, disputing the supernatural nature of the Scriptures, and denying the work of Christ was the stuff of the liberalism of the latter nineteenth century. Such liberalism raised the ire of the evangelicals who became fundamentalists in response to the error. Enns’s views are unvarnished liberalism, pure and simple. Certainly, there are some missing elements of old liberalism in its modern permutation (e.g. a post-millennial optimism), but its theological essence abides. It was a failed theology in the early twentieth century and it will be a failed theology now. H. Richard Niebuhr’s summary of the old liberalism seems apropos: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross” (The Kingdom of God in America, [1937], 193).
This essay is by Jeff Straub, Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
One There Is, Above All Others
John Newton (1725–1807)
One there is, above all others,
Well deserves the name of Friend;
His is love beyond a brother’s,
Costly, free, and knows no end;
They who once His kindness prove,
Find it everlasting love!
Which of all our friends to save us,
Could or would have shed their blood?
But our Jesus died to have us
Reconciled in Him to God;
This was boundless love indeed!
Jesus is a Friend in need.
Men, when raised to lofty stations,
Often know their friends no more;
Slight and scorn their poor relations
Though they valued them before.
But our Savior always owns
Those whom He redeemed with groans.
When He lived on earth abased,
Friend of sinners was His name;
Now, above all glory raised,
He rejoices in the same;
Still He calls them brethren, friends,
And to all their wants attends.
Could we bear from one another
What He daily bears from us?
Yet this glorious Friend and Brother
Loves us though we treat Him thus;
Though for good we render ill,
He accounts us brethren still.
O for grace our hearts to soften!
Teach us, Lord, at length to love;
We, alas! forget too often
What a Friend we have above;
But when home our souls are brought,
We will love Thee as we ought.
Baptismal Regeneration in Acts 2:38
Some professing Christians believe that baptism is a sufficient condition of the forgiveness of sins. Others believe that baptism, while not a sufficient condition of forgiveness, is nevertheless a necessary condition. Roman Catholicism belongs to the former category; the Stone-Campbell (the Churches of Christ and the Christian Churches) movement to the latter. Both views may rightly be labeled as baptismal regeneration.
Among those who affirm baptismal regeneration, one of the most popular proof texts is Acts 2:38, “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Catholics and Campbellites take this verse to mean that people must be baptized in order to have their sins forgiven. Many Baptists have responded by insisting that the preposition for (eis in Greek) is causal in use, meaning that people should be baptized because their sins have been forgiven. Neither interpretation, however, deals seriously with the construction baptize for or into (baptizein eis) as it is used in the New Testament.
Obviously, the most basic use of baptizein eis is material: to be baptized into something is to be physically immersed in it. For example, Mark 1:9 states that Jesus was baptized “into the Jordan.” The idea is that he was immersed in the river. Clearly this material use is not in view in Acts 2:38, where Peter commands people to be baptized, not into a substance, but into an abstraction (forgiveness).
The New Testament contains several examples of baptizein eis being used metaphorically. One of the most intriguing is found in 1 Corinthians 10:2. In context, Paul says that the Israelites were under the cloud and passed through the sea—a kind of symbolic immersion. He then claims that they were “baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” To be baptized into a person means metaphorically to be identified with that person. By passing under the cloud and through the sea, the nation of Israel was identified with Moses.
In the same way, Paul asks whether the Corinthians were “baptized in the name of Paul.” Again the construction is baptizein eis, and Paul is asking whether the Corinthians’ baptism identified them with him. He repudiates this idea, expressing horror “lest any should say that I had baptized in my name.” Clearly the significance of water baptism was to identify people with Christ, not with Paul.
In fact, identification with Christ is exactly the point in Acts 8:16. Samaritans had received the word of God, but they had not received the Holy Spirit. They were, however, “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Water baptism identified the Samaritans with Jesus and marked them as His followers.
As an aside, being baptized “in the name of Jesus” does not mean the same thing in Acts 8:16 that it means in Acts 2:38. In Acts 8, the preposition is eis, which implies baptism into identification with Jesus. In Acts 2, the preposition is epi, which implies being baptized upon the authority of Jesus. Submission to Jesus’ authority was a central issue for those whom Peter had just charged with crucifying their Messiah.
Back to the main point: water baptism identifies recipients with Jesus. It also identifies them with the entire Godhead. Part of the mission of the church is to make disciples by “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Mat. 28:19). Here the same idiom is at work: to be baptized into (eis) a person or into a name is to be identified with that person or name.
A comparable use occurs in 1 Corinthians 12:13, where Paul says that “we all are baptized by one spirit into one body.” Based on Paul’s consistent use of the term Spirit in the immediate context, he must be referencing the Holy Spirit. He says that “we all” are baptized “by one Spirit” (the Greek preposition here is en), but into (eis) one body. Based on his use of “by one Spirit” (en pneumati) in verses 3 and 9, the Spirit must be the one who does the baptizing, and He baptizes into the one body. In this case, baptizein eis points to the fact that this baptizing work of the Spirit identifies or even unites all believers with the one body, the body of Christ.
These are all examples of the metaphorical use of baptizein eis. They are not the only ones. Very consistently, this phrase functions as an idiom for identification. Does this usage hold, however, when baptizein eis is used with an abstraction?
Matthew 3:11 yields a clear answer to this question. In that verse John says, “I indeed baptize with water unto repentance.” Materially, John baptized people into water. Metaphorically, he baptized them “unto repentance.” That cannot possibly mean that he baptized them with a view to repentance; clearly people sought John’s baptism only because they were already repenting. Consequently, their baptism indicated that they were repenting. It identified them as repenters.
The metaphorical use of baptizein eis is regular throughout the New Testament. Whether used with a person, a name, or an abstraction, it functions idiomatically to express identification with the thing into which one is immersed. The New Testament includes no exceptions to this regular use.
Consequently, in Acts 2:38 Peter is commanding those who repent to be baptized in identification with the forgiveness of sins. Their baptism was the badge that identified or labeled them as those who were forgiven. Just as John’s baptism identified its subjects as repenters, Christian baptism identifies its subjects as forgiven people. In other words, water baptism in Acts 2:38 functions as neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition of salvation, but as a declaration that one has been saved. This verse cannot be used to prove baptismal regeneration.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Let All the Heathen Writers Join
Isaac Watts (1674–1748)
Let all the heathen writers join
To form one perfect book;
Great God, if once compared with Thine,
How mean their writings look!
Not the most perfect rules they gave
Could show one sin forgiv’n,
Nor lead a step beyond the grave;
But Thine conduct to heav’n.
I’ve seen an end to what we call
Perfection here below;
How short the powers of nature fall,
And can no further go!
Yet men would fain be just with God
By works their hands have wrought;
But Thy commands, exceeding broad,
Extend to every thought.
In vain we boast perfection here,
While sin defiles our frame,
And sinks our virtues down so far,
They scarce deserve the name.
Our faith and love, and every grace
Fall far below Thy Word;
But perfect truth and righteousness
Dwell only with the Lord.
Lessons from a Visiting Missionary
One of the real delights of working at the seminary is the opportunity to hear the visiting chapel speakers. Our students get the privilege of hearing from some choice servants of the Lord. A recent missionary was no exception. It was a special blessing for me to hear him, as the brother who spoke was in my graduating class at Detroit back in 1994. Since that graduation, we have had little communication, serving the Lord in two geographically remote worlds.
As my friend shared his testimony, I smiled a good bit listening to him tell of the influence of his pastor who served as “the voice of the Holy Spirit” in this brother’s life. When I came to Central Seminary in 2004, then-president Kevin Bauder introduced me to the new students at orientation as “the voice of the Holy Spirit for missions.” It’s a title I happily wear as I recognize that I (and the other professors) can be, and often are, the means through which our students discover the will of God for their lives—both in the short term and for the long term.
Our speaker recounted several times when his pastor, working as an agent of the Holy Spirit, told him what he should do. The first time regarded his education: “If you are going to serve the Lord, you need a seminary education.” By his own account, he wasn’t the academic type, that quality belonging more to his brother. But he heeded the “suggestion” and went to Detroit (his pastor’s alma mater) and earned the MDiv. My friend was glad he did. He went on to challenge our students about thorough academic preparation for serving the Lord, particularly if they are headed to the mission field. My friend eventually earned a ThM and a DMin. His training has stood him in good stead as he has worked at training national pastors in several places in Asia. You can only give out what you have taken in. “Get your education, then go serve the Lord” was his counsel.
Sadly, some men think that they need to shorten their preparation to get to the field. I am told that Dr. Richard V. Clearwaters, our founder, often said that if he had but four years to live to serve God he would spend the first three in seminary preparing. I have been known to suggest to a few would-be missionaries that they weren’t sufficiently prepared to do what they were planning to do. No man with a Bible institute or Bible college degree should think that he has the training to teach in a pastoral training ministry at home or overseas. We can only teach what we know and what we have done. Fruitful service requires adequate preparation. The more you want to do, the more your need for training.
This brought the conversation to a second “Holy Spirit” moment through my friend’s pastor. After his seminary training was over, my friend thought he was ready to go to the mission field. “Not so fast,” was his pastor’s reply. “You probably should get some local church experience first.” My friend again bowed to the pressure of the pastor’s importunate suggestion as the Spirit’s voice and took a pastoral staff position. He was glad he did. His pastor had given him good advice, and as a young man eager to do well in the Lord’s work my friend submitted to the counsel.
There were other occasions when his pastor counseled him. My friend recognized the divinely placed voice in his life and has had a blessed ministry thus far. The end of the story, at least to date, is that my friend has had a fruitful ministry in several countries. He prepared himself for a lifetime of ministry and God has moved him around the world to fulfill His divine work through this man and his family. It was a blessing to hear his testimony and to have him lead a conversation for my students in our missions class.
There was another lesson or two our brother shared with us about his life. Following Christ may come with adversity. Along his journey, my friend has had some real challenges not of his own making. Twenty-three years ago, my friend’s first child was born prematurely. It was discovered that she had a heart defect that would require surgery. The surgery was scheduled and performed. It seemed to go well, but a few days later tragedy struck and his daughter had a complication that has left her needing a lifetime of care. It was a deep sorrow but one in which my friend and his wife turned to the Lord in their hour of grief. Moreover, it did not deter their determination to follow Christ. For more than two decades, they have borne their burden with Christ’s strength and served the Lord in Asia.
Were things difficult? Undoubtedly. But they handled their situation in the strength of Christ. Then tragedy struck again. My friend’s wife was diagnosed with cancer—and she was listed as terminal. The doctors could not cure the disease; they could only hope to extend her life a bit. My eyes well with tears even writing the story. First a disabled child, and then the thought of losing his wife of twenty-five years.
Remarkably, my friend, despite this heavy load, was able to minister to our students cheerfully about the needs of the world and the journey the Lord has brought his family on. I paused the conversation at one point to comment to my students on the ways of God. We have our plans for life and God has His. We must be careful to bow to His will always and not simply wish for our own will. When we set out on our journey by faith to follow Christ, we never know just where that journey will lead us, even through the “valley in the shadow of death.” We need “fear no evil” because He is with us! Even the difficult paths become occasions for us to shine as a light in the darkness. I would wish my friend’s journey on no one. But I would hope that if we go through a similar path, we will find God’s strength even as my friend has found it. Thanks, dear brother, for your testimony. Praise be to God for His faithfulness through it all!
This essay is by Jeff Straub, Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Our Great High Priest Is Sitting
A. P. Cecil (1841–1889)
Our great High Priest is sitting
At God’s right hand above,
For us His hands uplifting,
In sympathy and love;
Whilst here below, in weakness,
We onward speed our way;
In sorrow oft and sickness,
We sigh and groan and pray.
Through manifold temptation,
My soul holds on its course,
Christ’s mighty intercession
Alone is my resource;
My gracious High Priest’s pleadings,
Who on the cross did bleed,
Bring down God’s grace and blessings,
Help in each hour of need.
‘Twas God’s most gracious favour
Gave Thee, His Son, to die;
To live our Intercessor;
To plead for us on high.
O Jesus, blessed Savior,
Who soon for us will come,
Redemption’s work completed,
Our battle fought, and won.
A Fundamentalist’s Education
Word has come that Donald K. Campbell passed away last Sunday, January 14. Campbell was the third president of Dallas Theological Seminary, following John Walvoord and preceding Chuck Swindoll. He was still the president when I moved to Dallas to work on a Ph.D. in 1991.
At the time I was still completing a D.Min. program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity school. I had been looking for an academic doctorate, but I had not found a fundamentalist institution with a program that I considered especially responsible. I flirted with the idea of doing a Ph.D. in philosophy or intellectual history at a state school, but I really wanted to work on a bundle of ecclesiological issues. In the long run I settled on Dallas because its Ph.D. combined systematic and historical theology—disciplines that I believe are inseparable.
I wish that I could share my impressions of Campbell, but I can’t recall ever having seen the man, let alone met him. I rarely attended the chapels, and other opportunities for doctoral students to interact with the president were few. I did meet Swindoll after he became president at Dallas—he actually stopped me on a sidewalk outside Turpin Library and struck up a conversation. The president at TEDS when I was there was Kenneth M. Meyer, and I never saw him, either (he actually died just over a year ago in Plymouth, Minnesota—the same town where Central Seminary is located).
My college and seminary degrees (B.A., M.Div., Th.M.) were from fundamentalist institutions. By the time I began doctoral studies, I had already taught in a fundamentalist college and held a pastorate in a fundamentalist church. Unlike many young fundamentalists (then or now) I was actually moving in a more conservative direction than the fundamentalism in which I had been reared. That direction is what raised the ecclesiological questions that I wanted to probe.
TEDS never had been a fundamentalist institution. Dallas was considered fundamentalist up until about 1972, when the school chose to participate in Explo ’72. After that event, most of the fundamentalists exited the faculty (though Robert Lightner remained). My impression during the 1990s was that Dallas was still trying to live down its reputation for fundamentalism.
In any case, I was given a cordial welcome at both institutions. I found myself in classes with graduates from many noteworthy seminaries and divinity schools, and I discovered that my college and seminary had prepared me as well as or better than all but a handful of them. For some reason—perhaps because I was an older student—I was never in awe of my professors, but I did enjoy the interaction with them. They covered quite a spectrum in terms of their positions and their direction. My official adviser at TEDS assigned me to an unofficial adviser from Garrett who was not even an evangelical. He was a postliberal theologian in the vein of Hans Frei. When I defended my major project, my official adviser invited me to leave the narrow world of fundamentalism for the broader pastures of the evangelical world. My unofficial adviser then interrupted him to invite me to come all the way over into the real world of mainstream ecumenism. He even offered me a job.
That was actually the only time that anybody in those schools tried to talk me out of fundamentalism (though a few fundamentalists have subsequently tried to throw me out). Instead, I found that my professors mostly considered fundamentalism to be a serious position. One even defended Jack Hyles in class. Rather than trying to argue me out of my fundamentalist ideas, these men probed and prodded to force me to sharpen those ideas. They genuinely wanted me to be the best fundamentalist that I could be.
During those years I had the opportunity to view the evangelical world at close quarters. I saw how things worked officially, but I was also privy to the kind of “closed door” conversations and meetings that reveal where the levers of power are really being pulled. What I discovered is that evangelicals were neither more nor less political, petty, and even vicious than fundamentalists. Neither were they any more or less thoughtful, generous, and even magnanimous. Human nature is human nature.
During about fifteen years in these institutions, I was never tempted to leave fundamentalism for the broader evangelical movement. I found plenty of ministry to keep me busy where I already was. I didn’t need a broader field of service, I wasn’t interested in greater prestige or respectability, and I couldn’t see that broader evangelicalism had solved any of the problems that confront fundamentalists. Furthermore, my private reading continued to move me toward a greater commitment to both separatism and methodological conservatism—certainly greater than I could find anywhere outside of fundamentalism. I came out of those two evangelical institutions more conservative and more of a separatist than I was when I went in.
That was not the case, however, for some of my peers. Both TEDS and Dallas had plenty of students who grew up in fundamentalist churches and who graduated from fundamentalist colleges. Most of them were younger than me and most had considerably less experience, though there were exceptions to this rule. Some were much brighter than me. I considered these people friends, but I knew that they were moving in a different direction than I was. In the long run, only a few of them remained enthusiastic about the idea of fundamentalism. Many went into broader evangelicalism, and a handful have gone even further (I’m thinking of one in particular who has ended up in the American Baptist Churches USA—the mainline, liberal Baptist denomination).
I am grateful for what both TEDS and Dallas Seminary gave me. I didn’t have a single bad professor in either school. But I am also deeply concerned when I see the large numbers of young men from fundamentalism who have gone to evangelical schools and the small number of them who have ever returned.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Oh, What Their Joy and Their Glory Must Be
Peter Abelard (1079–1142); tr. J. M. Neale (1818–1866)
Oh, what their joy and their glory must be,
Those endless Sabbaths the blessed ones see!
Crowns for the valiant, to weary ones rest;
God shall be all, and in all, ever blest.
In new Jerusalem joy shall be found,
Blessings of peace shall forever abound;
Wish and fulfillment are not severed there,
Nor the things prayed for come short of the pray’r.
We, where no troubles distraction can bring,
Safely the anthems of Zion shall sing;
While for Your grace, Lord, their voices of praise
Your blessed people shall evermore raise.
Now let us worship our Lord and our King,
Joyfully raising our voices to sing:
Praise to the Father, and praise to the Son,
Praise to the Spirit, to God, Three in One.
It Can Never Happen!
Just last week, another high profile pastor admitted to a “sexual incident” when he was a youth pastor twenty years ago. He admitted his indiscretion publicly after which his church gave him a standing ovation for his transparency. He said the relationship was consensual. He was 20 and she was 17. He was in a position of spiritual leadership as a youth leader. She was a youth group member.
One thing needs to be repeated again and again. A pastor or a youth pastor CANNOT have a consensual relationship with a church member! When you are in a positional of spiritual leadership over another person, that relationship makes any sexual encounter an abuse of trust, a taking advantage of someone who is vulnerable. It cannot be “consensual.” Period!
God help us to repent of our tolerance of sin. Thanks to Ed Stetzer for speaking out!
Initial Thoughts on Distance Education
It’s no secret that Central Seminary has begun to deliver seminary courses through distance education. We talked about doing something like this for nearly a decade but were hesitant because we questioned whether we could deliver an on-line educational experience that was comparable to classroom participation. While we were thinking and discussing, the technology was advancing. We are now able to use computer technology to bring students from virtually anywhere in the world into our classrooms in real time.
We experimented with this technology for about a year before moving ahead. During that year volunteers from all over the world visited my classes. They could see me and the rest of the class on their computer screen, and we could see them. Subsequently, we sought and received clearance from our accreditors to offer courses for credit via synchronous distance ed. We couldn’t advertise these offerings before we received word from the accreditors, so we had only a few students take our distance ed courses last semester. This semester, however, we have seen a jump in the number of students taking advantage of these offerings.
When we began exploring distance education, our personnel evidenced different levels of enthusiasm. Some were quite interested; others were skeptical that a computer screen could deliver a quality educational experience. I was among the most doubtful—I’d seen it done too poorly in too many other institutions. The fact is, however, that many students were more interested in convenience than in quality, and even poorly-managed distance ed programs were siphoning students away from us. Over time we came to feel that we at least had to try to find a way to offer courses that would be comparable to those received by our on-campus students.
My skepticism may have been one of the reasons that I was chosen to help test the technology before we sought permission to implement it. Whether that’s the reason or not, it was good for me to get a sense of how combining resident students and distance students in the same classroom would work. Overall, the experience convinced me that we could indeed offer credible education with the technology at our disposal.
Now I’ve taught distance ed students for real. I believe I’m beginning to get a sense of what is gained and what is lost by bringing students into the classroom through the computer screen. My initial evaluation is that the technology brings both gains and losses.
The losses are real, and can be illustrated by my relationship to the students I’m teaching this week. On the first day I told the class that I’d be going out to lunch on Friday, and I invited any interested students to join me. Of course, that invitation only works for resident students—distance students are not going to travel to Minneapolis for a lunch. That’s the point. In my own education, I probably learned more from my teachers outside the classroom than I did inside. Conversations over lunch in a fast-food place, or over dinner at home, or even over coffee in the lunch room were an important part of the experience. Those are the settings in which I really grew to know my teachers, in which I had the opportunity to probe their thinking, and in which they had the chance to challenge me and nurture me in very personal ways.
This is an experience that our distance students will hardly ever enjoy. Relationships will remain more superficial. In my relationship to these students, I feel more like a delivery system for theological information than I do like a teacher. That’s a problem because Christian teaching requires far more than the transmission of information. I do not believe that I am shaping my students’ theology if I am not shaping their lives, and that sort of shaping is difficult or impossible to accomplish in the classroom alone, especially if the classroom is visible only on a computer screen.
The argument can be made that this sort of discipleship is really the business of the local church and should take place there. I grant that point. But I also insist that biblical and theological learning must never be divorced from accountability, obedience, and affection. By turning seminary professors into information dispensers, I believe that we risk serious damage to the next generation of Christian leadership. The problem will be compounded because they will never know that they missed something irreplaceable.
While this negative is real, I believe that the benefits of distance education more than make up for it, at least in some instances. The greatest benefits are accessibility and affordability. Students do not have to move to Minnesota to take our courses. They do not have to travel to Minneapolis and secure lodging and meals to attend one of our modules. The class I teach next week will have several African students (already teachers in their own country) who could never travel to the United States for advanced education but who can attend class by computer.
In terms of biblical and theological content, our distance students gain the full benefit of seminary education. They really are attending class with our resident students. They hear the same lectures and participate in the same discussions, but they do it from their own desks and kitchen tables. In my judgment, the classroom experience is just as beneficial for distance students as it is for resident students.
On balance, I’ve become a believer in distance education, at least in the way Central Seminary is doing it. At the same time, I’m glad that we still have resident students. A young man who wishes to prepare for ministry will still do better to move to Minneapolis and to participate in the full seminary experience. For students who cannot consider such a move, however, distance education opens possibilities that have never before existed. I welcome those students and hope to get to know them as well as the technology permits.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Jerusalem, My Happy Home
F. B. P. (16th cent)
Jerusalem, my happy home,
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end?
Thy joys, when shall I see?
O happy harbor of the saints,
O sweet and pleasant soil!
In thee no sorrow may be found,
No grief, no care, no toil.
Thy saints are crowned with glory great;
They see God face to face;
They triumph still, they still rejoice:
Most happy is their case.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
God grant that I may see
Thine endless joy, and of the same
Partaker ever be!
The Baptist Paradox
Denominations are like cans of soup. Each can contains a different mix of ingredients, and the label tells you which ingredients to expect. The ingredients of the soup with the Baptist label are called the Baptist distinctives. Taken together, these distinctives set Baptists apart from all other Christians. Briefly stated, the distinctives are:
- The absolute authority of the New Testament for all matters of church faith and order.
- Believer immersion (with emphasis on both words).
- Pure church membership (including regenerate, baptized church members and the practice of church discipline).
- Individual Christian responsibility (including both soul liberty and the priesthood of the believer).
- The right of individual congregations to govern themselves under Christ.
- The separation of church and state.
Christians who label or denominate themselves differently may disagree with any (or all) of these distinctives. Baptists certainly do not believe that they are the only true Christians. What they do believe is that these distinctives are essential for defining what churches are supposed to look like and how they are supposed to operate.
I am a Baptist by conviction. On my view, all of these distinctives are taught by the New Testament. Simply because they are biblical and true, however, does not mean that they are easy to implement. Some distinctives come with complications and tensions. The unwillingness to live with those tensions is part of the motivation that leads some people to reject them.
One example is the Baptist insistence upon the separation of church and state. This distinctive has become one of the political shibboleths of American government, but it began as a Baptist idea and its acceptance is the result of Baptist influence. What is now a secular political principle originated as a Baptist theological conclusion. Originally the political principle rested upon the theological rationale, and even now it can be rightly understood only in terms of that theology. To remove the theological foundation is to ensure that, sooner or later, the political principle will be redefined and misapplied in vicious ways. The necessity for a theological foundation creates a paradox: the only way to keep church and state properly separated is to maintain a theologically informed definition of church-state separation.
The paradox is broader than the mere concept of church-state separation. The social and political institutions of the West have grown out of Christendom. So have the definitions of abstractions such as liberty and justice. These concepts and institutions are informed by Christian (or Judeo-Christian) categories. Eliminating or altering these Christian categories inevitably distorts the definitions and subverts the institutions. If Christian categories do not regulate the institutions, and if the institutions are captured by those who remold them around anti-Christian categories, then the institutions will be used to obstruct the very Christian categories upon which they were erected, and then eventually to oppress Christians.
T. S. Eliot understood the importance of Christian categories for undergirding Western social and political institutions. This understanding led him overtly to deny the separation of church and state. In his essay, “The Idea of a Christian Society,” he argues for the importance of an established church, even if that establishment is merely nominal. He hoped that Christian categories could be upheld formally by the institutions that rested upon them.
Even if Eliot’s proposal might once have worked, however, we are well past that point. Christendom was dethroned long ago by Enlightenment secularism. The education and amusement industries have spent generations redefining the fundamental principles upon which Western, and especially American, institutions rest. A majority of Americans have been taught to fear Christian categories and definitions as a theocratic attack upon the separation of church and state. New definitions have been imposed and are now being enforced by the remolded institutions.
The Anabaptist response has typically been almost the opposite of Eliot’s: to abandon the public sphere. Even under Christendom the Anabaptists saw the political order as dominated by principalities and powers opposed to God. They shunned military and public service, even refusing to swear oaths. The Anabaptist approach, however, is not shared by Baptists, who have rejected the Anabaptist withdrawal from the public sphere as firmly as they have rejected religious establishment.
The Puritans, especially those in America, were true theonomists. They envisioned a society in which theological concerns would dominate the political order and in which the power of the state would enforce ecclesiastical rectitude. Theirs was the regime that whipped Baptists, hanged Quakers, and drove Roger Williams from his sick bed into the wilderness snows of a New England January. Nevertheless, even the rigid and mutual reinforcement of church and state could not permanently shield the Puritans from the pressures of the Enlightenment, nor did it protect them from the corruption and eventual contempt of their own children.
Baptists argued, not for religious toleration, but for genuine religious freedom. The paradox is that religious freedom can only be maintained in a society that holds definitions and principles congenial to Christianity. No other religion—including the presently-dominant religion of radical secularism—has put itself forward as a vigorous defender of soul liberty. The freedom to believe and practice whatever faith one thinks to be true depends upon the social and political dominance of Christianity.
To appearances, by insisting upon a firm separation of church and state, Baptists are effectively depriving themselves of the opportunity to determine the very definitions and institutions upon which that separation depends. In the face of this paradox, some may feel the allure of Eliot’s establishmentarianism, of the Anabaptists’ isolationism, or of the Puritans’ attempt at theonomy. Before submitting to that pull, however, two considerations are worth noting.
First, none of the non-Baptist alternatives has proven itself particularly effective at resisting the corrosive effects of the Enlightenment. Each has given way to some version of modernity and then postmodernity. Furthermore, none has exhibited the power permanently to preserve Christian categories in its surrounding social and political order, let alone to instill those categories where they have been lost. In short, none appears to be any more successful than the Baptist alternative at maintaining a society in which truly Christian liberty will endure for long.
Second, the separation of church and state does not imply the separation of church saints from the public square. Christian individuals can and should participate in the whole social order, including agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, education, the arts, and even politics and jurisprudence. They should bring their Christian definitions and perspectives into the public square with them. Whenever and wherever they can, they should apply their Christian perspectives to the full-orbed business of life.
Christians in secular civilization should aim to pattern themselves after Daniel and the Hebrew children in the Babylonian court. They should remember the counsel of Jeremiah 29:7, to seek the welfare of the city in which they live as exiles. They can and should participate up to the point at which participation requires disobedience to God. As a result, they may sometimes be promoted or they may sometimes be cast into the furnace. In either event, their circumstances and godly responses will place their faith, values, and priorities on display.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
O Lord of Heaven and Earth and Sea
Christopher Wordsworth (1807–1885)
O Lord of heaven, and earth, and sea,
To Thee all praise and glory be;
How shall we show our love to Thee
Who givest all?
The golden sunshine, vernal air,
Sweet flowers and fruit Thy love declare,
Where harvests ripen, Thou art there
Who givest all!
For peaceful homes, and healthful days,
For all the blessings earth displays,
We owe Thee thankfulness and praise,
Who givest all!
Thou didst not spare Thine only Son,
But gav’st Him for a world undone,
And freely with that Blessèd One
Thou givest all.
Thou giv’st the Spirit’s holy dower,
Spirit of life, and love, and power,
And dost His sevenfold graces shower
Upon us all.
For souls redeemed, for sins forgiven,
For means of grace and hopes of heaven,
O Lord, what can to Thee be given
Who givest all?
Defining Culture
South African pastor (and Central Seminary alumnus) David DeBruyn continues his series on “Ten Mangled Words.” Now he’s turning his attention to the word culture.
Jackhammers are not the ideal tool for mixing cake batter. Some mess will almost certainly result. Evangelical Christians using the word ‘culture’ often remind one of a baker with a such a power tool. When most Evangelicals begin writing or speaking on culture, one winces. A migraine is certainly on its way.
Dr. Paul Hartog Speaking at 2018 MacDonald Lectures
Every winter, Central Seminary conducts the MacDonald Lectures Series in Bible and Theology. This year, Paul Hartog, professor at Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary, will present lectures on early Christianity’s relationship with Roman culture.
Dr. Hartog is a churchman, published scholar, and a recognized expert on the early Christian father, Polycarp. He is a frequent speaker and presenter at academic conferences.
Christianity did not begin in a vacuum. As the church began, it was forced to interact with the world in which it was conceived. In doing so, the early church had to deal with many questions. Is the church to separate from culture? Did God call the church to transform culture? To what extent should Christians participate in culture? Answers to these questions remain as pertinent today as two millenia ago. Join us as Dr. Hartog explores the early church and Roman culture.
Schedule
8:00a-8:30 Registration / Greet
8:30-9:30 – Session I
9:30-9:50 – Coffee / Pastry break
9:50-10:50 – Session II (Central Women’s Fellowship will have a sessions for the ladies during this time)
10:50-11:00 – Break
11:00-12:00 – Session III
12:00 – 1:00 – Lunch
1:00-2:30 – Session IV
Purchase tickets here.
Lunch will be be included with purchase of ticket.
Email info@centralseminary with any questions.
Eugene Green, non posse peccare
Eugene Green, 1997 DMin alumnus.
Pastor Gene pastored several churches in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin over the years. Upon retirement from full-time ministry, he served as the Executive Director of Baptists for Life of Wisconsin from 2001 – 2012, traveling throughout the state, speaking in churches and schools, and advocating for the rights of the Unborn.
His obituary is here.
Why Is Christmas on December 25th?
Everyone knows it’s because synchretistic Christians swiped the Roman Saturnalia, right? Guess again. William J. Tighe deals with “Calculating Christmas” for Touchstone Magazine. You don’t have to accept everything in the article to find it interesting.
[T]he pagan feast which the Emperor Aurelian instituted on that date in the year 274 was not only an effort to use the winter solstice to make a political statement, but also almost certainly an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already of importance to Roman Christians.
Christmas Giving
I confess to some ambivalence about gift-giving at Christmas time. As an aspect of the Commercial Christmas, the giving of gifts has become something like an abomination. What once was an occasion for giving has become an obligation to give, coupled too often with the expectation of receiving. It is too often an exercise in second-guessing whether someone else intends to give; failure to reciprocate a gift ranks somewhere between a faux pas and a scandal. Conversely, to present a gift to someone who has not planned to reciprocate is to embarrass that person and, consequently, to embarrass one’s self.
The pressure to find just the right gift begins earlier with each passing year. The number of those who are willing to offer their advice in selecting that gift is legion. The venues through which the gift might be purchased have multiplied, including both brick-and-mortar stores and on-line establishments. The compulsion to acquire such a gift has usurped days that once were devoted to family, recreation, and rest—Black Friday being the darkest example.
In the face of this rampant commercialization, some Christians have simply decided to stop giving gifts. They might make exceptions in the case of children, for whom the unwrapping of presents could still be an uncorrupted aspect of the delight of Christmas. Nevertheless, they do not give anything to each other, choosing to use Christmas as a season of focus upon the incarnation.
I confess to some sympathy with this perspective. I would love to disconnect Christmas entirely from commercialism and avarice. The refusal either to expect or to give presents seems as if it might be a radical and salutary break with an acquisitive culture. And yet….
* * *
The church at Corinth had promised to participate in an offering for the needy saints at Jerusalem. Paul was preparing to travel to Corinth and to receive that offering so that he could transport it to Judea. Evidently, however, the Corinthian believers were wavering a bit in their generosity. There was a chance that their performance might not be as liberal as their promises had been.
Paul wrote 2 Corinthians 8-9 to encourage the Corinthian Christians in their giving. Through this discourse he advances several reasons that believers ought to give unstintingly. One is particularly relevant to the present discussion.
According to Paul, Christian giving is evidence of sincerity in love (2 Cor. 8:8, 24). Believers are able to give, not because they are wealthy, but because they are willing (2 Cor. 8:12). This willingness is motivated by an unmixed love.
As an example of willing giving, Paul chose the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. When believers give sincerely, they are imitating Christ who, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). The self-giving of Jesus becomes a pattern for Christians to copy in their own giving.
Of course, what Paul was talking about is the incarnation and humiliation of Jesus Christ, supplemented by His passion. He was thinking of the Kenosis. Even though Christ subsisted in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God a thing to be selfishly grasped, but emptied Himself, receiving the form of a slave and coming to be in human likeness (Phil. 2:5-8). This Kenosis is the eternal Second Person of the Godhead adding to His divine person a complete human nature, being made temporarily lower than the angels, experiencing the full measure of human weakness, and through His incarnate death and resurrection defeating the one who held the power of death.
In other words, what Paul was talking about is Christmas. He was expounding the very truths to which Christmas directs our attention. In answer to the question, “Why should Christians give?” the apostle pointed to Christmas.
For Paul, giving was inseparable from Christmas. All Christian giving rests upon the foundation of the inestimable gift that they have been given, and that gift is Christ. He did not merely give life. He did not merely give salvation. He gave Himself. This is the giving that rightly motivates believers to give, and to give with an open hand.
The incarnation is our great motivation for giving. That being so, a season devoted to considering the incarnation should also logically be a season devoted to giving. During that season we will give without thought of receiving. We will give to those who could not possibly repay. We will give abundantly, liberally, lavishly, freely, and joyfully. We will give because Christ in His giving has opened the wellsprings of love in our hearts. Our giving will become a part of the true celebration of the incarnation. We will give and bless and rejoice and celebrate, and we will be richer for it.
Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift (2 Cor. 9:15).
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light
Johann von Rist (1607–1667), tr. John Troutbeck (1832–1899)
Break forth, O beauteous heavenly light,
And usher in the morning;
Ye shepherds, shrink not with affright,
But hear the angel’s warning.
This Child, now born in infancy,
Our confidence and joy shall be,
The power of Satan breaking,
Our peace eternal making.
Break forth, O beauteous heavenly light,
To herald our salvation;
He stoops to earth—the God of might,
Our hope and expectation.
He comes in human flesh to dwell,
Our God with us, Immanuel;
The night of darkness ending,
Our fallen race befriending.
All blessing, thanks, and praise to thee,
Lord Jesus Christ, be given:
Thou hast our brother deigned to be,
Our foes in sunder riven.
O grant us through our day of grace
With constant praise to seek thy face;
Grant us ere long in glory
With praises to adore thee.
Do Conservatives Face a Dilemma?
Howard Merken at The Imaginative Conservative thinks so. It’s a quirky article, but worth a read. Merken focuses specifically on a Bob Jones University graduate and on Jerry Falwell.
A conservative can do what he wants in a free country, and that includes supporting conservative causes. But should he think, speak, write, and act in ways that show an intense knowledge of interactions, or should he parrot the slogans of other conservatives without understanding the details and the truths which are often two-sided coins or even multifaceted gems? That is the conservative’s dilemma.
BJU professor enters glory!
It was my privilege to study under Dr. Stewart Custer in the 1970s. He died last night at 86. BJU president Steve Petit wrote about him here. He was quite the man.
Welcome back, Theology Central blog!
Our blog has been on a hiatus in recent weeks as our website has been retooled. The new site launched yesterday and with it our new blog! We are grateful for the opportunity to keep moving forward. One bit of seminary news of interest to our readers. With our adoption of synchronized classroom instruction, we are now able to service students far and wide. As the registrar, I get to “meet” new students in advice of the rest of the faculty. I am pleased to state that our student body next semester will include students from three countries on two continents, all in our regular seminary program. This will mean that good men who cannot move to Minneapolis, especially international students, can still get the same quality education as our on campus students. As of today, we have six incoming international students for next semester. We anticipate that we will be able to take theological education to the world through our Global Initiative and our online instruction. Looking for a place to study? Contact Dan Johnson at djohnson@centralseminary.edu to start a conversation.
1st Cent. Communal Reading and Textual Transmission
An interesting forthcoming look at public reading and textual reliability in the early church. This will be on my list.
I ultimately argue that communal reading events were already a prevailing practice over a wide geographic range in the first century CE, and that these events acted as a conserving force over the transmission of literary traditions.
Bertrand Russell on Math and Epistemology
Now suppose that I am looking at a bright red patch. I may say ‘this is my present percept’; I may also say my present percept exists’; but I must also say ‘this exists,’ because the word ‘exists’ is only significant when applied to a description as opposed to a name. This disposes of existence as one of the things that the mind is aware in objects.
I come now to understanding of numbers. Here there are two very different things to be considered: on the one hand, the propositions or arithmetic, and on the other hand, empirical propositions of enumeration. ‘2+2=4’ is of the former kind; ‘I have ten fingers’ is of the latter.
I should agree with Plato that arithmetic, and pure mathematics generally, is not derived from perception. Pure mathematics consists of tautologies, analogous to ‘men are men,’ but usually more complicated. To know that a mathematical proposition is correct, we do not have to study the world, but only the meanings of symbols; and the symbols, when we dispense with definitions) of which the purpose is merely abbreviation) are found to be such words as ‘or’ and ‘not,’ and ‘all’ and ‘some,’ which do not, like ‘Socrates,’ denote anything in the actual world. A mathematical equation asserts that two groups of symbols have the same meaning; and so long as we confine ourselves to pure mathematics, this meaning must be one that can be understood without knowing anything about what can be perceived. Mathematical truth, therefore, is, as Plato contends, independent of perception; but it is truth of a very peculiar sort, and is concerned with only symbols.
The History of Western Philosophy (1972 ed.), 155.
I may have to pay more taxes! Yikes!
Again a WI judge has struck down the Clergyman’s Residency deduction. It was reversed on appeal before. If it takes affect, it only impacts Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois. But who knows . . . it might change things for all clergymen in time. We’ll see what the Seventh Court of Appeals say this time. Stay tuned.
Bernard Williams on Descartes
APPLICATION & AID