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.Good advice for seminary students!
Justin Taylor reminds us of Jacques Barzun’s comments on writing.
Great Breakfast
It was fun to join Dan Churchwell for breakfast this morning. Dan is 2001 graduate of Central Seminary. He went on for further education, then taught in several institutions of higher learning. Dan is now the Associate Director of Program Outreach for the Acton Institute.
The Acton Institute is one of the most important present-day conservative think tanks. It focuses primarily on economic issues. While it is not a specifically Christian organization, it recognizes the importance of core Judeo-Christian ideas for a free and virtuous society. Its publications and seminars are valuable tools that more Christians (including fundamentalists) should take advantage of.
A sign of the times.
Family Christian Bookstores are shuttering all 240 stores and laying off more than 3000 employees. Read about it here.
Lessing’s Ditch and the Reliability of the Gospels
Peter Gurry (PhD Cambridge) offers a balanced, evangelical review of Anthony Le Donne’s book What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? It’s worth a look.
Moreover, “the best explanation of many textual variants” in the Gospels is not “that there was no one original story” but that copying by hand is hard work. That explanation may be banal, but that does not make it less true. To be sure, some significant variants in the gospels may be due to the influence of oral tradition(s), but that hardly demonstrates that our copies of Matthew’s Gospel do not descend from an original manuscript.
Rolland McCune on the Coherence of Scripture
If there is but one unified, non-contradictory network of biblical truth, indeed of all truth, due to the eternal self-consistency of the self-contained tri-unity of the God of all truth, it follows that there must be an honest attempt to resolve difficulties within the Scripture. One simply does not have the luxury of rejoicing in biblical antinomies and ultimate unintelligibility, due to the majesty and other-worldliness of the Bible and the finiteness of human understanding. Scripture was given in human languages to be understood by human beings and carries an essential and indigenous perspicuity. There is a unitary authorship between God and the human authors that has resulted in a Bible that conveys infinite divine truth through purely human beings and their languages with their linguistic categories. Both the writers and their first readers/hearers understood the essence of God’s message and were not caught up in an impenetrable fog of linguistic opaqueness.
Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity, Vol. 3, ,p. 104
Reviews of Jeff Brown, Corporate Decision Making
Jeff Brown is missionary (Baptist Mid-Missions) to Germany who earned his research doctorate from Central Seminary. He published his dissertation as Corporate Decision-Making and the Church of the New Testament (Pickwick Publications). The volume has recently been reviewed both by Ministry Today and by the Expository Times. Congratulations to Dr. Brown on recognition for a fine volume.
The Fundamental Baptist Fellowship is No More!
Word comes to us that the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International is no more. Actually they haven’t really gone. They just changed their name! At their recent board meeting, we understand that the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship leadership voted to change their name to Foundations Baptist Fellowship, retaining the FBF shorthand version but changing its name because the term “fundamental” is no longer useful. We understand they intend to continue to “proclaim and defend the historic Baptist fundamentals.” At the time of this writing, the fbfi.org website has yet to be updated but we assume this is coming soon.
Recker on the Millennium
Some years ago, Sam Storms published a brief explanation of why he abandoned premillennialism for amillennialism. Recently, Pastor Matt Recker of New York has written what I think is a convincing reply, “Why I Cannot Change My Mind on the Premillennial Return of Christ.” Recker’s reply is particularly significant in view of the importance of the doctrine of the Lord’s return. Thanks to Pastor Recker for the essay, and to the FBFI for publishing on Proclaim and Defend.
Storms finds it impossible to believe in the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth for 1,000 years for a number of reasons and concludes that “premillennialists must believe what the NT explicitly denies.” Major points that he insists that are a clear contradiction to NT teaching is that premillennialists must “believe that physical death will continue to exist beyond the time of Christ’s second coming.” He also insists that the “the New Heavens and the New Earth are introduced immediately following the parousia.”
Does the Scripture teach explicitly and without any doubt what Storms says that it does?
No, it does not. I wholeheartedly disagree with Storms on these points and other details he says the New Testament cannot teach regarding Christ’s literal earthly kingdom. Let’s consider these two points in further detail and then conclude with John’s chronology in the Book of Revelation, a chronology which contradicts Storms’ amillennialism.
BJU to regain Tax-Exempt Status
After more than three decades without it, BJU, on March 1st, will regain its non-profit status. Read about it here.
Africa Debunked
Amy Medina debunks ten myths that Americans entertain about Africa. Interesting.
Intertextuality
Kyle Dunham of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary explains what intertextuality is and what uses it has. Part One.
Staying Sane
Heather Wilhelm is writing about the Trump presidency (and doing it well), but what she says actually applies to much of life. Particularly fundamentalist life.
People are welcome to critique whatever they’d like, of course. These days, in fact, it seems that endless critique is the sole function of our increasingly joyless social media. But therein lies the second step to sanity in the age of Trump: More often than not, it’s worthwhile to tune out of the social-media yell-fests. “I have come to believe that it is impossible for anyone who is regularly on social media to have a balanced and accurate understanding of what is happening in the world,” the professor Alan Jacobs wrote at The New Atlantis on January 23. “To follow a minute-by-minute cycle of news is to be constantly threatened by illusion.”
“Boy” Scouts Surrenders Gender Binary
Apparently, from now on “boy” scouts may be biological girls, as long as they identify as boys on their applications. This from BSA:
Starting today, we will accept and register youth in the Cub and Boy Scout programs based on the gender identity indicated on the application. Our organization’s local councils will help find units that can provide for the best interest of the child.
The Boys Scouts says that it takes this step “while remaining true to our core values, outlined in the Scout Oath and Law.”
Apparently the Scout Oath and Law no longer reflect conformity to reality.
Scharf Interviews Vlach
Michael Vlach is one of the most important voices in contemporary Dispensationalism. Here he is interviewed by Paul Scharf of Dispensational Publishing House.
“Importantly, I view myself as a friend and ally of all forms of dispensationalism,” Vlach continued. “I learn from both older and newer dispensational scholars, and I go to meetings of traditional, revised and progressive dispensationalists. I truly learn and respect the writings from all four categories of dispensationalism. I do not feel like I have to own one camp and reject the others.”
Second Temple Purity Practices and Jewish Baths
From the American Schools of Oriental Research comes a new presentation on the mikva’ot, used by Second Temple Jews for ritual bathing.
Most ritual baths were located in residential contexts, in the basement or ground floor of houses as well as in shared domestic courtyards. The phenomenon of ritual baths installed in private homes was prevalent across the entire socioeconomic gamut, from simple dwellings in rural villages to lavish mansions such as those found in the Upper City of Jerusalem and the royal palaces of the Hasmoneans and of Herod the Great. Numerous ritual baths have been found near entrances to the Temple Mount, in close proximity to the Huldah Gates in the southern wall and Robinson’s Arch and Wilson’s Arch in the western wall. These were apparently public ritual baths, intended for the use of the multitude of pilgrims who visited the Temple on the festivals and throughout the year and required purificatory immersion prior to entering the sacred realms of the Temple.
Alexander’s Counsel on the Lord’s Day
As, undoubtedly, the celebration of public worship and gaining divine instruction from the divine oracles, is the main object of the institution of the Christian sabbath, let all be careful to attend on the services of the sanctuary on this day. And let the heart be prepared by previous prayer and meditation for a participation in public worship, and while in the more immediate presence of the Divine Majesty, let all the people fear before him, and with reverence adore and praise his holy name. Let all vanity, and curious gazing, and slothfulness, be banished from the house of God. Let every heart be lifted up on entering the sanctuary, and let the thoughts be carefully restrained from wandering on foolish or worldly objects, and resolutely recalled when they have begun to go astray. Let brotherly love be cherished, when joining with others in the worship of God. The hearts of all the church should be united in worship, as the heart of one man. Thus, will the worship of the sanctuary below, be a preparation for the purer, sublimer worship in the temple above.
Archibald Alexander, A Brief Compend of Bible Truth, 193-194.
A Ban on Muslims or a Political Ideology
One of my greatest objections to candidate Trump was his threat to ban Muslim immigration. As a Baptist, I believe firmly that religion should never be made a test of legal standing. With President Trump’s immigration ban going into effect, it’s time to revisit this issue–and Andrew C. McCarthy is doing just that at National Review. He argues that President Trump is not banning Muslims, but adherents to a particular political ideology. And there is a difference.
Page and Screen
Should the novel be redefined to include serial cable television? Erik P. Hoel addresses the problem of fiction in an age of screens. His essay interacts with the work of several media critics, including David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. This is an important discussion for pastors who hope to understand what is happening within their congregations.
At a recent scientific conference, I got the chance to wear a virtual-reality headset for the first time. As Wallace could discern so clearly, the seductively soft hand of entertainment has our civilization by the throat, and when I put those goggles on and marveled at what I saw, I felt a tightening. The solution offered by Infinite Jest to entertainment addiction is hard work and monastic concentration on some abstract entity — what Wallace referred to as “worship.” (Worship being exactly what a book as dense as Infinite Jest requires to read; the book itself tries to be a cure for what it diagnoses.)
In the Nick of Time
Jeff Straub introduces Emmanuel Malone, who will deliver Central Seminary’s Charles MacDonald Lectures. His topic is “Race and the Church.”
The Lord’s Table As Sacrifice?
Peter Leithart, a key advocate of the Federal Vision, looks at the joint Lutheran-Catholic statement on the Eucharist. In keeping with his recent direction, he finds hope for increasing rapprochement between Catholics and Protestants.
It often thought that in Catholic-Protestant debates, one side must win and the other side lose; or, that the current lines of division are permanent and quasi-eternal. The discussion of Eucharistic sacrifice shows that this is not the case. On this issue, both sides had to modify their positions; fresh reflection and study opened up new possibilities for common confession of the faith.
APPLICATION & AID