Theology Central

This past Monday, the First Baptist Church of Rockford, Illinois hosted its twentieth Conference on the Church for God’s Glory. The event is always held on the Monday before Memorial Day. It is a small conference, but one of the most useful that I attend.

The conference was first organized by Scott Williquette, who was the pastor of First Baptist Church. The church had just completed a new building and Williquette had a vision for using it to minister to fellow pastors. The conference has always focused on conservative music and expositional preaching, though it has featured presentations of other sorts. Furthermore, CCGG was organized at a time when Illinois Baptists were being subjected to public diatribes against Calvinism. Pastor Williquette hoped to provide a venue where pastors—Calvinistic and otherwise—could fellowship and listen to preaching without some of the heated exchanges that were taking place elsewhere.

By the time Williquette left for a teaching ministry with Baptist Mid-Missions, the congregation at First Baptist had taken ownership of the conference. The Conference on the Church for God’s Glory continued without a hiccup, except for the year when public meetings were banned because of COVID-19. The people of First Baptist have made it their mission to offer a welcoming and encouraging environment to the pastors and others who attend.

While originally a pastors’ conference, CCGG has been gaining a more diverse attendance. Educators and missionaries are conspicuous in the crowd. Many pastors have begun to bring men from their congregations. The past few years have seen more women accompanying their husbands to the meeting.

Geographically, most attendees come from Illinois and Wisconsin. There is always a contingent from Minnesota, another from Iowa, and still another from Michigan. Small numbers come from other states, and this year a pastor even drove down from Quebec to enjoy the meeting.

It is a meeting (singular) and not meetings (plural). The Conference on the Church for God’s Glory is a one-day event. It begins at ten o’clock in the morning and goes until after seven in the evening. During that time, attendees sit through six plenary sessions with generous break times between. There is also an extended lunch break, which allows attendees the opportunity to renew personal friendships.

At this conference, friendships abound. The meeting has no political dimension, offers no opportunities for climbers, has no strings to pull and no wheels to turn. It has no business session, hears no motions or seconds, takes no votes, and passes no resolutions. All it offers is simple fellowship, uncluttered by institutional or organizational entanglements.

The non-political nature of the conference allows the host church to invite an unusual spectrum of speakers. Last year, Bob Jones III, retired president of Bob Jones University, delivered two messages. A few years ago, one of the speakers was Michael Barrett, at that time the dean of Puritan Reformed Seminary. This year, Josh Buice was invited to speak twice. Buice is the pastor of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church near Atlanta, and he is the founder of G3 Ministries.

If you have never heard of G3, it is an organization of mainly pastors who seem to be feeling their way out of an amorphously conservative evangelicalism and toward a position closer to fundamentalism. It appears to have grasped more of conservatism and separatism than the older “gospel-centered” organizations like T4G and The Gospel Coalition. G3 Ministries is consistently conservative when it comes to political and social issues. Its leaders are reacting against the Woke influence within much of the evangelical world. Buice in particular has led his church to sever its ties with the Southern Baptist Convention. Perhaps some of the separatist influence is being mediated through Scott Aniol, who is executive director of G3 Ministries. As it happens, Aniol was one of the pastors at First Baptist Church in Rockford who helped to organize the first meetings of the Conference on the Church for God’s Glory.

At least five institutions of higher education were represented at the conference. These included Central Baptist Theological Seminary (of course!), Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, Maranatha Baptist University, Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary, and Bob Jones University. The faculties of these institutions enjoy a particularly warm relationship, and the CCGG is one of the rare opportunities when they have a chance to visit with each other.

Conferences and seminars are abundant these days. Some of them are sponsored by denominations or quasi-denominations, and they focus on ecclesiastical or para-ecclesiastical business. Others are sponsored by Christian celebrities, and they tend to feature big-name preachers. A pastor with plenty of time (which is oxymoronic) could probably find a conference to attend during every week of the year. If I could only attend one, however, I believe it would be the Conference on the Church for God’s Glory. If fellowship is about what we hold in common, then the conference that holds the most in common with me is CCGG.

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.

People of the Living God

James Montgomery (1771–1854)

People of the living God,
I have sought the world around,
Paths of sin and sorrow trod,
Peace and comfort nowhere found.
Now to you my spirit turns—
Turns, a fugitive unblest;
Brethren, where your altar burns,
Oh, receive me into rest.

Lonely I no longer roam,
Like the cloud, the wind, the wave;
Where you dwell shall be my home,
Where you die shall be my grave,
Mine the God whom you adore,
Your Redeemer shall be mine;
Earth can fill my heart no more,
Every idol I resign.

Tell me not of gain or loss,
Ease, enjoyment, pomp and power;
Welcome poverty and cross,
Shame, reproach, affliction’s hour
“Follow me!” I know the voice!
Jesus, Lord! thy steps I see:
Now I take thy yoke by choice;
Light thy burden now to me.

My employment as a professor at Central Baptist Theological Seminary began in January of 1998, over twenty-five years ago. Charles Hauser was dean of the seminary, and he probably had more to do with recruiting me than anybody else. Doug McLachlan was president and the pastor of Fourth Baptist Church. Tom Zempel occupied the office of assistant to the president and headed up the biblical counseling program. My faculty peers included Ed Glenny, Roy Beacham, Bob Milliman, and Raymond Buck. The registrar at the time was David Capetz, and the advancement officer was Ron Gotzman.

For a month I had an office in the education building of the old Fourth Baptist facility, located in north Minneapolis. It was and is a violent area. Few members of the church lived in that part of Minneapolis. They all drove in for services from the suburbs. When I arrived, Fourth Baptist Church was erecting a new facility in the western suburb of Plymouth while creating a daughter congregation (Family Baptist Church) to continue ministering in north Minneapolis. The seminary moved to the new site at the end of January, and the church followed in April.

From the moment I arrived, both administration and faculty welcomed me with warmth and charity. I was never made to feel that I had to earn my right to be here. I was immediately entrusted with both responsibility and privilege. The three administrators (McLachlan, Zempel, and Hauser) set the tone, treating me as a colleague and partner rather than an employee and underling. When I made mistakes, these men always took a problem-solving approach. I always felt like they had my back.

It was never quite clear to me which of those three was managing what. Theoretically, there must have been specific lines of authority and divisions of responsibility, but these men worked so closely together that every decision appeared to have been made in concert. Furthermore, they actively involved the professors in any decision that was likely to affect the faculty. Working at Central Seminary felt less like taking a job than like becoming part of a family.

Twenty years ago this week I was made president of Central Seminary. I remained in that office for exactly eight years. Doug McLachlan became the chairman of the board, and both Hauser and Zempel found themselves working under my oversight. All three gave me the fullest imaginable support. I had no idea how to be an institutional president. I’d never even had the opportunity to observe the workings of the office. The learning curve was steep, and they helped me at every step. If my service as president brought any successes to Central Seminary, those men (and the faculty who served with me) deserve the credit.

During the final third of my presidency, Matt Morrell became the pastor of Fourth Baptist Church and the chair of the seminary’s board. Then, when I stepped down as president in 2011, Sam Horn was chosen to lead the institution. My plan when I resigned was to leave Central Seminary—not because of any animus toward the school, but because I had seen too many instances in which former leaders made bad followers within the organizations that they had led. I had no wish to cause problems either for Central Seminary or for Sam Horn as its president.

Both Horn and the board, however, asked me to remain. They offered me a very appealing position that made publication a priority. During a two- or three-year period I was able to publish three books and to contribute to a fourth, which is exactly what I had wanted to do. Furthermore, Horn went out of his way to help me learn how to fit into the institution in my new role. He was an insightful leader who placed my interests ahead of his own. For my part, I tried to give him complete support, even when my perspectives differed from his. I still feel that I owe Sam a debt that cannot be repaid.

After Horn left for Bob Jones, I was asked to serve on the committee that selected the new president. The logical choice was Matt Morrell, who agreed to accept the position, subject to our providing a provost who could manage the day-to-day operations of the seminary. Morrell has now occupied the office of president as long as I did, and under his administration the institution has flourished. We have had to adjust the way that we deliver education, but this adjustment has allowed us to grow in a world dominated by technological change, social upheaval, and a worldwide pandemic. It’s a glorious thing when one of your students can become both your pastor and your boss, and you still like and respect him.

One Sunday after Morrell became president, I was preaching for a church in Mason City, Iowa. On my way to church I received a phone call that Tom Zempel had been taken suddenly to be with the Lord. That was a difficult day. As long as he was at Central Seminary, Tom was my strong helper, my counselor, and my friend. He will always have a place in my heart.

Then, a year ago, Charles Hauser slipped into glory after a long physical decline. He had been ready for years, wondering why the Lord left him to linger in a nursing home during the pandemic. Hauser had gone from first being my professor when I was in seminary, to being my boss, to being my adviser and helper. In every stage of our relationship, he was my friend.

Of the three administrators who brought me to Central Seminary, only Doug McLachlan remains. For five years he was my president. For nearly a decade he was my pastor. If you think that nobody can be your boss and your pastor, then you haven’t worked with McLachlan. From the time that I came to Central Seminary and throughout my presidency, I believe that he and his wife Marie prayed for me by name nearly every day.

Administrations come and administrations go. Professors come and professors go. Board members come and board members go. Technologies come and technologies go. The thing that gives a seminary its continuity is the idea that propels it. I believe that the idea behind Central Seminary is the same today as it was when I came here at the beginning of 1998. It is also fully in keeping with the idea that was built into the school by its founder, Richard V. Clearwaters.

In the meanwhile, Central Seminary and its people have been one of God’s magnificent graces in my life. I am grateful to Him for allowing me to serve here, and I am grateful for those people who brought me to this ministry and who have helped me in it. I wish that I had another twenty-five years to give them.

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.

Keep Silence, All Created Things

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Keep silence, all created things!
And wait your Maker’s nod;
My soul stands trembling, while she sings
The honors of her God.

Life, death, and hell, and worlds unknown,
Hang on his firm decree;
He sits on no precarious throne,
Nor borrows leave to be.

His providence unfolds the book,
And makes his counsels shine;
Each opening leaf, and every stroke,
Fulfills some deep design.

My God! I would not long to see
My fate with curious eyes
What gloomy lines are writ for me,
Or what bright scenes may rise.

In thy fair book of life and grace,
Oh, may I find my name
Recorded in some humble place,
Beneath my Lord, the Lamb.

Many church members do not understand how their pastors work, how their pastors should be paid, or why their pastors might need time away from the ministry. The result is that churches often expect more than pastors can humanly deliver. Both the pastor and the church should discuss their expectations frankly. Well-written policies can be part of the solution.

Granted, some pastors are lazy. They need to learn that ministry is not a forty-hour-a-week job. These pastors should look at the business leaders in their communities. Corporate managers rarely work less than sixty hours per week. That number is even higher for small business owners. Church members have a right to expect their pastors to work as hard as they themselves do.

Ministry, however, is not like working on an assembly line or in an office. A pastor’s job falls into three main activities. One is his study, including but not limited to his sermon preparation. Another is the time that he spends administering the work of the church. The third component is the time that he spends with people, whether at hospitals and care facilities, in their homes, or just over coffee. Each of these activities could easily fill a work week in most churches, and many pastors struggle to hold them in balance.

Compounding this pressure is the fact that every pastor knows about multiple organizational time bombs that are ticking away, any one of which could wreck the ministry. Some of them involve tense relationships, some center on differences of priority, some take the form of severe counseling problems, and at least a few involve genuine moral failures. Usually, a pastor knows more about these threats than anyone else in the church; he alone carries the burden of them all.

As if these pressures weren’t enough, every pastor comes under attack at some point in his ministry. He discovers that his sheep can bite, and some of them do. Some men can shrug off personal attacks, but for others, dealing with personal opposition can become overwhelming.

In short, pastoral ministry is joyful, but it is also stressful. It always has been. Even the apostle Paul felt daily pressures that arise from the “care of the churches” (2 Cor 11:24).

To be effective, then, a pastor needs to learn to handle stress. One of the most important ways to do this is occasionally to take time away from the work. Even Jesus recognized the need to set aside times when He and His disciples would leave the work for the sake of resting (Mark 6:31). Jesus also took time out from active ministry for solitude and prayer (Luke 5:16).

If the Master needed times like that, then why would His servants think that they did not? On the contrary, time away from active ministry is one of the most important tools for keeping one’s ministry fresh and effective. These times are important for physical renewal, for building family relationships, for allowing the mind to refocus, and for addressing personal spiritual needs. They are simply indispensable.

A word of caution needs to be offered. Not all time away from a ministry’s location is time away from that ministry. A pastor’s work will sometimes pull him away from his own neighborhood. He is responsible to attend ordination and recognition councils. If his church is affiliated with some larger association or fellowship, then its annual meetings are not time off for him. His presence is necessary to ensure that his church’s voice is heard. Furthermore, ministers are responsible to continue their education as long as they are active, so some weeks out of every year will be spent on conferences and courses. If he is a respected Christian leader, a pastor may well be asked to conduct conferences and classes. All these activities take the minister out of his own community, but none of them helps him to deal with the stress of ministry. Indeed, they add to that stress.

Furthermore, pastors simply cannot take “staycations” in which they have time off while remaining quietly at home. As long as a pastor stays in his own community, he is working. The only way for him to get the rest he needs is to leave (preferably with his family) for some days or weeks.

Generally, it will be weeks. Pastoral ministry is so intense that most pastors cannot begin to lay its burdens aside, even temporarily, within a few days. Many will only begin to relax during the second week of their vacation. An extended time away is genuinely necessary.

How much vacation should a pastor receive? Even ordinary laborers rarely get less than two weeks. That figure can serve as a minimal starting point for pastors, but it should not be the ending point. Increases in vacation time are just as important as increases in pay—and they cost the church less. After two or three years, a pastor should receive at least three weeks of vacation. If he has been in ministry for ten years or more, he should have a month. More senior ministers should rightly be entitled to even more time away.

Incidentally, a church should calculate its pastor’s seniority according to his time in ministry, not his time in a particular, individual work. If a ministry calls a man who already has experience, then he brings his experience with him into that ministry. The whole ministry benefits. A church should count that experience when it decides what benefits it will offer its pastor. For example, if he has pastored one church for seven years and another for eight, then he has fifteen years of seniority in ministry. His present ministry should reckon upon this total number when calculating his compensation and his vacation time.

Part of a church’s responsibility is to make sure that its pastor has adequate resources to take a decent vacation. Travel and lodging can be expensive, and if his compensation is low, then a pastor may not be able to save much toward his time away. The church itself can help to correct this situation by offering the minister a financial bonus specifically for his vacation. If this bonus is a budgeted item, it can become a part of the church’s regular financial planning.

Spending time away from the ministry is neither laziness nor luxury. To think so is to make oneself more spiritual than Jesus. Pastors should plan time away for the sake of their ministries and of their own spiritual wellbeing. Furthermore, churches should take the initiative by insisting that their pastors take vacation time and by providing adequate resources for it. Doing this is good, not only because it is right, but it is also the best thing for the ministry itself.

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.

Jesus, Thy Wandering Sheep Behold

Charles Wesley (1707–1788)

Jesus, Thy wandering sheep behold!
See, Lord, with tender pity see
Poor souls that cannot find the fold,
Till sought and gathered in by Thee.

Lost are they now, and scattered wide,
In pain, and weariness, and want:
With no kind Shepherd near to guide
The sick and spiritless and faint.

Thou, only Thou, the kind and good,
The great redeeming Shepherd art;
Collect Thy flock, and give them food,
And pastors after Thine own heart.

A double portion from above
Of Thine all-quickening grace impart;
Shed forth Thy universal love,
In every faithful pastor’s heart.

I first heard of Michael Heiser when I was pastoring in Texas during the mid-1990s. A visiting speaker to our church had recently visited the campus of Pillsbury Baptist Bible College in Owatonna, Minnesota. This speaker commented about the impression that the young Bible professors in Minnesota had made on him. One of those professors was Mike Heiser.

Shortly after that conversation a disruption at Pillsbury resulted in the exodus not only of the young professors but also of the president. This was the event that began the long downward spiral resulting in the college’s closure in 2008. It was also the event that steered Michael Heiser toward a more visible and public career than he would likely have enjoyed as a professor at PBBC.

Heiser had been reached for Christ under the ministry of David Burggraff in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school he enrolled as a student at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College. He became one of the students who transferred to Bob Jones University during a period of conflict between Baptist leaders in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. He later attended Calvary Baptist Seminary in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, and then Dallas Theological Seminary. By the time he returned to teach at Pillsbury, he had completed a master’s degree in ancient history at the University of Pennsylvania. After Heiser left Pillsbury, he completed another master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Semitics at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), writing his dissertation on the so-called “divine council.”

As Heiser understood it, the divine council is an assembly of very powerful spirit beings who act as advisers to the true and living God. These advisers are encountered in Genesis 1 (“let us make man in our image”), in the Sons of God of Genesis 6 and Job 1, and in the “gods” of Psalm 82. They are created spirits, higher than the angels, whom God has placed in exalted positions of rulership in heaven and on earth. They include both fallen and unfallen spirits. While Yahweh is the one true and living God, the divine council are “gods” of a lower, creaturely order.

This putative divine council became a major focus of Heiser’s research and writing. After he was made scholar in residence by Logos Bible Software (2004–2019), Heiser’s books became some of the most popular for the Logos/Faithlife/Lexham network. Heiser almost single-handedly popularized the divine council theory, establishing it as a respectable option within evangelical theology.

The divine council theory had not previously commanded much respect in evangelical circles. It had been developed by liberal scholars in tandem with an evolutionary view of Israel’s religion. This view saw the Israelites beginning as polytheists, then gradually advancing through henotheism and into monotheism as they elevated Yahweh to the position of sole God. In some of his best work, Heiser ably refuted this evolutionary understanding of Israelite religion. In doing so, he managed to uncouple the divine council theory from its liberal and evolutionary context, thus allowing it to be reassessed within an evangelical understanding of Scripture.

These contributions fit well with the peculiar turn of Heiser’s interests. He was a big fan of The X-Files, and he also devoted considerable attention to examining paranormal and “fringe historical” hypotheses from a biblical point of view. He wrote extensively about things like UFOs, ancient alien astronauts, Bible codes, and alien abductions. He was even recognized by Fate magazine as one of “The 100 Most Influential People in Ufology.”

While Heiser wrote many scholarly articles and papers, he will be best remembered for his popular works and his podcast. The Naked Bible Podcast had an eight-year run with a total of 458 episodes, the last of which Heiser recorded only six weeks before he died. He loved to communicate to ordinary people, and he wasn’t afraid to employ a bit of sensationalism in doing it. His eagerness to spread his views at the popular level is much of what built his legacy.

So is his charity, good will, and kindness. Several years ago I interacted with him while writing an article on Psalm 82. Even though my conclusions ended up being almost directly opposite his, Heiser provided truly generous help as I wrote the article (“Who Judges the Judge?” in The Old Testament Yesterday and Today, ed. by Rhett P. Dodson). He was eager to interact—and that is not a uniform trait among scholars.

Most of all, Heiser’s legacy rests upon his single-minded focus. Starting from his advocacy of the divine council theory he developed related theories of biblical angelology and demonology, an understanding of the development and role of nations in the plan of God, and ultimately an overarching storyline for the outworking of God’s plan. The result was an integrated system that reflected a comprehensive biblical theology. By continuously publishing the elements of this theory through a variety of scholarly and popular venues, Heiser was able to advance his views significantly within the evangelical world.

In 2019, Heiser left Logos and moved to Florida to become Executive Director at Awakening School of Theology and Ministry. The following year, while the rest of the world was panicking about COVID, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The cancer took his life in February of this year. Michael Heiser was just sixty years old.

Heiser was a true scholar. He was a true gentleman. He was a true man of God and a faithful witness for Jesus Christ. But he was also unique in his interests and in his passion to communicate them. We shall not look upon his like again.

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.

Psalm 82

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Among th’ assemblies of the great
A greater Ruler takes his seat;
The God of heav’n, as Judge, surveys
Those gods on earth, and all their ways.

Why will ye, then, frame wicked laws?
Or why support th’ unrighteous cause?
When will ye once defend the poor,
That sinners vex the saints no more?

They know not, Lord, nor will they know;
Dark are the ways in which they go;
Their name of earthly gods is vain,
For they shall fall and die like men.

Arise, O Lord, and let thy Son
Possess his universal throne,
And rule the nations with his rod;
He is our Judge, and he our God.

In 1968, when I was thirteen years old, my father moved our family from eastern Michigan to Ankeny, Iowa. He was a manager with United Airlines, but he took a demotion so that he could prepare to become a pastor by studying at Faith Baptist Bible College. We moved into a house literally across the street from the campus. At that time, the college consisted of three buildings in a corn field, erected (as I recall) by the same Christian developer who built our entire neighborhood. We lived across the street from one professor, down the street from another, and around the corner from the president, the retired former president, and a couple more professors. A block in the other direction was a board member who was both a general in the Air Guard and an Iowa senator. I delivered their newspapers. Our new home was just up the street from the offices of the Iowa Association of Regular Baptist Churches, and I attended church with its associational representative.

At the time, none of it meant anything to me. Dad graduated after five years, in May of 1973, the same Spring that he was ordained and that I graduated from high school. That fall—fifty years ago now—I enrolled at FBBC. My reasons were less than virtuous. I had no savings to go away to university. My high school grades were too low for me to qualify for a scholarship (I graduated in the lower half of my class). Most options in higher education were closed to me. Nevertheless, my mother ran the bookstore on the campus at Faith. That meant that I could attend the college tuition-free.

When I matriculated at age seventeen, my heart was far from the Lord. I was not seeking to do His will. I was indifferent to the things of God and, really, to most of life. My indifference was reflected in both poor academic performance (I flunked Greek the first time I took it) and in a sardonic, contemptuous attitude. On top of that I was certainly less mature than the average seventeen-year-old. Taken together, these factors resulted in a year and a half of abysmal behavior.

The whole time, however, God was there, and He was not silent. He was working in my heart, showing me the end of the path that I was on. He was convincing me of my own self-centeredness. He was working from outside, administering chastening. He was determined that I should persevere even when I did not care. He broke both my heart and my will, and He showed me the emptiness of the things that I thought I loved. He convinced me that the more I chose to remain the captain of my own soul, the more certainly a shipwreck loomed. I began to fear that calamity, and He brought me to the point at which I consciously and deliberately submitted myself to Him, fully prepared to do whatever He wanted me to do.

None of these struggles took place in public, but this new submission to Jesus Christ made all the difference in my world. Along with the stormy hand of His discipline, I began to experience the warm blessings of His kindness. The relationships that grew up during these days have remained the most important of my life. Not the least of them is the relationship that God granted me with the woman who eventually consented to marry me. It was during these days that I first felt a sense of vocation for ministry. They were the days when I discovered the joy of studying God’s Word. They were gracious days, and they remain gracious days. It is truly God who works in us both the willing and the doing of His good pleasure, and His good pleasure is always good.

This week I find myself back on the campus of Faith Baptist Bible College. The student population is smaller. The buildings have multiplied on campus. The mission, however, is the same: “With the Word to the World.” I am here to deliver the Arthur Walton Lectures, named in honor of the professor who gave me my well-merited “F” in Greek. The atmosphere is a bit more relaxed than it used to be. The dress is a bit more casual. The people seem more outgoing, probably a result of the influence of the current president, but possibly because against all odds I have become a grey eminence.

It’s good to be here this week, to visit with professors and administrators, but especially to chat with students. It’s a joy to discover on this campus a combination of grace and grit, of biblical conviction and Christian compassion. I’m grateful for another generation of leadership, both in the offices and in the classroom, who are willingly investing themselves in their students, just as that generation fifty years ago invested themselves in me.

Most of the old, familiar faces can only be seen in photographs here and there around the campus. The people themselves are either with the Lord or in some advanced stage of retirement. But the investment they made, and the work they did, still pays spiritual dividends to the hundreds of students who are being discipled and trained for Christian service in this place.

I’ve been back to this campus before, but this week is different. I feel as if I’ve come full circle. I can only express gratitude for what I received here, although the people to whom I am most indebted are almost all gone now. I’m also grateful for the people I’ve seen who were students when I was, and who are still serving Christ. Furthermore, I am greatly encouraged by younger men and women who have taken up the work, and who are training new generations of Christians at both the baccalaureate and graduate levels.

I have never been employed by Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary, but much of my life is wrapped up in this place. One way or another it has affected me for over half a century. Its influence has been overwhelmingly positive. I thank God for the work that it has done and that it is still doing.

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.

Th’ Abyss of Many a Former Sin

Joseph of the Stadium (762–832); tr. John Mason Neale (1818–1866)

Th’ abyss of many a former sin
Encloses me and bears me in:
Like billows my transgressions roll:
Be Thou the Pilot of my soul;
And to salvation’s harbor bring,
Thou Savior and Thou glorious King!

My Father’s heritage abused,
Wasted by lust, by sin misused;
To shame and want and mis’ry brought,
The slave to many a godless thought,
I cry to Thee, who lovest men,
O pity and receive again!

In hunger now and dispossessed
Of that my portion bright and blessed,
The exile and the alien see,
Who yet would fain return to Thee.
Accept me Lord, I seek Thy grace,
And let me see a Father’s face.

With that saved thief my prayer I make,
Remember for Thy mercy’s sake!
With that poor publican I cry,
Be Merciful, O God most high!
With that lost Prodigal I fain
Back to my home would turn again!

Mourn, mourn, my soul, with earnest care,
And raise to Christ the contrite prayer:—
O Thou, who freely wast made poor,
My sorrows and my sins to cure,
Me, poor of all good works, embrace,
Enriching with Thy boundless grace!

Has anybody else noticed that certain right-to-life organizations have started referring to fetuses as “preborn babies?” This turn of phrase first caught my attention a couple of months ago. Of course, I’m slow on the uptake, so it might have been around for a quite a while, and I might not have caught on. Still, I think I’d remember if I’d seen it earlier because I find the expression so inappropriate as to be jarring.

Not that I object to calling fetuses in the womb babies. That’s exactly what they are. In fact, the Latin word fetus means baby. I don’t believe for a moment that some magical transformation takes place when an infant emerges from the birth canal, as if it could be a non-person while encased in its mother’s body but a human being as soon as it has been exposed to air.

No, between conception and birth nothing is added to the baby except growth. She or he is a human being from conception onward, with all the rights, honors, and privileges pertaining thereto. Anyone who takes Psalm 51:5 seriously understands that humans are fully moral persons from the instant of their conception onwards. Since they are human beings, they are fully entitled to all the protections that every human deserves.

So my objection is not at all to the word baby. No, what I object to is that quirky and abominable neologism, preborn. Exactly what is that word supposed to mean?

The prefix pre- has the idea of doing something in advance or ahead of time. A prepaid card is one that has been purchased ahead of time. A prefabricated house is one on which significant components have been previously assembled. A preowned car is one that has already belonged to someone else. A predestined event is one that has been determined ahead of time. A prearranged meeting is one that has been arranged before the meeting has taken place. A precooked meal is one that has already been in the oven.

By this standard, a “preborn” baby is an infant that has been born ahead of time. But ahead of what time? That is where the neologism becomes murky. Does it mean that the baby was born ahead of the expected time? Does it mean that the baby was born before the present time? We are not sure. The only thing we are reasonably sure of is that a preborn baby cannot still be waiting to be born, any more than a preowned car is still waiting for its first purchaser or a precooked meal still sits raw in the freezer.

The New Testament has a word that comes close to the meaning of preborn. The word is ektrōma, and it means “a birth that violates the normal period of gestation (whether induced as abortion, or natural premature birth or miscarriage)” [BDAG, s.v.]. Paul uses this term to refer to himself when he talks about Christ appearing to him out of sequence when compared with the other apostles. In this sense, Paul sees himself metaphorically as an apostolic miscarriage resulting in a live birth.

And maybe that is how we could use the term preborn. By following the regular pattern, a preborn baby could possibly be a fetus that miscarried, whether or not it survives the event. At least that use of the term would be recognizable and defensible, even if still inelegant.

Someone might try to defend the word preborn by comparing it to a different set of English pre– words. These are words in which a thing is said to occur before a different thing, designating the earlier thing as pre- the latter. So prehistoric events are happenings from before history began to be recorded. Prepubescent children are those who have not yet arrived at adolescence. Pregame jitters must be endured before the competition begins. Pre-Columbian America is the Americas before Columbus stumbled into them.

It is difficult to imagine, however, that the term preborn could reasonably fit this pattern, and we should be, well, predisposed against taking it that way. Even if the neologism could somehow be stuffed, kicking and screaming, into this usage, its meaning would still be unclear. The best thing to do is to stick with an expression that everybody already understands, namely unborn babies.

I have no idea what the appeal of preborn is supposed to be. Does it sound more stylish? More modern and streamlined? Is it somehow more socially acceptable to the kind of public that can no longer recognize distinctions between men from women? Whatever the purpose of using the word, it represents a verbal clunk, as if the linguistic transmission has dropped out of the drivetrain and is now dragging along the pavement. It does not even save space: it has just as many syllables as unborn, and it adds an additional phoneme. Using preborn is like pushing a shopping cart around the store when one of those little handbaskets would do.

We already have a perfectly good term. The word unborn is clear and widely understood. Unborn has, so to speak, been predigested for us, while preborn is just plain undigestible. It is awkward. It is cloudy. It is sand in the verbal gearbox. Taken on balance, the word preborn is just about as appealing as a pre-eaten dinner.

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.

’Tis Finished! The Messiah Dies

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

’Tis finished! The Messiah dies—
cut off for sins, but not His own;
accomplished is the sacrifice—
the great redeeming work is done.

The veil is rent; in Christ alone
the living way to heav’n is seen;
the middle wall is broken down,
and all mankind may enter in.

’Tis finished! All my guilt and pain,
I want no sacrifice beside;
for me, for me the Lamb is slain,
’tis finished! I am justified.

The reign of sin and death is o’er;
all grace is now to sinners giv’n;
and lo! I plead th’atoning blood,
and in Thy right I claim my heav’n.

Complaining, along with gossiping, blaming, and criticizing, is one of the great human pastimes. Until we have been trained otherwise, we all love to complain. A disposition to complain is hardwired into us, and we slip into it without even considering what we are doing.

The problem is that complaining, generally speaking, is considered a vice. It is the very opposite of the virtue of gratitude. Even among non-Christians, the best figures try to foster gratitude and to stultify the spirit of complaining. We who are Christians recognize that habitual complaining is contrary to our sanctification. We do our best to help each other grow out of it. Plenty of biblical texts view complaining in this negative light (e.g., Jude 16).

This view of complaining, however, is a bit too simplistic. I suggest that under certain circumstances and done in certain ways complaining is fully compatible with our sanctification. In fact, it may be a sign of our determination not to reconcile ourselves to the conditions of a fallen world.

One acceptable form of complaining is the appeal made to God out of distress, often when one has been wronged. An example can be found in Hannah (1 Sam 1). She was deeply grieved, and she wept (7), partly because “the Lord had shut up her womb” (5), and partly because “her adversary provoked her sore” with the specific purpose of causing her grief (6). So poignant was Hannah’s sorrow that even her husband lost patience with her (8). Left with no other listening ear, Hannah took her bitterness to God (9–11). Even then the high priest Eli, who lacked the moral courage to correct his sons, felt called upon to rebuke this broken woman (12–14). In her reply she told him that she was speaking to the Lord out of the “abundance of her complaint” (16).

What Hannah was doing was taking her pain to God. She was suffering, genuinely and deeply, and her suffering robbed the joy from her life. Rather than trying to dismiss her bitterness or directing it toward other people, Hannah complained to God, who heard and answered her.

Hannah provides one example of godly complaining. Psalm 55 provides another, and it introduces a new element. When David was betrayed by a close friend, he took his complaint to God. Indeed, he recorded his complaint in his psalm. Verse 2 specifically identifies the psalm as a complaint. Even though Psalm 55 is a complaint to God, it was also written for other people to read and understand. Even if David was not complaining to other people, he was certainly complaining for them.

Asaph does a similar thing in Psalm 77. He was troubled in soul, overwhelmed, fearful that the Lord might cast off forever (7). Like David, he complained to the Lord (3). Like David, he recorded his complaint as a psalm to be studied by God’s people. If he was not complaining to them, he was at least complaining for them.

Biblical complaining is taken to another level in the anonymous Psalm 102. The heading of the psalm (which is part of the inspired text) registers it as a “prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord.” Certainly this psalm was written by a real person passing through real anguish of soul, but the personal element is attenuated. Instead, the psalm is written as a formalized complaint, a kind of prefabricated grievance that any godly person can pray when afflicted and overwhelmed.

These examples help us to draw a distinction. Often, we understand complaining simply as synonymous with grumbling or griping—the kind of complaining in which the children of Israel constantly indulged during the exodus. If we take the foregoing passages seriously, however, then griping is only one species of complaining. It is the sinful kind of complaining. But another kind of complaining is not sinful. In fact, it may well be integral to the life of faith.

How do we identify righteous complaining? I posit that the complaint (1) must be about a real wrong, (2) must be made to a person who is justified in hearing it, (3) must be made to someone who either could and should do something about it, or (4) must be made about someone who must be held accountable. This is the sense in which we intend the word when we say that someone has entered a complaint in a court of law or filed a complaint through the union steward. Such a complaint is either an indictment of wrongs or a petition for redress of grievances.

Understood in this way, the Bible is full of righteous complaints. Nathan complained to David, “Thou art the man” (2 Sam 12:7). The psalmist complained of Babylon, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones” (Ps 137:9). Habakkuk complained against Judah, “The law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth” (Hab 1:4). Jesus complained against the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites. Paul complained to Festus, “I stand at Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest” (Acts 25:10). Every one of these complaints was justified. Every one of these complaints was godly.

By all means, let us repudiate a complaining, grumbling, griping, fault-finding spirit. But let us also remember that there is a different kind of complaining, a kind of complaining that has been practiced even among the saints. Perhaps if we would learn to do well the kind of complaining that we should do, then we would do less of the kind of complaining that we should not.

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.

Fierce Passions Discompose the Mind

John Newton (1725–1807)

Fierce passions discompose the mind,
As tempests vex the sea;
But calm content and peace we find,
When, Lord, we turn to thee.

In vain by reason and by rule,
We try to bend the will;
For none but in the Savior’s school
Can learn the heavenly skill.

Since at his feet my soul has sat,
His gracious words to hear,
contented with my present state,
I cast on him my care.

’Tis he appoints my daily lot,
And will do all things well;
Soon shall I leave this wretched spot,
And rise with him to dwell.

In life his grace shall strength supply,
Proportioned to my day;
In death I still shall find him nigh,
To bear my soul away.

Thus I, who once my wretched days
In vain repinings spent;
Taught in my Savior’s school of grace,
Have learned to be content.

Let me introduce Gail. Gail is held in the grip of an idea. Even though Gail was born with male sex organs, Gail identifies as a woman. Gail receives hormone injections and has received some implants, and these have resulted in bodily changes. Gail competes on a women’s basketball team where Gail dominates all other players. Gail’s beliefs have become Gail’s identity, and Gail tries to live them consistently, even in the face of prejudice. Gail has never professed to trust Christ or the gospel, but if Gail visits your church, Gail will wish to use the women’s restroom.

Now let me introduce you to Aelfric. Aelfric is held in the grip of an idea. Aelfric claims to be an Identity Christian and a true Israelite. Aelfric believes that Celts and Anglo-Saxons are the true sons of Israel, while Jews are descendants of a Japethic people called the Khazars. Aelfric’s body has been modified by tattoos that reflect Aelfric’s perspectives, including a prominent Confederate flag. Aelfric’s beliefs have become Aelfric’s identity, and Aelfric tries to live them consistently, even in the face of prejudice. If Aelfric visits your church, Aelfric will not want to sit beside any people of color.

From a biblical perspective, both Gail and Aelfric hold bad understandings of themselves, of the world, and of God. Their perspectives and their conduct are both sinful and both strike directly against God’s creation order. Neither has professed faith in the biblical gospel; both are lost. Both need the Lord, and both need a change of heart.

Aelfric and Gail both lack an objective, publicly available means of substantiating their claims. Both truly rely upon their “lived experience.” Gail claims to feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body and points to stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Aelfric feels superior to peoples of color and points to stereotypes involving vice and crime.

Let us assume that both Aelfric and Gail mean well and that neither would willingly hurt another person. Nevertheless, both Aelfric and Gail are doing real harm. Aelfric’s outspokenness emboldens certain white supremacists who would commit acts of violence against non-whites and Jews if given an opportunity. Gail’s outspokenness emboldens certain biological males who prey upon women, and it gives those males unrestricted access to settings where women could previously feel safe. It also emboldens certain biological male athletes who cannot compete at the top tier against other males, but who can do well by competing against women. It also endangers some teens and preteens who are encouraged toward “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” through social media and social contagion, significantly raising the probability that those children will hurt themselves.

In one way, Gail’s situation is the direct opposite of Aelfric’s. A couple of generations ago, people who held Aelfric’s views on race were generally tolerated (and in some circles, celebrated). Now, however, any expression of Aelfric’s views will make one a social pariah. On the other hand, until very recently people who shared Gail’s perspectives on gender were seen as perverted, and they were pushed to the social margins. Now someone who expresses Gail’s views gains immediate and widespread sympathy and support. In a word, Aelfric’s sins are out of style, while Gail’s are the height of fashion.

What is interesting is to read and listen to recent evangelical attitudes toward people like Aelfric and people like Gail. Many—perhaps most—evangelicals might agree that both are sinning. Beyond that, however, the similarity ends. Faced with somebody like Gail, many evangelicals would opine that one cannot expect an unbeliever to live like a Christian. What we must do is to show great compassion to Gail, to build relationships, to foster sympathy in the face of whatever sufferings must have brought Gail to this point. Even very conservative evangelicals might feel obligated to express their non-rejection of Gail. They might even lament the attitudes that people like Gail would have encountered a couple of generations ago. They insist that our churches must become open and welcoming to people like Gail, and that any failure to do so is a failure to follow the example of Jesus and the teaching of Scripture.

On the other hand, evangelicals do not react at all that way when faced with somebody like Aelfric. They make no attempt to distance themselves from the caustic prejudices that are directed against Aelfric. Far from expressing their non-rejection of Aelfric, they will go out of their way to denounce him in the sharpest possible terms. They will accuse anyone who fails to denounce Aelfric of the very same sins that they accuse Aelfric of. With Aelfric, it seems impossible to distinguish the sin from the sinner. They do not want their churches to be open and welcoming to Aelfric. They do not want to understand whatever sufferings may have brought Aelfric to his particular situation. They do not want to build relationships with Aelfric or to demonstrate compassion toward people like him. They would never excuse Aelfric’s sins by suggesting that unbelievers cannot be expected to live like Christians.

Why do evangelicals speak and write about people like Gail and Aelfric so differently? If evangelicals were genuinely concerned for sinners as Jesus was concerned for sinners, would they not treat all sinners in the same way? Jesus could show compassion to a woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11). He could reach out toward corrupt officials (Luke 19:1–10), and He included an ultranationalist racist among His disciples (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). Jesus did not pick and choose among the kinds of sinners that He befriended.

This attitude is not reflected within the evangelical world. Run an internet search on “evangelical ministry to transgenders.” You will see a lot about understanding, befriending and sympathizing with transgender people. Now run an internet search on “evangelical ministry to white supremacists.” You’ll see a lot about stopping them, and quite a bit about how evangelicals are pretty much all white supremacists to begin with (even though hardly any evangelicals share Aelfric’s perspective). Notice the difference?

Christians make choices about who they will minister to. They also make choices about the kinds of ministry that they find acceptable. In evangelical circles it is presently acceptable to claim friends who are like Gail. It is not acceptable to admit to having friends who are like Aelfric.

The reasonable conclusion is that evangelical attitudes toward evangelism, caring, and confrontation are being regulated by something other than the example of Jesus and the requirements of Scripture. One begins to wonder whether the evangelical world isn’t prepared to denounce any sins except the ones that evangelicals aren’t currently being tempted to commit. One wonders whether social and moral fads rather than the teachings of the Bible have more to do with who evangelicals will befriend and who they are willing to marginalize.

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.

Jesus, Thou Art the Sinner’s Friend

Richard Burnham (ca. 1749–1810)

Jesus, Thou art the sinner’s Friend;
As such I look to Thee;
Now, in the fulness of Thy love,
O Lord, remember me.

Remember Thy pure word of grace,
Remember Calvary’s tree,
Remember all Thy dying groans,
And then remember me.

Thou wondrous Advocate with God,
I yield my soul to Thee;
While Thou art pleading on the throne,
Dear Lord, remember me.

Lord, I am guilty, I am vile,
But Thy salvation’s free;
Then, in Thine all-abounding grace,
Dear Lord, remember me.

Howe’er forsaken or despised,
Howe’er oppressed I be,
Howe’er forgotten here on earth,
Do Thou remember me.

And when I close my eyes in death,
And human help shall flee,
Then, then, my dear redeeming God,
O then remember me.

[This essay was originally published on May 12, 2017.]

Many contemporary American Christians obsess over relevance. They seem to feel personally obligated to make Christianity relevant. This wish to make Christianity relevant, however, raises two questions. First, why should Christianity be made relevant? Second, what would a relevant Christianity look like? The answer to these questions will depend partly upon the meaning of the word relevant. It is used in at least four ways.

First, it is used as a synonym for germane or applicable. In this sense, a thing is relevant when it addresses some concern that matters, or ought to. For example, a prescription for penicillin is relevant for a person who has a strep infection.

In this sense, Christianity does not have to be made relevant. It is already relevant. It addresses the most fundamental human need, namely, to find forgiveness of sins and restoration of fellowship with God. Granted, people often do not understand the depth of their sin or the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning work. Because they lack these categories, the Christian message seems nonsensical to them. These are the very people of whom Paul writes that the rationale of the cross appears as foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18). Only the Holy Spirit can convince them. All that Christians can do to make Christianity relevant to such people is to explain the message as clearly as possible.

The notion of explaining the message leads to a related but distinct sense of the term relevant. In this sense of the word, to be relevant is to be intelligible. Intelligibility matters. Even an applicable message cannot be received if it cannot be understood.

Concern for this kind of relevance has led Christians to translate the Bible into new languages, and with good reason. People gain no benefit from having the Scriptures in a language that they cannot read. Furthermore, Jesus’ and the apostles’ use of the Septuagint provides a biblical example of using translation to make biblical religion relevant.

Even so, translations almost always obscure some part of the truth, particularly when the receptor language has no words or categories that adequately translate biblical concepts. For example, early missionaries to the Congo reported difficulty in communicating the gospel to people whose language contained no word for love. They eventually had to create a word and invest it with the concept.

Another example: the New Testament teaches that Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice. That statement meant one thing in a Jewish culture that had practiced fourteen hundred years of tabernacle and temple sacrifices. In Aztec culture, however, with its long history of human sacrifice to capricious gods, the statement would almost certainly mean a different thing. The culture itself would have to be reshaped—new categories would have to be introduced—before the gospel message of Christ’s sacrifice would make sense. Sometimes making Christianity relevant requires not the accommodation of Christian concepts and practices to a given culture but the conforming of that culture’s categories to Christian concepts and practices.

The third way in which people use the word relevant is to mean familiar. A thing seems relevant to them because they have been exposed to it enough that it is recognizable. A carpenter may have a much-used hammer that feels like an extension of the hand. A bowler may have a favorite ball that feels like it launches itself down the lane. A dad probably has a favorite chair that fits him because it bears the imprint of his personal anatomy.

Some people think that, to be relevant, Christianity has to fit like an old pair of jeans. Consequently, they want to recast it into forms and shapes that resemble whatever people are already comfortable with. They want their Christianity to be as little different from their ordinary habits as possible.

What they overlook is that the carpenter’s hammer was not custom-made for one hand. Rather, the hand that wields the hammer grows accustomed to it over time. The hand eventually conforms to the tool. And, while the metaphor is not quite as apt, the old pair of jeans feels so familiar exactly because body and garment have spent so much time together.

Christianity should fit like old denim, but it won’t feel that way the first time somebody puts it on. The solution is not to reshape Christianity so that it feels like whatever people are comfortable with. The solution is to let people grow into Christianity in all its apparent awkwardness—and that is done by long practice.

The fourth thing that people mean when they talk about Christianity being relevant is that it should be made appealing. With this the Scriptures agree: there are ways of adorning the gospel, and Christians ought to use them. The question is, What are those ways?

Too often people try to make Christianity appealing by transmuting it into something it is not. They offer false inducements for following Jesus. They attempt to draw people to the faith—or to help them grow in it—by attracting them to things that are not Christianity. They put themselves on display as weight lifters, martial arts practitioners, rock stars, or other faux celebrities. Their message appears to be something like, “I can break six boards with my bare hand, so you should follow Jesus.”

Christianity must be made attractive. Sound doctrine must be adorned. But how? Paul answers in Titus 2: old men are to adorn sound teaching by their self-control, dignity, sensibility, soundness, charity, and perseverance. Old women are to adorn it with reverent behavior and good instruction, avoiding gossip and inebriation. Young women are to adorn it by loving their husbands and children, displaying sensibility and purity, and submitting to their husbands. Young men can make sound teaching appealing simply by being sensible.

Christians can never attract people to Christ by making themselves seem impressive. Carnal inducements will never turn people into Christians. To adopt these subterfuges is to morph Christianity into something it is not. It is to sabotage the faith that was once-for-all delivered. Furthermore, it is to wreak incalculable practical damage.

Why? Because twenty-first century Americans live in an anti-culture of despair. They are approaching the end of a turn that began with a lie. They have committed themselves to a metaphysical dream that robs them of morality, then meaning, and eventually identity. They can no longer say what is good, what is beautiful, what matters, or even who they are.

These people have created a popular culture that does two things. It expresses the despair in which they live: the hopelessness, the anxiety, and the rage. It also tries to provide enough distraction or cultural noise—whether through opulence, sensuality, inebriation, or spectacle—to stifle the despair.

If Christians want to be relevant, then the worst thing they can do is to imitate this culture. Every time they do, they are saying, “We’re just like you! We’re desperate, too! Look how anxious, hopeless, and angry we are!”

Relevance? Nothing is less relevant than a trendy church. Nothing is less relevant that popular-culture Christianity. Nothing is less relevant than a contemporized Christian.

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.

Who Trusts In God, A Strong Abode

v 1, Joachim Magdeburg (c 1525–c 1587); vv 2–3, Anonymous; tr. Benjamin H. Kennedy (1804–1889)

Who trusts in God, a strong abode
in heav’n and earth possesses;
who looks in love to Christ above,
no fear his heart oppresses.
In you alone, dear Lord, we own
sweet hope and consolation:
our shield from foes, our balm for woes,
our great and sure salvation.

Though Satan’s wrath beset our path,
and worldly scorn assail us,
while you are near we will not fear,
your strength shall never fail us:
your rod and staff shall keep us safe,
and guide our steps forever;
nor shades of death, nor hell beneath,
our souls from you shall sever.

In all the strife of mortal life
our feet shall stand securely;
temptation’s hour shall lose its pow’r,
for you shall guard us surely.
O God, renew, with heav’nly dew,
our body, soul, and spirit,
until we stand at your right hand,
through Jesus’ saving merit.

In January, Desiring God posted a brief interview with John Piper discussing the question, “Where Do You Draw Lines for Ministry Partnerships?” Piper’s reply envisions Christian ministry associations as a series of concentric circles. In his thinking, the center circle requires the greatest degree of agreement, while the outermost circle requires the least. The six circles are:

1. Elders and church staff
2. Church planting network
3. His own conferences
4. Others’ conferences
5. Debates and conversations
6. Rallies with common cause

In Piper’s schema, the fifth and sixth circles might involve people who are outside the faith. He might debate some individual over some abridgement of the gospel (as he did with Greg Boyd). He might participate in a political event such as a pro-life rally with people who seriously undermine the gospel (such as Roman Catholics).

To be clear, I do not always draw my lines in the same places that Piper does. Nevertheless, I believe his schema of ministry partnership has value. In fact, it resembles closely the schema that I was taught as a student both in a fundamentalist Bible college and later in a fundamentalist seminary.

Here’s the point: when Piper makes decisions about who he will or won’t work with, he is really making decisions about fellowship (partnership) and separation. In at least some cases, and at some levels, he is separating from fellow believers. This non-cooperation with, or separation from, fellow believers is precisely what fundamentalists mean by secondary separation.

Incidentally, Piper is not alone in implementing some version of secondary separation. Years ago I was conversing with the president of Fuller Theological Seminary. I commented, “I understand that my city has a prominent alumnus of your school who is now persona non grata on your campus.” Without batting an eye, that president replied, “John Piper.” For him, it was just a statement of fact. Fuller Seminary is evidently committed to the practice of secondary separation.

I recognize that somebody from Fuller might say, “That’s not separation, it’s just non-cooperation.” Piper might say the same thing. To be fair, I should point out that some fundamentalists would also wish to distinguish separation from non-cooperation.

The problem is that I have never seen or heard anyone really explain this distinction, let alone defend it adequately. How exactly is separation different from withholding fellowship (non-cooperation)? How does one know when one has stopped non-cooperating and begun separating? Any effort to distinguish these two ends up in special pleading or incoherence. Christian fellowship and separation are correlative terms, and they are inversely proportional to one another. To the degree that we engage in fellowship, we are not separated. To the degree that our fellowship is limited, we are separated.

Fellowship is not all the same. Piper has sketched six circles of ministry partnerships (though I question whether the last two are necessarily ministry partnership at all). He rightly recognizes that each level of partnership or fellowship has its own criteria of agreement and its own permissible latitude for disagreement. He recognizes the possibility of partnering (fellowshipping) at one level while not partnering (separating) at another.

We could fill out Piper’s circles with a long listing of levels of fellowship that are evident in the New Testament. Some of these involve simple, personal communion around the gospel. Some involve discipleship relationships. Some involve ministry collaborations. Some involve the relationships of individuals to churches or to parachurch organizations. Others involve relationships between churches or parachurch endeavors. The New Testament envisions many levels at which Christians might relate to one another in fellowship—or, if necessary, separate from each other in non-cooperation.

Understanding that Christian fellowship or cooperation occurs at various levels implies that separation—at least separation among believers—is not necessarily an all-or-nothing thing. We may discover that we must separate at some levels even while cooperating at others. In fact, this is the pattern than almost all of us apply to real choices in Christian fellowship. Our churches regularly admit some believers into membership whom they should never call to be their pastors. Credobaptists and pedobaptists may appear together on certain platforms, even though they could not rightly be members of each other’s churches. We sometimes enjoy personal fellowship with a brother who we would not hire to work in our institution. In all such cases we are making choices to fellowship at some levels but to separate at others.

It seems that even the most vocal opponents of secondary separation find some point at which they insist upon practicing it, not excluding Roger Olson himself. He narrates one such episode as follows.

Toward the end of my tenure at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary, where I taught for 22 years, I learned that an Institute on campus had invited a very well-known, even famous, neo-fundamentalist theologian and ethicist to speak and that his address would happen in the seminary’s chapel. I knew that he had acted unethically toward me, publicly attributing a quote to me that I never said or wrote, one that could damage my reputation and career, and that he refused to retract it or apologize for it. I went to the authorities and requested a private meeting with the “gentleman” and he declined to meet with me (so I was told). I also knew that he was firmly opposed to women’s ordination, women serving as pastors or preachers, etc. He was and is a “complementarian.” Many of our seminary’s students were women called by God to pastor, plant churches, preach, etc. I joined those women in strongly requesting that the man NOT speak in our seminary’s chapel. In the eventuality, he did not. He spoke elsewhere on campus. I did not attend.

My point in reproducing this quotation is not to judge whether Olson’s objections were legitimate. I simply wish to establish that Roger Olson has joined the ranks of those who practice secondary separation.

John Piper practices secondary separation. Fuller Theological Seminary practices secondary separation. Roger Olson practices secondary separation. Could it be that none of us is able to fellowship with every other believer at every possible level? Could it be that we all make choices that result in secondary separation?

If that is the case, then why list secondary separation as a mark of fundamentalism? The answer is that fundamentalists typically practice secondary separation in a particular circumstance where other evangelicals hesitate. Clarifying what that circumstance is and why fundamentalists think it matters will be the goal of my next essay.

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.

Come In, Thou Blessed of the Lord

James Montgomery (1771–1854)

Come in, thou blessed of the Lord,
Stranger nor foe art thou;
We welcome thee with warm accord,
Our Friend, our Brother now.

The hand of fellowship, the heart
Of love, we offer thee;
Leaving the world, thou dost but part
From lies and vanity.

The cup of blessing which we bless,
The heavenly bread we break,
(Our Saviour’s blood and righteousness,)
Freely with us partake.

In weal or woe, in joy or care,
Thy portion shall be ours;
Christians their mutual burden share,
They lend their mutual powers.

Come with us, we will do thee good,
As God to us hath done,
Stand but in Him, as those have stood,
Whose faith the victory won.

And when by turns we pass away,
As star by star grows dim,
May each, translated into day,
Be lost and found in Him.