I’m not sure where to begin with this.

“Sadly, this figure is grossly misleading if people say they believe in justification by faith but don’t even know what imputation is!”

Is this the mindset we want to spread in the name of the Reformed Faith? Seventy-five percent of Evangelicals affirm that justification is by faith alone, and we are to discount that because they haven’t been trained to summon the mental image of the two-path flow chart whenever the trigger word is spoken to them? (Notice how a lack of familiarity as stated in the survey slides into the claim that the people interviewed are totally ignorant.)

Doctrine upholds the status of a ruling class, if only in their own minds. When outsiders agree with the doctrine, then the doctrine is in danger of failing in its function–it threatens to become a source of unity rather than a tool of exclusion. This danger can easily be remedied. There is potentially an infinite chain of doctrines implicit in any doctrine. Just regress far enough down the chain until the outsider fails to affirm the words you want him to use. As soon as that occurs, you can reinforce the barriers you need to maintain.

It is a shame that pastors aren’t more conversant in basic theological terminology. But that claim is not nearly as sexy in some circles as it is to claim that everyone but us really believe in justification by works.

Can anyone tell me that pastors are going to be more likely to listen to us in advocating greater theological knowledge when we have basically written them all off, in plain contradiction to their actual affirmations, as teachers of works righteousness?