There’s a new book out arguing that Christian children ought to be permitted to partake of the Lord’s supper without first having to jump through hoops to satisfy their older brothers in the Lord (pastor/elders) that they are worthy enough to have table fellowship with Jesus and His Body.

For more stuff, go here.

I guess the title of this post may seem melodramatic, but I think I am accurate. The current consensus in the average Protestant church is to assure young children that they aren’t part of the new covenant in Christ’s blood. The child hears about the body and blood of Christ being given for partakers and is not allowed to partake with everyone else. How is this not an assurance that the child is outside the kingdom? How could the child interpret the pastors’ words in any other way?

I had been working on something for the past few days that I hoped to have completed by Saturday. Today I found that 3/4 of it was annihilated. I must have mistakenly done something yesterday and never noticed.

How frustrating.

Got a new format in mind. I’m going to try to make this a weekly column. See y’all next week. OK?

This looks really hot! It isn’t really even on my horizon since I’m having plenty of fun with what I have. But, for future reference, is this sort of thing safe? As far as I can tell Apple.com doesn’t offer a 2.16 GHz processor for the Mini. I notice Rival doesn’t offer an Applecare plan…. On the other hand, I assume they’re licensed to do what they are doing.

Correction: I overlooked their offer for up to a three year warranty.

FYI FWIW, stuff by Craig Blomberg:

The Resurrection of the Son of God

What Saint Paul Really Said

The Last Word

William Klein

Paul in Fresh Perspective

And a couple of critical books reviewed by Blomberg:

Justification and Variegated Nomism. Vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism

Where Is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1-5

Since I’ve linked Jeff’s comments about Guy Waters book (by the way, I would really like to read the Westminster Theological Journal’s published interaction between Nick Perrin and Guy Waters, if anyone wants to send me their copy), I figure I should point out that I tried to help him out.

I had wondered where all the weird mischaracterizations in the Mississippi Valley report purporting to say something truthful about a movement they allege to exist called “the Federal Vision.” My answer came finally when someone sent me audiorecordings of lectures by Guy Waters that made a bunch of completely false claims about me.

Just to give one rather mild example: My attempts to disentangle the Covenant or works from a scheme of strict merit were claimed to be attempts to reject the “traditional” doctrine of the covenant of works. It was nonsense from beginning to end. A column I wrote for the local newspaper, where I presumed readers would be mostly dispensationalists, was treated as it was an attack on Reformed theology. Of course, one couldn’t know the original context from the web article, but that is my point: One phone call would have helped Waters immensely. Instead he spun fantasies about what I believe and teach and circulated these things among the brethren without my knowledge. These things became the basis for the Mississippi Valley Presbytery’s rather fantastic report.

So I emailed Guy and asked him to show me what he planned to write about me. I promised not to share it, of course. I figured that since one PCA minister is writing an attack on another PCA minister, the writer would want to make sure his work was as accurate as possible.

Well. No go. Waters was willing to let me seach through all the audio recordings (which he may or may not be planning to put in his book) but he wasn’t going to let me see what he intended to say until it was safely out in the public eye. This, he told me, was P&R policy.

Oddly, this policy did not prevent the forbidden manuscript from being freely passed out among the elders of Woodruff Road PCA (“All quotes in point #3 are taken from Guy Waters, “Covenant Theology Improved? Assessing the Federal Vision,” forthcoming, pp9-10.”). Nor was it withheld from the OPC Study Committee (which, of course, also practiced intellectual hygeine themselves by never bothering to contact me–though at least they didn’t boldly refuse contact).

So, when you read Waters book, remember that he self-consciously refused to interact with the people he is attacking. If you find responses to his claims become available, keep in mind that these responses could have been shared with him before his work was published.

But wow, what an obituary! Would that we all could leave this sort of legacy and witness (in whatever vocation we have been given).

The Rev Prof Colin Gunton

Classical theologian who sought to expose the intellectual incoherence and ethical confusion of modern society

Stephen R Holmes
Tuesday June 3, 2003
The Guardian

One of the most distinctive and powerful voices in British theology, the Rev Prof Colin Gunton, has died suddenly, aged 62. For more than 30 years of prolific writing and inspirational teaching at King’s College London, he pioneered a vision of classical Christian theology as a credible intellectual discipline which, far from needing to accommodate itself to modern fashions of thought, provided the resources needed to criticise them.

When he began, his approach was so unfashionable as to appear merely quaint; that it might now be regarded as in the mainstream of English-language theology is due in large part to Gunton’s unswerving commit ment and intellectual power. He worked with admirable energy and integrity – even if the admiration of some was grudging [READ THE REST]

Apparantly some have misunderstood my If I were to be invited to my trial post.

The “trial” here is the voting on a committee report that condemns an alleged body of thought or “movement” (i.e. “The Federal Vison and/or “the New Perspective”) and attaches the names of ministers in good standing to that condemnation. In Presbyterianism, one is supposed to be protected from attacks on one’s doctrinal orthodoxy. Of course, there is a way of dealing with people who teach erroneous doctrine–it is called a trial. In a trial one is forbidden to “circularize.” In other words, one is forbidden from declaring a minister in good standing to be doctrinally aberrant on one’s website in order to dirty the jury pool so that, after years of campaigning, one has generated enough hysteria to perhaps win in a trial. In a trial, the accused is permitted to speak in their own defense and to confront their accusers. In a trial, the accusers can themselves be disciplined if it is discovered that they are making wild accusations.

The “committee report” is a trial in that ministers who have been examined and received and ordained by the church are declared heterodox in their teaching, without having any of the court procedures allowed to them. A phone call would have been nice. Furthermore, even though the committee won’t actually defrock anyone, people will feel free to treat these men (assuming any are left who aren’t issuing such treatment) as if the outcome of a trial is a foregone conclusion and that the verdict has been given ahead of time by the committee. In other words, the committee itself is circularizing.

By the way, I should not that the Missourri Presbytery committee reported on these manners in a way that did not participate in these injustices. It stuck to the actual issues and laid down some helpful guidelines. It stands out in that respect.

Finally, we have an interesting situation here. I keep hearing of people who confidently say that the PCA has a group of people who deny sola fide or some other essential doctrine. So this is what we are to believe? That everyone knows this and yet in presbytery after presbytery (eighty-five churches remember) these men are received and allowed to serve while teaching these obvious attacks on Christian orthodoxy and somehow, never even get brought to trial, and yet this issue is quite clear to a number of committees whose methodology involves careful non-interaction with any of the people they wish to condemn? What’s going on?

Is this how Presbyterianism is supposed to work? Are ministers supposed to confidently relay second-hand reports about those people–you know, the “miscreants: and “aberrants” outed in conference speeches and on church websites–while completely ignoring the fact that these men are under authority and have never been tried?

I thought this post was great. The stuff about alcohol and Christian liberty was excellent, but that is not why I’m linking it. I’m linking it because it is a window into what happens in a culture among the old guard when a generational paradigm shift takes place. This is a window into the politics we witness in the Gospels and Acts and how it applies to any number of situations.

Standing for the truth can get you exiled.

(Hat tip: BHT)

The machine is working well. While an unprecedanted attack on PCA ministers floods the halls, the victims will not be permitted to take advantage of the rights everyone else has to speak freely in their own defense.