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Requiring basic reading is racist? (Actually, there are plenty of guilds that use the state to require tests that are unnecessary to the profession–but this doesn’t apply here on a number of grounds.)
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Who’s on the road to Rome now?
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3 astute observations
Thanks for the couple of links related to PCA-FV-NPP stuff.
Regarding the last post, not only does “low church” stuff get a free pass in the PCA, dispensationalism gets a tacit free pas as well. While I was in law school, I attended a PCA church where I found myself as the only non-dispensationalist in the small group (of about 15 people). I expressed concern to one of the pastors about this. He said that the church does not disclose the PCA’s take on dispensationalism; it would hurt numbers too much since most evangelicals see dispensationalism and inerrancy as one in the same.
I wonder what the connection is between FV/NPP and evangelical identity. I recently read one of Chris Smith’s books and recognized again how important it has become for evangelicals to define an “us” and a “them.” But FV and NPP add some fuzziness to the identity markers that have come to define who/what American evangelicals are. Low-church anabaptist attitudes toward the sacraments and dispensationalism get a free ride in the PCA (despite their opposition to the principles of the magisterial Refomation) because these ideas do not disturb the clean boundary markers of evangelical identity. But if we have to start thinking of orthodox Christians in the PCUSA as real Christians, oh my!!!! And if we have to start thinking of many faithful Roman Catholics as believers, what will the world come to!!!!
I don’t see evangelicalism fading any time soon. But we may well be witnessing the last death throes of its theological and intellectual foundations. The American brand of Reformed thrology has always suffered from anabaptist excess. If the PCA adopts the Report of its FV/NPP committee, it can declare itself officially anabaptist. Perhaps a merger with the SBC would be in good order thereafter.