Central Baptist Theological Seminary

Republished with permission (and unedited) from Central Baptist Theological Seminary. (The document posted at Central’s website in August of 2010.)

Hermeneutics and Eschatology

All faculty at Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis affirm a hermeneutical system that interprets all Scripture with a consistently literal or normal method. We also affirm the paradigm of grammatical, contextual, theological, historical exegesis with a view to discerning authorial intent.

Dual Hermeneutics

We all hold that the same hermeneutical principles must govern the interpretation of both testaments. We reject any approach that asserts, for example, that Old Testament prophecies concerning the first advent, life, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Christ should be interpreted differently from Old Testament prophecies concerning the second advent and the earthly rule and reign of Christ. There is no New Testament hermeneutic that supersedes an Old Testament hermeneutic.read more

Republished with permission (and unedited) from Central Baptist Theological Seminary. (The document posted at Central’s website within the last couple of weeks.)

Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism

To be an evangelical is to be centered upon the gospel. To be a Fundamentalist is, first, to believe that fundamental doctrines are definitive for Christian fellowship, second, to refuse Christian fellowship with all who deny fundamental doctrines (e.g., doctrines that are essential to the gospel), and third, to reject the leadership of Christians who form bonds of cooperation and fellowship with those who deny essential doctrines. We are both evangelicals and Fundamentalists according to these definitions. We all believe that, as ecclesial movements, both evangelicalism and Fundamentalism have drifted badly from their core commitments. In the case of evangelicalism, the drift began when self-identified neo-evangelicals began to extend Christian fellowship to those who clearly rejected fundamental doctrines. This extension of fellowship represented a dethroning of the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship. It was a grievous error, and it has led to the rapid erosion of evangelical theology within the evangelical movement. At the present moment, some versions of professing evangelicalism actually harbor denials of the gospel such as Open Theism or the New Perspective on Paul. We deny that the advocates of such positions can rightly be called evangelical.read more