The Gospel Coalition's Accommodation to Postmodernism in their Statements on Inerrancy

Thanks, Chip, and I want to hear feedback like this. Hey, I am over here in NYC and it is a war over here of another sort. We have a monthly prayer meetings and also a monthly NYC pastors fellowship that is a good mixture of fundamental men (not FBFI), so I have not immersed myself in these things at all through the years. But I will say that I do not believe the FBFI is antagonistic in its doctrinal statement at all toward Calvinistic soteriology. Perhaps things have been said that have given another impression, but those things would not speak for all. In my series for example (and by no means do I speak in any official capacity for the FBFI), i did write an article on “Why Dispensationalism is Important” but I said nothing about the salvation side of things, only the eschatological and hermeneutical side of things. Reading what others have been saying even on this post, if i was more aware of the antagonism that guys like you have felt I would have made my point more clear that I was not dealing with the soteriology at all. In this post, I had to say a number of times that traditional Calvinists have drawn none of my fire. I have heard FBFI leaders say that we want to have men like you who lean more to a Calvinistic position in our fellowship. It is a concern that you have felt an antagonism that has given you an unwelcome feeling. I will definitely share the general sense that you have expressed to some others.

A few years ago, I oversaw an issue of FRONTLINE and it focused on the preaching of the Gospel. I asked Dave Doran and Mike Harding to write articles, which I was happy they did. So that is an example of the FBFI not being antagonistic. I believe that we need to prayerfully work on this, and do a better job.

Just to further clarify for those who may not know, there are many who hold to a Calvinistic soteriology and a Dispensational eschatology.

Matt, I accept that you have stated a difference earlier in this thread. I also accept that there are still respected Cavinists numbered among the influential in the FBFI. However, the animus of some has been evident and never dealt with well by FBFI leadership. Many of us are more than willing to let the FBFI move on answering only to God, we just don’t appreciate the ongoing pot shots. This is the point of the recommendations to have the FBFI focus more on who they are and what they are doing and less on who others choose to be and what they choose to do.

Thanks, Chip, I do understand.

And why are these posts on a different thread, what happened?

[mrecker]

I understand what Dr. Bauder is saying and he calls himself “equal time” to speak positively about CE and sometimes points out the “warts” of the Fundamentalists. Dr. Bauder’s strategy seems to be that the way to keep young men more in our circles of Fundamentalism is to attack the negative aspects of Fundamentalism and to give credit where credit is due to the CE. And I can see that to a degree and I do not discount that he knows what a lot of these young preachers are saying and thinking since he is in a seminary environment, and that he understands this far more than me.

From personal experience and talking to a lot of other men my age (having a lot of personal experience, especially while growing up, with the old-time, KJVO, “I don’t care what it is, I’m agin’ it” school of fundamentalism) but not young enough to be in the “young fundamentalist” category, I would say that Dr. Bauder’s strategy is definitely working for many. I know another younger man (about 30) who just received his PhD. in Theology, who stated flat out that if it weren’t for men like Dr. Bauder (who he named) he would no longer be a fundamentalist.

I can’t speak for the majority here on SI, of course, but shortly after leaving a church that slowly changed from more or less mainstream fundamentalism to become KJVO, I was looking for other people who identified as fundamental, but were willing to think rather than just spout the party line. That’s when I found SI, and a larger community of mainstream fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals that I could interact with. 9 years later, I’m still on the fundamental side of the line, but I’m quite thankful for men who will take on some of the egregious errors and blind spots of the traditional old-guard without charging whole heartedly into CE. SI has quite a variety of participants, at least some of whom are either far to the right or left of me, but I’ve found the interactions to really help sharpen. While there have been complaints about the variety of positions allowed here, it is the very fact that things outside what is “tradition” can be evaluated and considered to see if they are scriptural that has really been helpful. Only hearing what is bad about those outside fundamentalism will not only not accomplish the goal of keeping people on the scriptural path, I would argue that that strategy is flat out harmful. Errors inside the camp should be dealt with just as quickly as those from people who are true Christians but are outside the camp. (I’m not talking about out and out false teachers here.)

Having said that, I think that some of what has recently been published on P&D has been more than just the “I’m thankful I’m not like this publican” style of many things coming out of fundamentalism in the past. I hope that trend continues.

[mrecker]

And why are these posts on a different thread, what happened?

The thread got too long and the system automatically started a new page. It’s a little confusing for me too sometimes. :)

Hey Don,

Frontline is a good magazine. I read it when I’m home with my parents. I at least am not talking about that. I was talking specifically about the website and how internet persuasion works. Matt was talking earlier about how he gets why CE and folks at TGC are listened to. They provide timely, professional, relevant (I’m not using that term in the hipster-Christian way) content. As I look at P&D the content is more than 50% about either the past, or polemics about present day controversies. I think that’s unhealthy.
They way I find new articles and information is via social media for better or for worse. Nothing screams “we’re not interested in the young” better than a lack of social media promoting your content (I looked and I can’t find any reference to FBFI having social media accounts). If the FBF doesn’t want to engage via social media for some reason, I might ask why have a blog? Clearly technology should be used to deceminate new content? Don, you mentioned that Frontline magazine is available after 12 months. Have you considered aggressively promoting that fact via social media? Take TGC as a model, look at what they do, and imitate it even if it makes you gag. They do incredibly high quality work. Yes they have good funding, but social media is free and you’re already blogging. I think Matt was on to something when he made his comment that he understands why they have influence and appeal.

…maybe you need to put P&D behind the paywall and current Frontline content front and center and free! ;-)

But seriously, if the best content is not easily accessible, and you’re wanting to attract new people, perhaps you should consider what Shayne is saying.

Shaynus, you said,

They do incredibly high quality work. Yes they have good funding, but social media is free and you’re already blogging. I think Matt was on to something when he made his comment that he understands why they have influence and appeal.

Shaynus, you are right. And funding is a big issue, even with social media. Because as the saying goes, time is money, and most of us pastors have little time for the blogging and all that it takes to keep things current. I forgot what we pay Don for all the time and energy he puts into P and D. Don, how much was that again? Maybe we can get some of you younger men to come alongside us and do all that social media. Shaynus, just to be clear, when you say “Social Media” are you talking most about Facebook, Twitter, both, or something else or everything? Out of curiosity, what avenue of social media do you prefer?

Maybe we can get some of you younger men to come alongside us and do all that social media. Shaynus, just to be clear, when you say “Social Media” are you talking most about Facebook, Twitter, both, or something else or everything? Out of curiosity, what avenue of social media do you prefer?

Facebook is the biggie, with Twitter growing rapidly. Both are great for spreading content.

I think some of us younger people would be willing to help, but we’re probably going to want to link to and disseminate content that might cause agita for the FBFI members. That could be a problem for some.

Hi Matt,

Yes Facebook and Twitter are the most common social media platforms, it’s a broader term to include a study of the way people can distribute media content among themselves.

I’m not denying it would take time. It surely would. But think of all the time it took you to write your blog, and a few seconds to tweet a link to the blog so that people (who “follow” you or FBFI on social media would know the blog entry exists). There are even free tools to automatically tweet new blog entries (which I find tacky).
But taking a step back, does the FBFI want to be an organization who’s web presence is reaching out to new pastors who hadn’t heard of it before? Or does it think of its online presence as mainly preaching to the choir? It’s OK if you don’t want to do outreach as long as you’re OK with the consequences of losing a younger generation. More than funding, the FBFI needs a strategy for what its mission is and how the internet fits into that mission. It used to be that having a website was the mark of internet presence. Now social media is more of a must.
I really commend Desiring God and desiringgod.com as an example of a wonderful platform. Early on in John Piper’s ministry volunteers started gathering content and putting it online. People from all over the world downloaded it and they made the conscious decision to not have a paywall as a way to extend influence. The costs of bandwidth and production of content are so much lower now than they were even a few years ago. Social media is a tool just like a blog is a tool. But you need a strategy too (it’s likely you have one). I would recommend reading up on Matt Perman, who was the strategist behind Desiring God’s online presence. He recently wrote a book on productivity called “What’s Best Next.”

Thanks, Shane for the good advice. I have been putting my articles on our church facebook page. I have used my constant contact distribution lists to inform others of the article. Not sure that may be tacky too :). In fact, the article ended up on this web site because someone saw it on Facebook. So i am here right now bc of social media. I don’t twitter. maybe should, but I just did not get into it. I will try to look into that book. Once you learn one thing, another thing is newer and better! It’s hard to stay on top, huh?

Email is perfectly acceptable. It’s just not social. Glad to hear your church is on FB.

[Shaynus]

Hey Don,

Frontline is a good magazine. I read it when I’m home with my parents. I at least am not talking about that. I was talking specifically about the website and how internet persuasion works. Matt was talking earlier about how he gets why CE and folks at TGC are listened to. They provide timely, professional, relevant (I’m not using that term in the hipster-Christian way) content. As I look at P&D the content is more than 50% about either the past, or polemics about present day controversies. I think that’s unhealthy.

Well, that is of course a subjective opinion. FWIW, since I make most of the scheduling choices, I think our balance is perfect. I will acknowledge that I tend to be more polemical in my own writing. However, the challenge I was responding to seemed to suggest that we were totally polemical (or a very strong majority at least). My point was that we are not and I think any reasonable survey of our content will show that we try to have a balanced approach with a decidedly fundamentalist viewpoint.

[Shaynus] They way I find new articles and information is via social media for better or for worse. Nothing screams “we’re not interested in the young” better than a lack of social media promoting your content (I looked and I can’t find any reference to FBFI having social media accounts).

On this point, we do have a Facebook page for both the FBFI and P&D. Something is fouled up with our feed to the P&D site - not sure why that is, but I haven’t had time to search out the cause (or find someone who can do it). We aren’t against setting up a Twitter feed either, but haven’t got to it yet. It all takes time and skill and volunteer labor, so we will get to it someday.

If the FBFI wants to get its message to those outside of its camp, Frontline needs to be much more accessible. It seems that P & D has multiplied its audience with its exposure on SI. When P & D is all most of us know about the FBFI, we see some proclaiming of positive messages and a lot of defending ourselves against brethren who are in error. P & D’s home seems to not want to engage debate as the only responses allowed are letters to the editor which may or not be published.

It appears Kevin Bauder is responding to Matt Recker methodically.

http://www.centralseminary.edu/resources/nick-of-time/matt-recker-and-t…