Category Archives: Individuals

The inner logic of Calvinist attacks on "Love Wins"

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Roger E. OlsonRoger E. Olson, as one of his “evangelical Arminian theological musings”, explains Why I defend Rob Bell’s Love Wins (and other controversial books). In doing so he offers some fascinating observations about Calvinist attacks on Arminianism and other perceived theological errors. He refers to “American evangelical Calvinisms’ DNA”, but much of what he says applies equally to some strands of British Calvinism, such as that of Adrian Warnock.

Olson considers Calvinist responses both to open theism and to Rob Bell’s book Love Wins, and compares them with general Calvinist criticisms of Arminianism. He is careful to point out differences between these three positions, but point out that Calvinists who reject them offer the same arguments against all three, that

they are human-centered, belittling the glory of God, neglecting God’s justice and wrath in favor of too much emphasis on God’s love, etc., etc.

At this point I would add that there is a similar character to much Calvinist and “Reformed” polemic against those seen as rejecting penal substitutionary atonement, like Steve Chalke, with the same arguments being made that the rejected position is human-centred and neglects God’s justice and wrath.

Olson then considers specifically the arguments against Bell’s book. He looks at 1 Timothy 2:4:

God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

He rejects the Calvinist position that “all people” here means any less than everyone. He also agrees with Bell’s rejection of universalism. So the implication is that what God wants does not actually happen. And, Olson writes,

I think that is what offends critics of Love Wins–the suggestion that God doesn’t get what he really, perfectly wants.  That seems to them to demean God, to lessen his glory. …

The deep, inner logic of the attacks on Love Wins seems to me of this variety.  The ones I have read and heard ALL arise out of Reformed assumptions about God rather than out of Arminian assumptions about God.  And there’s the main difference.  Not all Arminians will agree with everything Bell says, but the general thrust of his theology in Love Wins is classically Arminian–that God permits free creatures to resist his love out of love and therefore love wins even as God seems to lose something.  Because of the risk his love forces him to take, and human resistance to it, God ends up not getting all that God wants.  ON THE OTHER HAND, of course, God DOES GET WHAT GOD WANTS–this world in which his love can be resisted.  It’s dialectical but not contradictory.

Olson makes it clear that he does not accept all of Bell’s arguments. But he concludes with

I would like to suggest to both sides that what is really going on in this whole controversy over Bell’s Love Wins is another round of the old Calvinist versus Arminian debate.

That’s what it looks like to me as well.

Politics in the Bible, Wayne Grudem, and NIV 2011

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Long term readers of Gentle Wisdom will know that I am no admirer of Wayne Grudem. I have not always been negative about him. But I have been critical of his complementarian position restricting women in ministry. I have pointed out how he has persistently made errors of fact in his biblical arguments for that position. I have rejected his doctrine of functional subordination within the Trinity. And I have had especially strong words to say, mostly elsewhere, about the intemperate and unscholarly way in which Grudem led the condemnation of the TNIV Bible.

So I am happy that Grudem has kept quiet about the NIV 2011 update. I haven’t found any mention of it by him since its publication. Very likely he shares the concerns so strongly expressed by Denny Burk, who has taken his place as the chief spokesman of CBMW on such matters. But he has not put the authority of his name and reputation behind a destructive campaign in the way that he did with TNIV. Rod Decker is wrong to suggest that he has done, while making a good point about Grudem’s hypocrisy over singular “they”. One consequence of Grudem’s silence is that very likely NIV 2011 will become widely accepted, as TNIV was not, as the successor of the 1984 NIV.

Wayne Grudem: Politics according to the BibleBut I wonder if there is something other than a change of heart behind Grudem’s reticence on NIV 2011. This could be related to his book Politics According to the Bible. As this book is published by Zondervan, and promoted on their Koinonia blog, there could be contract conditions preventing Grudem from publicly condemning NIV 2011, another Zondervan product. And Grudem would certainly be wise not to cross the lawyers for News Corporation, owners of Zondervan. Yes, Zondervan is part of Rupert Murdoch’s controversial empire, which goes to show that even the worst egg can be good in parts.

The Koinonia post is an extract from an interview with Grudem by the Acton Institute, about his book – which is actually not as new as I thought at first, as it was published in September last year. Now this is another book that I am mentioning without having read it, so please don’t take this as a review (whatever post categories this might be in). I am responding only to what is in the Acton Institute interview. But I must say I was more favourably impressed than I have been with other things I have seen from Grudem. He has a number of excellent things to say in the interview, including this:

I found that in the Bible there were many examples of God’s people influencing secular governments. I am arguing in the book that it is a spiritually good thing and it is pleasing to God when Christians can influence government for good.

In view of his position on women’s rights in the church and family, this is somewhat ironic:

Christian influence led to granting property rights and other protections to women at various times through history.

But Christian political activity needs to be put in the right context:

My book seeks to warn Christians away from the temptation of thinking if we just elect the right leaders and pass the right laws, we will have a good nation. That fails to understand that a genuine transformation of a nation will not come about unless peoples’ hearts are changed so that they have a desire to do what is right and live in obedience to good laws.

I am somewhat ambivalent on what Grudem says about unemployment benefit, but he is asking the right questions:

… we are to care for the poor and those in need, and the Bible frequently talks about the need to care for the poor. I think government has a legitimate role in providing a safety net for those who are in genuine need of food, clothing and shelter.

There is also a strong strand of biblical teaching that emphasizes the importance of work to earn a living. … The longer that unemployment benefits are continued, the more we contribute to the idea that some people should not have to work in order to earn a living, but we should just continue to have government support them. That creates a culture of dependency, which is unhealthy for the nation and unhealthy for the people who are dependent, year after year, on government handouts.

Indeed. But this needs to be balanced by a realisation that, within our modern economic system, there are many people who genuinely want to earn their own living but are unable to do so, for personal reasons or because no work is available. In our society these are the poor that the Bible calls us to support, for the long term at least in the case of needy widows (1 Timothy 5:9). There is no place in Christian teaching for benefits being cut off after a fixed period.

Grudem finishes as follows:

It is important for Christians to settle in their hearts that God is in control over history, and His purposes will be accomplished.

The last chapter of my book has to do with combining work to bring good influence to government, coupled with faith in God and prayer that God’s good purposes will reign in earthly governments. I think we have to do both things, because God hears prayers, and He also works through the efforts and actions of human beings who are seeking to influence government for good.

Amen!

Ruth Gledhill on cleaning the Augean Stables

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Ruth GledhillRuth Gledhill, Religious Affairs Correspondent of The Times, used to be one of my favourite bloggers. That is, until her blog, along with most other content at The Times, was put behind a paywall. That was reportedly at the insistence of the newspaper’s owners, News International, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. As the BBC reported last year, before the change,

NI chief executive Rebekah Brooks said it was “a crucial step towards making the business of news an economically exciting proposition”. …

Mrs Brooks said the decision to charge came “at a defining moment for journalism… We are proud of our journalism and unashamed to say that we believe it has value”.

Rebekah Brooks? We have heard that name again recently. Is she still proud of “our journalism”?

But back to Ruth Gledhill: she has now started her own personal blog, with an interesting name for someone who I think calls herself a Christian, Goddess of Small Things. She writes that this blog

will be a place for reflections on life as a working mum, as a parent of a chorister, as a breeder of Ragdoll cats, as an Anglican churchgoer, as a photographer of flowers, as a singer and classical guitar player.

But her latest post goes well beyond these subjects to reflect on her life as a journalist at a Murdoch newspaper, as she writes about Milly Dowler? Soham? Dead Soldiers? She reflects movingly on her personal dilemmas as an innocent employee of a company that has been accused of some shocking criminal activities. But I can’t help wondering whether she will get in trouble with her employers for other parts of what she has written:

How could they?

No.

How could WE.

I am a journalist. I work for News International. I am on Twitter. I read The Guardian. I know what is being said. …

The shame. The terrible shame.

She goes on to suggest that the News of the World should print on its front page the Church of England’s General Confession, including

We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable.

And she concludes:

I can’t forget about Milly Dowler. Soham. The dead soldiers.

I don’t want to forget. I will never forget.

The Augean stables are being cleaned at last. Bring on the tsunami.

Indeed. And it seems that the cleansing tsunami will sweep away the News of the World. Breaking news from the BBC:

Breaking newsNews of the World to close amid hacking scandal

This Sunday’s issue of the News of the World will be the last edition of the paper, News International chairman James Murdoch has said.

I look forward to seeing what kind of confession they will put on their final front page.

UPDATE a few minutes later: I posted this quickly to get the breaking news out. But there is a bit more I want to say. First, the BBC breaking news report has already, within 15 minutes, been updated to include a statement from James Murdoch, in which he says that “the good things the News of the World does”

have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong – indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company. …

the News of the World and News International failed to get to the bottom of repeated wrongdoing that occurred without conscience or legitimate purpose. …

The company paid out-of-court settlements approved by me. I now know that I did not have a complete picture when I did so. This was wrong and is a matter of serious regret.

Not yet quite “The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable”, but a major step in that direction.

But I note a tweet from @subedit that

Sun staff have been told they are moving to a 7-day operation.

So perhaps what will really happen is that the News of the World will be rebranded as the Sunday Sun, as @subedit and Lord Prescott have already suggested.

I was also going to link to the campaign by Avaaz and 38 Degrees to stop News International from taking over BSkyB. Apparently the decision is to be delayed, until September according to @subedit. So it looks as if the campaign is having its effect, but we await further details.

Obama dead, reports Fox News

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President ObamaFox News announced this morning that President Obama had been assassinated. At least that is what appeared on the Fox News political Twitter feed, @Foxnewspolitics.

These particular tweets, reported by the BBC, are of course hoaxes perpetrated by hackers. But it took eight hours for Fox News to remove the tweets and issue an explanation.

As I wrote yesterday in a comment on a different topic, “I don’t trust Fox News”. In fact I don’t trust any news outlet, although the BBC is generally better than most. But one reason why I am especially wary of Fox News is that, as confirmed by Wikipedia, it is owned by News Corporation.

It is not just that News Corporation is pushing a particular conservative agenda worldwide – indeed they would probably be pleased to have Obama if not dead at least out of the way. But this corporation, or at least its subsidiaries, seem to have scant regard for ordinary morality or decency, or for the law, in the way that it pursues its goals.

This has been seen most clearly in the News of the World telephone tapping scandal here in the UK. Journalists at this News Corporation newspaper have been found guilty of illegal tapping, and investigations into wider scandals are continuing.

In the latest development reported today by the BBC (but not linked by them to the Obama tweet hacking), it has been alleged that the News of the World hacked into the mobile phone of a missing 13-year-old girl, who was later found murdered. They even deleted some voicemail messages, it is said, giving her family false hope that she was alive. Not only would this be a gross intrusion into a family’s grief, it would also seem to have interfered with the police investigation.

The editor of the News of the World at the time, Rebekah Brooks, is now chief executive of News International, “the main UK subsidiary of News Corporation” which owns the News of the World and three other newspapers, and is bidding for full control of the TV news channel Sky News.

The corporation which hacks other people’s telephone records can hardly complain when it falls victim to hackers itself.

NIV 2011: Denny Burk condemns it, most are lukewarm

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Suzanne writes that her prophecy here at Gentle Wisdom has come true. I’m not so sure, especially as she has denied referring to John Hobbins. This is what she wrote here, in a comment on my post NIV 2011 Update: first impressions:

I predict that complementarians will completely reject the new NIV because of 1 Tim. 2:12, 1 Cor. 11:10, the paragraphing of Eph. 5:21-22, and Romans 16:7. John Piper has already spoken vociferously against the NIV 1984, perhaps to pave the way for a full rejetion of the NIV 2011.

But as far as I can tell John Piper and the other well known complementarians who intemperately rejected TNIV, such as Wayne Grudem, have had little or nothing to say about the NIV 2011 update. Vern Poythress has written a review, but he seems less concerned by its gender-related language than that

Overall, the NIV 2011 translation appears inconsistent or uneven

– a concern that I share. Even World Magazine, which led the condemnation of NIV Inclusive Language Edition by calling it the “Stealth Bible”, has offered only mild disapproval of the 2011 update.

It has been in the news recently that the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution against the NIV 2011 update and calling on its LifeWay bookshops to boycott it. But this was a last minute motion from the floor of the house, not supported by the convention organisers, which was voted on without the case in favour of the update even being presented. I expect that when LifeWay realises the financial implications of withdrawing one of its best selling Bible versions they will quietly ignore the resolution.

By contrast, as I reported at Better Bibles Blog, another very conservative group, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, looks likely to accept the NIV 2011 update. A WELS committee has considered the update very carefully and issued a long and detailed report recommending the Synod to formally accept the it.

Denny BurkThe only significant strong negative reaction to the NIV 2011 that I have seen has come from Denny Burk. But Suzanne cannot claim to be a prophet about this, as I had already linked to Burk’s initial complaint in my post. Since then he has written quite a lot more, including a paper in JBMW. In this he comes to similar conclusions to mine in that same post, that NIV 2011 has retained most of the gender-related language of TNIV but about 25% of what some people objected to has been revised.

Predictably Burk singles out for comment in this JBMW paper 1 Timothy 2:12, which he calls “The Most Contested Verse in the Gender Debate”. He bases his argument on Köstenberger’s highly dubious argument (which I discussed here in 2006) that the disputed Greek word here, authentein, cannot have negative connotations. He then completely ruins his case, in the eyes of scholars rather than of blind followers of “Reformed” heroes, by quoting and relying on an error of fact by Wayne Grudem. Grudem wrote that the TNIV and NIV 2011 rendering “assume authority” is “a highly suspect and novel translation”, when in fact, as Suzanne had shown (originally in 2009) and tried to point out to Burk, it comes straight from Calvin’s commentary, as translated by Pringle in the 19th century – and is clearly less negative in its connotations than “usurp authority” in KJV.

The autobiographical notes at the start of Burk’s paper recount how at the age of 17 he acquired an NIV Bible and started to read it avidly. He calls himself

one whose testimony has been inexorably shaped by the NIV translation.

So it is not surprising that he is attached to the 1984 version of NIV and has strong negative reactions to any changes to it. This kind of conservatism is a natural human reaction to change. But it is not the way of our God who makes all things new.

In the USA there is a strong KJV-only movement, which idolises this 400-year-old versions and will accept no Bible. I wonder, does Denny Burk want to lead an NIV-1984-only movement? I think he will find this much harder than his skateboarding tricks.

Justin Bieber's unlikely hero: Job

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Justin BieberWhile researching my last post about Justin Bieber, I came across these remarkable words in an interview with Justin and his film’s producer and director after the London premiere of the film. These are Justin’s words:

Who is my biggest role model? Does it have to be in this day and age? OK, Job. Seriously! Do you want to know why? Job from the Bible… So, he got tortured, he got his family killed, everything was taken away from him – his job, his cattle, everything – and he still remained faithful to God and still trusted God after everything was taken away. He didn’t know why it happened but he still put his faith in God and remembered that everything happens for a reason. So, that’s why. Read the Book of Job.

What other (then) 16-year-old young man would choose Job as a role model, and for that reason?

I can’t help wondering what this might reveal about Justin’s inner struggles. In his film Never Say Never he is shown on a visit back to his small home town in Canada and meeting up with his old friends. I wonder how painful it had been for Justin to be taken away from his home and friends, and from all he had known except for his mother, at the age of 14. Perhaps this was when he felt like Job after he lost everything.

But does he now feel like Job at the end of the book, when everything was restored? Having earned $53 million in the last year, according to Wikipedia, he clearly has material resources, which he didn’t have before. He also has a celebrity girlfriend. But have these things brought him happiness? Does he have a real home and real friends? Or does he still feel like Job in the midst of his travels?

Money and fame can’t bring him, or anyone else, happiness. But faith in God can. I hope and pray that Justin holds on to that faith through bad times and good, and continues to speak out openly about it.

N.T. Wright: Jesus in 3D

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Brian LePort has an interesting post N.T. Wright on the Chalcedonian Definition. For those who don’t know, the Chalcedonian Definition was the climax of the early church’s quest to define the nature of Jesus as both God and man,

perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; … in all things like unto us, without sin; … in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved …

This definition was and still is accepted by the church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox churches, and most Protestants also consider it a touchstone of Trinitarian orthodoxy. But it was and still is rejected by some Oriental churches as well as by non-Trinitarians.

N.T. WrightWright, as quoted by LePort, writes:

the Chalcedonian Definition looks suspiciously like an attempt to say the right thing but in two dimensions (divinity and humanity as reimagined within a partly de-Judaized world of thought) rather than in three dimensions. What the Gospel offer is the personal story of Jesus himself, understood in terms of his simultaneously (1) embodying Israel’s God, coming to rule the world as he had always promised, and (2) summing up Israel itself, as its Messiah, offering to Israel’s God the obedience to which Israel’s whole canonical tradition had pointed but which nobody, up to this point, had been able to provide. The flattening out of Christian debates about Jesus into the language of divinity and humanity represents, I believe, a serious de-Judaizing of the Gospels, ignoring the fact that the Gospels know nothing of divinity in the abstract and plenty about the God of Israel coming to establish his kingdom on earth as in heaven, that they know nothing of humanity in the abstract, but plenty about Israel as God’s true people, and Jesus as summing that people up in himself. The Council of Chalcedon might be seen as the de-Israelitization of the canonical picture of YHWH and Israel into the abstract categories of ‘divinity’ and ‘humanity.’ I continue to affirm Chalcedon in the same way that I will agree that a sphere is also a circle or a cube also a square, while noting that this truth is not the whole truth.

In other words, the true Jesus is a three-dimensional person in a Jewish real world context, living the life of a real man and doing the works of a real God. But the Byzantine theologians took him out of that context and flattened him into a two-dimensional abstraction derived from Greek philosophical concepts of divinity and humanity. They were not wrong, but they gave us only a small part of the picture.

Sadly most of the church today sees Jesus in the same way. He is worshipped as a static two-dimensional image, even when portrayed in three-dimensional statues, and honoured for the important things he did 2000 years ago. He is not understood as the living God. Nor is he taken as our fully human example, as I posted about him being nearly five years ago.

The world has recently rediscovered 3D cinema. In a few days from now the BBC will offer 3D television for the first time, for the Wimbledon finals. It is time for the church to rediscover the real 3D Jesus, and broadcast him to the world.

Never Say Never, says Justin Bieber

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Justin Bieber: Never Say NeverI would normally have said “never” to Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. It’s certainly not a film I would have gone to the cinema to see, not least because I would have hated being surrounded by screaming teenage girls. But on a long-haul flight last week (the trip is why posting has been slow recently) I had the chance to watch this documentary about the Jesus-tattooed teen idol. And I was pleasantly surprised – not by the music and dance, which is not my style, and not by the shots of and interviews with Justin’s teen fans, but by the positive Christian message I found in the film.

It seems this was not accidental. Huffington Post reported a few months ago on how Bieber was being deliberately marketed as a “Christian icon for the tween set”. The article notes how in the film

several scenes show Bieber praying before concerts, and [his mother] Mallette discusses how God brought stability to her life as a single teenage mother.

Well, if the film gives millions of young people worldwide a positive view of the Christian faith, that is something wonderful. But I see something more in the movie, a spiritual lesson about what we can accomplish by faith if we “Never Say Never”. In the words of the film’s tagline, as Christians we need to

Find Out What’s Possible If You Never Give Up.

The basic story is a simple one (spoiler alert if you really don’t know how it ends, so far). Small town kid shows talent on the drums and singing. His mother films him and puts the results on YouTube. (These 2007 videos are on his old YouTube channel – his recent releases are on a newer channel which has now had a staggering 1.7 BILLION views.) A talent manager stumbles across his videos and is impressed enough to sign him up. He sings his way round lots of small venues to get publicity for his first album. The album goes platinum and suddenly Justin is one of the hottest properties in the world. He has a dream to fill the 20,000 seat Madison Square Garden in New York for a concert. People tell him it is impossible. But his manager goes ahead with the booking – and, as reported by Wikipedia as well as in the film, he becomes

The youngest person to ever sell out the garden. … It took 22 minutes for Justin Bieber to sell out the Garden.

Justin refused to give up and achieved his supposedly impossible dream. The film encourages us all to do the same.

So how is this a Christian message? I understand how some people might say that this is secular motivational teaching with a Christian veneer. But then a lot of secular motivational teaching is Christian preaching purged of its overtly religious material. The Christian message here is a simple one: if God has given you a dream, even one which looks impossible, and has called you to make it a reality, then step out in faith, expect his help and blessing, and don’t give up until the dream comes true.

While I have not seen this made explicit, it seems to me that Justin and his mother see his career as some kind of mission from and for God, which they are pursuing by faith. I don’t know if they know the Seven Mountains Mandate teaching which I discussed in a recent post. But Justin has shown in practice how, with the right dream and a lot of hard work, and with what some might see as luck but others as God’s blessing, it is possible even for a young outsider to get right to the peak of the arts and entertainment mountain, to use the position as a powerful Christian witness, and to bring the kingdom of God to that peak.

In the film Justin says

There’s gonna be times where people tell you that you can’t live your dreams. This is what I tell them: Never say never.

If the dreams are from God, then: Amen!

Todd Bentley postpones UK trip

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Todd BentleyTodd Bentley has postponed his July visit to Dudley, England, which I wrote about first in this post and then in more detail in this one. Trevor Baker has arranged an alternative conference for the same venue and dates.

There is now the following message on the Revival Fires conferences page:

Letter from Trevor Baker

Todd Bentley informed me on 13 June that he was cancelling coming to Dudley for the “Restoration and Resurrection” meetings.

I know that many of you have made arrangements to be here in Dudley for this weekend. Rather than cancel the event, we invited Bill Prankard to speak over this time. Please do accept my apologies for any inconvenience and disappointment due to Todd’s change of schedule. I am still believing for a mighty time in God’s Presence this July as He releases His resurrection power.

Below is the email I received:
“Dear Partners and friends of the UK and Europe. We here at Fresh Fire Ministries have always valued the presence of God above any conference or outpouring. Recently during our Greater Glory Gathering in Virginia Beach the Lord spoke to Todd about contending for healing, breakthrough and his presence for 30 straight days there beginning June 27, 2011. In obedience to the Lord in doing 30 days straight we have had to cancel our trip to England to make room for what the Lord is doing”

Once again, I do apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Blessings,
Trevor

Todd’s page about this event now includes the same words as in the email he sent to Trevor quoted above.

After this second postponement, I wonder if Todd will ever make it to England!