This is my old
welcome essay some of you may have read before.
Welcome,
Feel free to ask
questions.... The tone here is conversational...this is deliberate as I'm not
trying to write scholarly essays, but generate discussion and thought.
This is my cri
de coeur.....
There are a few
main themes that are being dealt with here.
1. Sacralism
This has been
the default setting since the time of the Constantinian Shift. The Reformation
was a great revival, but failed to correct these errors, leaving us with a
Protestant Sacralism very much akin to the Medieval situation. The Reformation
was the source of much good, but not correcting these two key categories also
opened the door to much evil. These categories of thought have led the modern
Evangelical Church to degenerate and enter a state of Apostasy startlingly
similar to medieval Roman entity. The cultural form is different, but the
substance of the error is exactly the same.
With Sacralism
comes certain ways of thinking about the world. Theologians have developed
Integrationist Theological and Philosophical constructs to help develop a
Christian Worldview. But rather than help Christians to understand the Common
Grace order, they are actually blinding them to Truth and turning them away
from a right vision of The Holy Kingdom.
2. Scholasticism
Aristotelian
defined Metaphysics have sent the church down a wrong path, leading it to read
and interpret the Bible wrongly. Scholasticism has given us Hyper-Calvinism,
Arminianism and Sacerdotalism. Until Aristotelian Scholasticism is abandoned or
corrected, there is little hope for Reform.
3. Who were the
Proto-protestants?
A Full
Augustinianism (Soteriological and Ecclesiastical) that rejected Sacralism
(which Augustine himself seemed to promote), was more or less held by the
groups of people known as the proto-protestant underground. We contend this
story has been neglected due to commitments in the reading and understanding of
Church History, and the doctrinally erroneous attempts of medieval
reconstruction by certain sects. While not trying romanticize their history, we
can learn something from them that was lost when the Reformation came and more
or less absorbed them.
4. Issues of Conflict
Methodology,
The Relationship
between the Old and New Covenants,
What is saving
faith?,
What is the
nature of Christ's Kingdom?
What is the
article by which the Church stands or falls?
The discussion
here will interact with these as well as other issues pertinent to the
contemporary situation.
I'm going to
really upset some people but I know there are some thinking people out there
who sense some of these problems and maybe aren't sure how to put it together.
Ironically, I'm
arguing the Redemptive-Historical camp understands the structure and typology
of the Scripture. Some of the proto- groups had a 3-fold Covenant model of
Nature, Law, and Grace. And the Redemptive-Historical movement, particularly
the Klineans have been right to reject Sacralism and identify its threat, one
of the most dire we are warned of on the pages of the New Testament.
And yet I'm also
arguing for a bi-covenantal application even in the framework of the New
Covenant. I and others picked up on this years before we had ever even heard of
Federal Vision. We were pleasingly shocked to suddenly find that others too had
discovered this. It's nothing new. It's Augustine of Hippo's theology that
understands decretal theology and revealed theology in a dialectical tension.
But the normative theology and language of the church is in the realm of the
revealed. The decretal aspects of theology are absolutely true and a great
comfort, but we can't explain away the concrete and yes, even conditional
aspect of the New Covenant administration in its visible and normative form.
This is
Augustine's Soteriology and Ecclesiology both at work in dialectic tension. A
robust Decretal Theology coupled with a Concrete Ecclesiology. We can talk
about Election and Justification by faith alone, but we can also talk about
efficacious Sacraments and a doctrine of visible church and covenant that is
more than just an abstraction.
Scholastic
commitments demand synthesis. The Bible does not, and in fact does not give us
the tools to do so. We are not mystics but we cannot let Systematics interpret
texts in a non-Redemptive-Historical framework, and then with metaphysical
speculation, cancel out the meaning of specific texts. This ends up being a
de-facto denial of Sola Scriptura.
I argue
alongside Amyraut, that John Calvin did teach this, but I will admit he does
not explicitly set out to explain the undergirding principles...but I insist he
does employ it. And while I can admire Calvin and did for years, I can also
point to Geneva as a model of what not to do and what to avoid. In some
respects Calvin is the face of Protestant Sacralism that is being condemned in
these writings. Blessing and curse.
I mention
Amyraut but insist if you refer to his theology as 4pt Calvinism...you're not
understanding him.
As far as
Dialectic tensions in theology.....
Everyone employs
them....just in a limited fashion. I'm arguing it is a basic structural element
that we find not just in the
Already-not yet,
sanctification, adoption, the visible/invisible church, the revealed/decretal
will of God...and especially the Incarnation and on an even more profound
level, the Trinity, but in other areas as well.
I'm arguing the
Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was not the Church of Jesus Christ,
but Antichrist. The standard Protestant position of Rome being the church until
the denial of Sola Fide at Trent is untenable and I argue this position is
generated by Sacralist commitments. And I'm trying to warn against further
development of a Sacralist Protestantism that in the end will be in the same
state of apostasy as the Roman Entity. Most of it already is.
In summary, I'm
saying we can and ought to learn from people like the Waldensians, Lollards,
and Hussites. I think most people are ignorant of their largely ignored
history. A major part of their vision was eliminated by The Reformation.
I also touch on
some of the reasons why I think Protestant history has been patronizingly kind,
but has ignored the message of these people.
The Anabaptists
who picked up their rejection of Sacralism unfortunately also adopted another
type of rationalistic system....the Baptistic. Despite the assertions of
certain parties, the Medieval Dissenters were not Baptists. Some were, I will
grant, but the majority were not. Re-baptism in the Middle Ages is often not
based on a doctrine of Credobaptism, but rather a rejection of Sacralist
Baptism as invalid.
This is
completely anachronistic...but I'm saying there were people running around
before the Reformation that were theologically incorporating categories that
would include both Biblical Theology, and Federal Vision type thought and yet
(obviously) also rejecting portions of their vision. The core of these people
and why I am so keen on them, is a commitment to the unadulterated, unmodified,
WORD and a specific non-sacral vision of the KINGDOM.
That's what this
is about. I'm interacting with the past and the present and I don't belong to
any camp.
Maybe some of
these pieces will be helpful. Some are sure to offend, but I don't apologize.
We are in a
crisis I believe, and this may sound unbelievable but I am convinced our day is
every bit as dark as the Dark Ages. In fact, maybe darker. I'm looking at
things in a different way and thinking in different categories. The Underground
Church was vastly larger than the perceptions given in the average Church
History. Even their opponents will acknowledge that in the works that have been
published....
I desire conversations
that few seem to be having....
May God grant us
wisdom.