Evangelical Ecclesiology and the Question of Authority

https://religionnews.com/2025/03/04/why-are-southern-baptists-still-arguing-about-women-preachers-credentials-committee-newspring/

The reason the Southern Baptist Convention is still arguing about women preachers is because they won't address the fundamental issue. The vast majority of the conservatives have no problem with women teaching - which is to exercise authority. The arguments in the New Testament that forbid women office are tied to the question of authority and the role of women which is one of domesticity.

Anglicanism and Prima Scriptura

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/11/the-new-divide-in-global-anglicanism

This article interested me because it's connected to some of the recent issues I've touched on respecting Anglicanism and how the High Church tradition approaches doctrine and the question of authority.

Crossing the Authority Line

I recently had a nice long chat with an Anglo-Catholic priest and we discussed the issue of authority and how their understanding differs from Rome and its Magisterium, from the models that seek to place Scripture, Reason, and Tradition on par, and Protestant understandings of Sola Scriptura.

Responding to Kenneth Bailey on the Role of Women in the New Testament

https://theologymatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/00Vol6-No1-TM.pdf

While there are certainly some advantages to understanding the context of the Ancient Near East and while this knowledge can sometimes elucidate certain episodes in Scripture, Bailey provides a sterling and noteworthy example of how this should not be done.

Inbox: A Psychology Follow-up (II)

The psychology explosion took place (culturally speaking) in the 1970's and the Evangelical movement in its zeal to be culturally relevant trailed closely behind. We see this in Tim LaHaye's psychologically-rooted approach to spiritual gifts which gained popularity during the same decade. He revived and recast The Four Temperaments, a notion rooted in the long discounted physiology based on humors and the ideas of ancients and pagans like Galen. How this took root in ostensibly Bible-based circles is still a wonder.

Inbox: A Psychology Follow-up (I)

This piece is in response to the 16 August 2022 piece entitled Secular Psychology and the Denial of Scriptural Authority found here:

https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2022/08/secular-psychology-and-denial-of.html

I was asked to clarify and expand upon some of the ways Evangelicalism has been compromised by modern psychology and feminism. These questions could easily fill up a multi-volume series but I'll touch on just a few points.

Secular Psychology and the Denial of Scriptural Authority

https://www.christianpost.com/news/churches-address-mental-health-stigma-in-the-pews.html

In some respects it's surprising that this article is even appearing at this point. This debate over whether or not Christians should embrace psychology and its assumptions is effectively over. The ship has sailed as they say. I remember the contentions over this point in the 1990's and by the early 2000's it was clear there had been a fundamental shift. We moved from hearing psychology condemned from the pulpit to pastors on Christian radio telling the audience to leave their church if psychology is called into question – because at that time there will still churches challenging this paradigm.

The Hospitality Argument Regarding the Angels and Sodom

The ancient Greek myth regarding Philemon and Baucis tells the story of an impoverished couple visited by Zeus and Hermes in the guise of men. The gods had already traveled through the area and had received no hospitality. The poorest and most destitute household, that of Philemon and Baucis welcomed the gods and were even willing to slaughter their precious goose in order to put on a proper spread.

Prolegomena and the Question of Final Salvation Part 2

But again, isn't certainty eliminated? By no means. Does it become all but impossible to form creedal statements and confessions? Not in the least, but of course I question the motives behind this impulse. The statements will out of necessity become broader and thus more inclusive. Once again at this point I will be accused of being an ecumenicist, a liberal, one whose doctrinal sea is a mile wide but an inch deep.

Prolegomena and the Question of Final Salvation

I write this as something of a sequel to the essay on Salvation and the Question of Works.

It's one thing to discuss the nature of saving faith and to refute the spurious charges of rapprochement with Roman Catholic soteriology. But there's another issue or aspect of this debate that also deserves mention. This is the question of what is sometimes referred to as Final Salvation. I have written about it before and alluded to it in the recent aforementioned post but a few more comments are in order.

I mentioned that Eternal Security and Perseverance of the Saints are not the same thing. I would argue that the older Reformed doctrine of perseverance has all but degenerated into a Once-Saved-Always-Saved baptistic version of Eternal Security. I also talked about how salvation is presented in larger terms in which Justification is an essential component or aspect but it is not given the place of prominence, at least not in the way Solafideist theology has prioritised it. Additionally I mentioned how even these soteriological questions are cast in terms of the Already and the Not Yet.

Riddles of Fundamentalism 5: Biblicism, Oracular Presence and Concluding Thoughts

Faced with the overwhelming and crushing burden of philosophical collapse and the onset of scepticism we are presented with another option. It comes in the form of a Person, a Way, a Door, a Prophet. We are called to listen to His Voice and trust in Him. As Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ, the Word of God... Scripture comes into the picture. It contains the accounts of the good news, the doctrine, the paths of discipleship and it is, is centered on, and culminates with the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

Riddles of Fundamentalism Part 4: False Fideisms, False Biblicisms and the Quest for Coherence

It is at this point in the discussion wherein fideistic and anti-modernist labels that are used to describe many 20^th century movements such as Neo-Orthodoxy, Barthianism and the 21^st century Emerging Church are exposed as flowing from the same polluted Athenian font that continues to overshadow virtually all Western intellectual endeavour.

Jeroboam's Altar Part II

Evangelicalism and Rome: Reckoning With Covenant Apostasy

How should we view Rome? Is it a Church?

Jeroboam's Altar and Christo-Americanism

Like Babylon and Assyria of old, America can indeed be called the 'servant' of God and His Providence. In the New Testament the state is in the same spirit called His 'minister'. The ideas if not the words are the same.

Paul, the Cretans and Addressing Social Sins

Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons (Titus 1.12)

This quotation taken from Epimenides and utilised by the Apostle Paul is used by some to argue that Paul was 'taking on' the evil forces at work in the culture. He was challenging the culture of Crete and therefore those Christians who argue for Two Kingdom theology, those Christians who reject Dominionism are necessarily in error.

Biblicism, Transgenderism and Epistemological Chaos

While many conservative and Christian cultural commentators will speak of the dominance of postmodernism I would argue that particular category and the relativism that goes with it is really limited to sociological questions, hermeneutics and ethics. When it comes to most interpretations of reality, Scientific Realism and Modernism still reign. The postmodern thinker will most certainly subjectivise the interpretation of that reality but the scepticism rooted in postmodernism is largely shared with Scientific Realism (Materialism) and its commitment to inductive epistemology.

The Myth of Principled Power

What of Principled Power? We hear of many Christian leaders who argue that our society would be improved and the Church's cause aided if leaders would simply apply Christian principles to society. If Christian leaders would govern as Christians, if they would act in a principled manner, then power can be utilized for the cause of good, it can assist the Church in its mission to manifest the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Why does this small town need yet another church?

Certainly a valid question, and the issues are complex but we can address them in brief.

The main issue the every Christian and congregation must wrestle with is that of Authority. On what basis do you decide and what criteria do you employ to determine Christian doctrine and life? What do we believe and how do we apply it?

What about Bible Translations?

The issue of Bible translations has proven to be a very confusing one. Christians are rightly concerned for the text of Scripture and there are legitimate reasons to be wary of most modern Bible translations.

Church Government, Regular and Provisional

These essays are providing quick summaries of our position. They're not exegetical papers. We're not trying to make the Scriptural case here, rather just explaining where we're coming from for those who are interested in figuring out what we're about.