Rick Warren and the Invocation

The flap over President-elect Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inaugaration next month seems a bit overblown. Since when does one have to be politically correct to pray at a presidential inauguration? Since when is one's views of homosexuality the test of political correctness? Why do people assume that Warren's position on the matter will affect how he prays? Or whether God will hear him? If people are offended, it will be necessary for them to check their own prejudices. And prejudiced they are. Such prejudices imply that everyone must agree to some standard line set up by the ones with the prejudice. Are they afraid of views contrary to theirs? Is their position threatened? The First Amendment guarantees the right of free speech and free exercise of religion. So, what is the problem?

Christians, Idolatry and the Military

The preacher at our church this past Sunday spoke from Joshua 24. Joshua challenged Israel to either worship Jehovah or their idols. If they chose Jehovah, they had to put away the idols. For the sake of the sermon, he defined an idol as that which requires sacrifices, gives the illusion of control and can be used for our own ends. It is interesting to use these criteria and compare them to God. God does not require human sacrifices, which many idols of the day did. Indeed, God arranged the ultimate sacrifice, that of his own Son, to bear the weight of his judgement on sin and to make atonement for our sins. God offers real control, not just an illusion, for he is the Lord of history. Finally, God is not to be used for our own ends, even though some Christians think in that way.



Our preacher's illustrative idol for the sermon was personal financial security which he explained in terms of his criteria for an idol. Yet, since this was the Sunday closest to Veterans Day, we also honored those who currently serve in the military and those who had. This made me think of military service in terms of idolatry. For purposes of full disclosure, I served in the U.S. Army during Vietnam, though I did not go there.



Military service and militarism in general can be viewed as an idol using his three criteria. First, it requires sacrifice, especially human sacrifice. Think of the many who have died or become disabled or suffer PTSD and other emotional traumas because of their military service. Other sacrifices of relationships and finances are also required by this idol, money that could be spent on better uses. Second, militarism offers the illusion of control. The bigger the military, the more control we think we have. The American experience in Vietnam put the lie to that. Third, militarism is a tool for our country to get its own way, or so we think. How many times in American history have we used our military forces to serve some vested interests?



Since God forbids his people to worship idols, why do we worship at this idol? Why

Christians, Blogs and the Election

I have been struck during this presidential election by the way, in my opinion, people evaluate the candidates based on emotion rather than rational thought, listening to uninformed opinion rather than doing their own research and making up their own minds. This is true of Christians who object to and feel threatened by the Obama candidacy. Christians, who have as a model the Jews in Berea who resisted the spin doctors and reviewed the Old Testament for themselves to evaluate Paul's message, don't see the need to do this in regard to Obama. One recent blog posting questioned the legitimacy of the Obama/Biden ticket at all. The same posting expressed fear for the loss of liberty under an Obama presidency, especially the freedom to own guns. Like we haven't lost some liberties under a Bush presidency. A moment's reflection would show how unlikely such an event is. The Supreme Court has ruled on the legality of gun ownership (though I disagree with their understanding of the Second Amendment to the Constiution). The NRA is a powerful lobby with strong ties to Congress. No president can reverse either of these conditions on his own. But even if he could, what would be wrong with losing the right to own weapons?

It is apparent that many conservative Christians still see themselves as more American than Christian. They see their Christian liberties and their American liberties in very close relationship.

Electing Obama will not be the end of the world. Electing McCain will not be the end of the world, either.

Peter Enns on WHYY

I'm listening to Marty Moss-Coane interview Peter Enns today. So far he has declared that "our tradition" "the Reformed tradition" does not hold that God is the sole author of Scripture. I wonder what he has been reading. I am reading B.B. Warfield's essay on the doctrine of Scripture in the Westminster Confession; he seems pretty clear that God is the sole author of Scripture. Gaffin's recent book on Kuyper and Bavinck's views of Scripture concludes pretty much the same thing. The Reformed tradition, at least as I learned it at WTS in the late 1970s holds that God is the author of Scripture. That belief does not negate the role of Moses, David, the prophets, Paul, John, Peter and those responsible for Kings and Chronicles. It seems to me that PE's tradition is not the tradition of Machen, Young and other Reformed biblical scholars.

WTS Documents 3

I finished reading the Hermeneutical Field Committee (HFC) report today, as well as the Edgar/Kelly motion, and the report from the 8 faculty members who formed the minority in the faculty vote in support of Professor Enns. Having read this report and the Historical Theological Field Committee (HTFC) report, I think they have generated more heat than light. The HFC report is somewhat defensive in tone. The HTFC report is marred by using a misquote from I&I as the basis of part of their analysis, and perhaps makes too much of what it believes is Professor Enns' doctrine of Scripture which he does not develop extensively. They extrapolate their understanding of what he says about Scripture to make their criticism.

I&I seems to have two starting points for its arguments: that the evangelical doctrine of Scripture needs to better reflect the phenomena of Scripture; and that the book is written for non-specialists. The HTFC report, for better or worse, focuses on the doctrine of Scripture set forth in I&I. Yet, for all its verbage, it gives short attention to Professor Enns' proposal. Why does the doctrine of inspiration need to be revised as Professor Enns seems to think? Why does he not name the scholars he thinks have not realized the implications of their work for the doctrine of inspiration? If it is to accomodate the intended audience, then I think he underestimates the audience. Older works like Thy Word is Truth by E.J. Young and Fundamentalism and the Word of God by J.I. Packer reached popular audiences by quoting sources.

As I indicated in an earlier post today, I wonder if Professor Enns was simply setting up straw men for the sake of argument. Given the tradition of WTS and the Old Princeton, it would be very strange that scholars like Warfield, Wilson, Allis and Young did not already address these concerns. Surely he must know that they knew the implications of their work for the doctrine of Scripture and still believed in the inspiration of Scripture by God. Surely he must be aware of Young's chapter on the human authors.

I will address the HFC response in a later post.

WTS documents 2

The first part of the collection of documents from WTS regarding the Enns matter is the report from the Historical Theological Field Committee (HTFC). The report is critical of what Enns wrote in I&I, especially the absence of a discussion of the doctrine of inspiration and how he believes that doctrine falls short in terms of dealing adequately with the phenomena of Scripture. Whatever else one thinks of the HTFC report, this aspect of the report is correct in raising this question. It is a question that rose in my mind when I read I&I. In fact, I wondered if Professor Enns was not setting up a straw man in order to make a point.

This morning I re-read parts of E.J. Young's Thy Word is Truth, especially his chapters on the human writers of Scripture, where he addresses the notion of the incarnational analogy, and inerrancy, where he notes that Warfield, for example, did not have an a priori notion of what inspiration or inerrancy should look like. Young does not appear to have much sympathy with the incarnational analogy to the extent that it would allow for "all the crudities and the errors that such a people [the Hebrews] would make" (p. 73). Left to themselves, the writers of Scripture would have made such errors. However, the doctrine of inspiration says that God guided the writers of Scripture so that what they wrote was true. This is why when the OT records places and customs of antiquity (the Ancient Near East), they are recorded accurately.

If Professor Enns is truly following in the tradition of Old Princeton and WTS, it seems to me that reference to Young's work would have influenced what he wrote in I&I. That he does not raises in my mind the question of whether he believes Young is one of those who have not let the phenomena of Scripture influence their understanding of inspiration.

I wonder, too, who Professor Enns might have in mind when he warns against having what Young would call an a priori view of what Scripture should look like. It appears that Warfield did not have such a view.

The HTFC report rightly raises this point as one way in which Professor Enns' argument falls short.

WTS documents

I have just begun to print off and read the documents posted by Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia in regard to the Peter Enns situation http://www.wts.edu/stayinformed/view.html?id=138. So far, I have read the report from the Historical-Theological Field Committee HTFC) and the first part of the response by the Hermeneutics Field Committee (HFC).

Having read just this much, I am struck by the acrimony there seems to be between these two parts of the faculty. The HTFC report raises a number of issues regarding Inspiration and Inerrancy in terms of a kenotic view of inspiration. While it bases some of its critique on a mis-quote from I&I (living Christ), that may not really affect the strength of the criticism offered. Much of its criticism is expressed from the perspective of systematic theology.


The HFC report begins with an defense of its position using the WCF, Article I, and quotes from Hodge and Vos regarding the phenomena of Scripture. It also implies that the members of the HTFC are not up on biblical studies to the extent the members of the HFC are. The HFC also accuses the HTFC of making unwarranted charges against I&I.

These documents will expose the extent of the disagreements among the faculty. It is unfortunate that there seems to be a power struggle between the Bible faculty and the theology faculty. In the spirit of the diversity of the body of Christ in I Corinthians 12, both faculties are necessary and the seminary and the church cannot exist without either one.

Confessional is not narrow

Having reread the posts on many blogs about Westminster and Peter Enns, I want to say that I would find it hard to call WTS "narrow-minded" as many have done. In my student days, our biblical studies profs had different approaches to the Bible, but all within the seminary's commitment to the Westminster Standards and the seminary's own commitment to the inspiration, infallibility and authority of Scripture. Even the Confession does not expressly state that Scripture is infallible and inerrant, it does hold a very high view of Scripture. The Confession says nothing about the way Scripture was inspired or how the canon was formed. I have heard Dr. Gaffin talk about canonicity one way, and Dr. Dillard describe it another way. Both are within the bounds of the Confession.

However, to begin to talk about Peter Enns, to question the evangelical doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture (as he does in Inspiration and Incarnation) is not a very Westminster-like thing to do.

Another Blog!

Another theological blog. If the writer of Ecclesiastes were writing today, he would say, "Of the making of blogs there is no end." However, as a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and given the amount of verbige about the school in the blogosphere these days, I thought I would add to it. I don't know everything about the latest crisis over Peter Enns, but I will share some thoughts about that eventually. For now, I want to offer testimony in support of the seminary since so many are criticizing the school.

I attended WTS from 1976 to 1980, receiving the MAR in Biblical Studies in 1979, and the Th.M in Church History in 1980. Like many, I learned a lot in my classes. I received a whole new perspective on how to read the Bible from professors whom others love to bash. Most of my professors were second generation WTS grads, having studied under most of the original founders of the seminary. John Frame did a good job of introducing us to Van Til. He also helped me move from a dispensational view of Scripture to the covenantal view, especially as developed by Meredith Kline. Frame has a high view of Scripture and helped me see how the covenantal view strengthed the inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture as God's word to his people.

Ray Dillard, in addition to teaching us Hebrew, taught a class in OT that helped me to really understand the OT for the first time by understanding its redemptive-historical function. Our readings included Kline, Murray, and E.J. Young. Dillard approached the OT as God's word and accurate in its teachings and content.

O.P. Robertson further convinced me of the covenantal approach to Scripture, especially as Scripture points to Christ. From Robertson, Dillard, and Gaffin I came to understand how the OT points toward Jesus and finds its fulfillment in him.

All of this is to say that I graduated from WTS with a high view of Scripture in terms of its inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility.