RSSSectarians All
Peter asks in an earlier post how much of FV the folks here contributing have read. It points to a psychological trait that I am still trying to understand, not simply on Peter’s part but in several interactions I’ve had with folks who identify with FV. It is a certain touchiness about being criticized. When attacked, FV’s defense is to claim that it is well represented in the mainstream Reformed tradition. As James Jordan has insinuated, the mainstream (read: PCA and OPC) are really sectarian; FV is mainstream and catholic.
That perception conflicts with other descriptions of FV on this blog. Doug spoke about FV being a conversation among a select group of pastors and theologians. He also wrote about the importance of worship each Sunday and that FV’s ambitions were not much grander than that. Jeff Myers seconded Doug’s motion.
So I’m still trying to figure out FV’s psychology and sense of purpose. The reason FV has attracted so much attention is not because it’s views have been widely promulgated. James Jordan can claim that FV’s views are out there for anyone to read. But while that’s technically true, FV has not pursued an active publishing program in the “mainstream” publishing world. Auburn Ave and Canon Press have published most of the collections or books commonly associated with FV. That means you have to look fairly hard for FV. It also insures that FV will only circulate as it generates controversy, not as it makes proposals in the wider world of Christian publishing.
I don’t point out the in-house character of FV to impugn its character or motives. I am a great advocate of the local and the provincial. I have even been criticized on this blog for conceiving of the Reformed tradition in such a narrow way. But could it be that FV is even narrower than the narrow tradition I have affirmed, that FV has not circulated outside its local habitat in ways sufficient to justify its own claims to inclusion and catholicity? In other words, do FVers need to get out more?
Back in Feb. (”Who Defines ‘Reformed’?”) Peter wrote about the controversy over FV as one between the center and the margins. He ended by speculating whether FV will remain on the margins and be a passing fad, or whether it will create the new center. I for one am still wondering if FV wants to create that center, if it really wants that responsibilty. I don’t think it has acted that way. It seems instead fairly content to work on the margins, but then get upset when the center tells FV it is marginal.
So does FV want to be the center or not? Does it really want to define what Reformed means/is? If FV’s pater familia, James Jordan, says Reformed is third down on the list of his Christian identities, how much is FV invested in Reformed Christianity?
Peter
September 29th, 2007 at 4:05 am
Darryl, thanks for the exhortation. My apologies if I’ve been touchy.
I asked about how much people have read of the FV literature partly because it appeared from some posts - including some of yours - that for some participants the DRC discussion has been the main source for information about the FV. I came to the discussion assuming that everyone would have a general familiarity with the issues, but I’ve wondered if I’ve misconstrued who I’m talking to. I’m still curious to learn what others have read.
As for margins and center: Your posts on this topic seem to assume that serious church reform has to start with the center. If we were serious about reforming the Reformed churches, we’d be submitting overtures to Presbytery and whatnot. Have I got you right?
It seems to me, on the contrary, that reform movements don’t normally start, or make headway, in that fashion. The reforms of Vatican II didn’t start at Rome, and the council vindicated perspectives articulated by theologians who had earlier come under Vatican censure (de Lubac). You could give me a dozen more examples.
You also seem to assume that a serious movement for reform has to have a plan for taking over the direction of the church. But one of the many things that many of us learned from Jim Jordan is that Adam fell by seizing privileges rather than patiently waiting for them to be granted. Jim has taught us that patience is an essential quality of faith, and that grasping ambition is the opposite of faith.
So, we devote ourselves to the work that’s right in front of us, write and speak, and if the Lord gives opportunities for us to have a wider influence, we’ll do our best to be faithful. If not, it’s His church, and we’re content to stay in our little province if that’s where He wants us. I hope that helps answer your question about the psychology and sense of mission of pastors associated with the FV.
RLints
September 29th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Peter, I confess to being one of the ones not entirely conversant with the breadth of the corpus of the FV tradition. The very eccentricity of the FV coalition has mitigated against taking its claims too seriously AS A TRADITION. The occasional reading of a piece by Doug in Credenda Agenda or Jim in Biblical Horizons surely confirms this to a point. Its only the last couple of years where there has been an attempt to define the movement as a whole in a couple of collections. There are not that many works which attempt to define FV AS A TRADITION (The Federal Vision edited by Wilkins and Garner, Doug’s, Reformed is Not Enough, and the Beisner collection). The FV statement on the FV website appears to mark out FV as a CONFESSIONAL TRADITION, distinct from other confessional expressions of the Reformed tradition. As Darryl remarked Canon Press is intentionally marginal in its own publishing program. That’s what makes it interesting, but also parochial. Your own work Peter has largely been theological/exegetical in the last decade and not primarily aimed at defining a tradition (FV). I can see seeds of FV in The Kingdom and the Power but nothing like FV as represented in the FV confession of faith on the FV website.
Having said that, many of the views of the FV folk also do overlap with views held in a variety of other places – and here’s the rub. The FV positions held together as a whole are indeed unique, but individually one finds many of the views elsewhere in the evangelical world, and also the wider world of Biblical scholarship. The denial of the COW is found for largely similar exegetical reasons as the FV folk defend in lots of places in the evangelical world. The denial of double imputation is common among other evangelical folk as well. Baptismal objectivity is found among many of the low church evangelical folk heading up stream. So with the FV views on assurance and double justification (initial and final). Jim’s biblicism is echoed in so much evangelical biblical scholarship. Maybe paedocommunion is the lone doctrine not commonly found outside of FV.
All of this to say, FV is unique as a whole, but its parts are not very unique. Becoming familiar with FV as a whole requires peculiar efforts owing to its eccentric ways. Familiarity with its convictions simply requires familiarity with contemporary Biblical/Theological scholarship in the wider evangelical world.
The FV folk tend to be odd in pressing these matters AS IF they were consistent outworkings of the Reformed Tradition. I’ve got a colleague, Scott Hafemann whose exegetical work overlaps many of the views of the FV folk (denial of COW, denial of double imputation, affirmation of supralapsarianism, monocovenantalism, biblicism) and at a much more sophisticated exegetical level than is generally found among the FV folk. But most of us don’t suppose this is consistent with the Reformed Tradition as such. In fact Hafemann supposes that the Reformed Tradition is THE problem.
None of this to dispute the FV distinctives (at least not here). Simply to help you understand why many of us High Church Calvinists cannot see the FV folk has aiding the efforts to further refine the tradition, but rather as an eccentric attempt to undermine it.
Peter
September 29th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Prof Lints, thanks for that, which helps to clarify a number of things. I agree completely that my efforts have not been aimed at defining a tradition. That’s true of most of us. That shows there’s something to Jim Jordan’s frequent claim that “there is no FV.”
This also relates to Darryl’s concern that we “get out more.” The FV qua FV (if qua is the word I’m looking for here) may have little play outside our own circles. I suspect there’s wider interest than Darryl lets on, but it’s still a small province, as he says.
But none of us lives and breathes “the FV.” Doug Wilson - for instance - has been involved in a Christian education for 25 years and cross-crosses denominational lines wearing that hat. His family books are read far outside the Reformed world. He’s also responsible for a large number of Baptist conversions to paedobaptism over the last 15 years. Doug gets out plenty in various capacities, and so do the rest of us. But we don’t get out as card-carrying FV members. That would be nutty, right?
Peter
September 29th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Another thought along these lines: Though classical Christian education is not “FV,” Doug Wilson is prominent in both. Though Through New Eyes is not “FV,” James Jordan is the author of that book and also has been dubbed the godfather of the FV. The FV debate has not been directly about covenant-renewal liturgy, but nearly every pastor associated with the FV leads covenant-renewal liturgy.
This, I think, accounts for some of the confusion that Darryl has expressed about the comprehensiveness and coherence of the “FV.” The “FV” itself is about a number of issues in soteriology and ecclesiology. But those who have been arguing on the FV side share a lot of things that have not been directly in debate.
So, people who are attracted to some elements of the FV are usually attracted to more than soteriology and ecclesiology. It comes across as a much more comprehensive thing because the FV guys are doing more than FV.
I haven’t expressed that very well, but I hope it makes the point.
Peter
September 29th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Prof Lints, you mentioned Hafemann, some of whose work I’ve read with great profit. I’m wondering what tradition he identifies with? It’s always seemed to me that, for all his opposition to various Reformed positions, he’s operating in an essentially Reformed framework. Is that how he sees things?
James Jordan
September 29th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Right, Peter. I wonder how many thousands of time we have to say this. There is no FV movement. There was a conference with that name, and then a book of essays with that title, the stated agenda (all books have agendae) of which was “to introduce the modern Church to covenantal reading and thinking.” Perhaps it would be clearer to have written that the goal was to introduce the more Continental Reformed way of covenantal reading and thinking, as opposed to the mere-contractual Presbyterian notions of covenant.
The FV is totally a concoction of people who did not like some of what was said at that conference. After five years of dealing with this nonsense, largely a creation of the internet, some of us finally put up a statement of things we hold in common and are willing to defend.
Repeatedly, people in the present discussion insist that FV is some kind of Movement with an Agenda, and since we aren’t conforming to their idea of what a movement with an agenda looks like, we are criticized. The conversation is, frankly, rather bizarre. How can we get traction talking about something that does not exist? There is no movement. There is no settled agenda as such. There is no FV. There is a conversation about theology and about reformation of the woeful state of the church and society today. A conversation about all kinds of things. A conversation that some people enter for a while and then leave.
For instance, Jordan, Leithart, and Wilson each have different takes on the best way to express the perseverance of those God has chosen for eternity. The conversation is ongoing, and eventually Leithart and Wilson will see the light.
If you want to see a mission statement similar to FV but not the same, which has been around for nearly 20 years, read the Biblical Horizons Mission Statement. But that’s just MY agenda. And Jeff Meyers’s, since he’s on my board. And I’m sure some others would sign on if we were into that kind of thing. But we’re not.
So, to be sure, Mr. Lints is a bit confused. I totally sympathize. But his confusion is the result of a bunch of ignorant quackodox bloggers who don’t know exinanition from anhypostasis, plus ignorant reports from the OPC, the PCA, and other groups that have invented this “FV” business.
D Hart
September 30th, 2007 at 8:00 am
James, if there is no FV, why did you decide to follow and contribute replies to this forum. I feel like there is a bait and switch going on here. Peter gives several posts talking about FV’s wider set of connections and influence, and James comes along and says FV doesn’t exists. Which is why I keep asking whether FV is truly serious?
P. Andrew Sandlin
September 30th, 2007 at 11:15 am
I’m with Hart on this one. It may be a conversation, Jim, but movements have plenty of conversations. It bears all the classic earmarks of a moevment. It has an identifiable ideology, spokesmen, books, conferences, a written official position (that you signed), and so on. What’s the harm in admitting all this?
If it quacks like a duck ….
James Jordan
September 30th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
My point has been and continues to be that it did not start out to be a movement, and the only reason it has become one, and only reason we finally wrote up a statement, is because other people have made it into one. I could not care less about FV. What has interested me is that pathology of the anti-FV people.