RSSHas Tim Keller Left the PCA?
With the formation of the Gospel Coalition, recently covered in Christianity Today, Tim Keller, the pastor who almost single-handedly redirected church-planting strategy in the PCA, appears to have severed his ties to his Presbyterian communion.
How else should we interpret his involvement in the Gospel Coalition. Co-founded by such evangelical heavyweights as D. A. Carson and John Piper, GC is a fellowship of churches that have come together for the purpose of “renewing our faith in the gospel of Christ and to reforming our ministry practices to conform fully to the Scriptures.” GC plans to execute its promotion of the gospel through the ordained means of word and sacrament. “We intend to [serve the church] through the ordinary means of his grace: prayer, the ministry of the Word, baptism and the Lord’s supper, and the fellowship of the saints.”
Two additional questions suggest themselves from Keller’s involvement in GC. First, I would have thought that the Presbyterian Church in America itself was a “gospel coalition,” that is, churches that had come together to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ through word and sacrament. Do the founders of GC not regard the PCA or other confessional Protestant denominations (the RPCNA, OPC and LCMS come to mind) as ambassadors fo the good news?
Second, no other evangelical cooperative effort has even considered doing the work of the church. The National Association of Evangelicals was precisely that, an association of evangelicals who would cooperate in various religious activities. They never considered administering the sacraments (partly because some members baptized infants, others didn’t, a similar difficulty facing Keller, Piper, and Carson). Also, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is a collection of individuals who have joined up as a kind of advocacy group for a recovery of a faithful evangelicalism. But ACE never thought of itself as a church or group of churches. At least the guys at Together for the Gospel acknowledged this difficulty. Lig Duncan has tried to wrestle with the problem of being together with Baptists for the gospel but apart at the table and font (http://blog.togetherforthegospel.org/2007/08/yes-we-really-a.html). But TGR is up front that it is four friends united to do conferences on the gospel. So why have the founders of the Gospel Coalition not recognized the novelty of their endeavor?
Baus
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Maybe you looking at this backwards. Maybe the PCA now has a secret strategy to annex calvinistic baptists!
You should be asking: Have John Piper and D.A.Carson now affiliated with the “gospel coalition” of the PCA?
The PCA has lots of “ecclesial agencies,” such as Covenant College. No doubt their failure to respect sphere sovereignty means almost anything can be part of their church… sort of the way the Machen Center is part of the OPC.
Anyway, maybe the novelty is that the PCA is becoming more baptistic… on purpose. Or, wait, I’m not sure if that’s novel or not.
Jason J. Stellman
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Yikes.
When will we ever just suck it up and affirm the church as God’s ordained institution for gospel proclamation and growth in the faith?
As a 2K guy, I do think that parachurch organizations can fill an important gap. For example, something like Misisons Aviation Fellowship exists because on the one hand there’s nothing Christian about flying airplanes, but on the other hand most non-believing pilots probably don’t feel like flying missionaries into the jungles of Guatemala.
But what’s the point of a parachurch organization that administers Word and sacrament? Where’s the “para-”? And how do the members of Keller’s presbytery feel about one of their own moonlighting as a pastor in the GC?
Come to think of it, I think I’ll get another job as a Methodist minister, or maybe an Anglican priest. I have some spare time….
efwakeman
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Tim Keller, DA Carson, and John Piper… together… for seminars… wherein they’ll talk about the relationship between the Gospel and the Church’s ministry of word and sacrament?
It seems to me that there is a serious dialectic issue going on here. I’d like to give Pastor Keller the benefit of the doubt and say that he recognizes the different dialect which Carson and Piper speak when they use such terminology (the Baptists I know consider the word “sacrament†Papist) but suspect that the issue has more to do with what we hear when they as a group say this stuff. That is, as a group they’re speaking a different dialect than we are.
On the other hand, the PCA has gone out of its way to be broad, and that includes the embracing of Evangelicals like Pastor Keller. If Pastor Keller recognizes the problems that are prevailing in the “Gospel speak†of Evangelicalism and wants to call some conferences on it more power to him.
The saddest thing to me here is the lack of faith in our system of Church government and the Standards. Here we have a great innovator whose zeal for the lost cannot be called into question, but he is just that… an innovator. The man subscribes to a three-piece answer book which has everything he needs to point out the shortcomings of Evangelicalism’s bumper sticker theology, and he partners up not with faithful ministers of the word in his own denomination to rediscover the riches of historic Presbyterian thinking and practice, but to form another para-church organization… a symptom of the problem he is seeking to correct!?!?!?!?
stevez
October 24th, 2007 at 8:23 am
The problem of impatience is just about everywhere it seems, from FV to the GC, from Theonomy to Emergent, from renewed calls to revive Christendom to bracelets and silver rings…from sea to shining to sea. And don’t think I don’t get it; I battle impatience as an office-bearer in the rapscallion CRC (witness our latest debacle to revise the FOS). But, sorry, guys, as tempting as it is, just as I don’t register with the Transformative notion that I can transcend my own humanity (subtle, secondary undercut to TK there), I don’t register with the related notion that we may transcend God’s Church. I’d rather glory in the weakness and folly of Christ.
And call it a woman’s intutuition if you want to, but I am not so sure the NAE believed it was not “doing the work of the church,” especially when it not only lacked the categories of in/visible church but its implicit emphasis has always been on the invisible church (even without the nomenclature to say so…which seems in keeping anyway).
Steve
Steve
Steve Vander Woude
October 24th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Well, if you check out stakeholders featured on the website, http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/council, Ligon Duncan and Phil Ryken are also coalition members. It doesn’t appear that this organization is intended to be a new church federation like the PCA.
Horace Lamb
October 24th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Why would you not first ask Dr. Keller your question rather than post it for public consumption?
D Hart
October 24th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Mr. Vander Woude, why would the presence of Duncan and Ryken make the Gospel Coalition any less of a church or an ecclesiastical body? Doesn’t this only raise the stakes for ministers in the PCA?
efwakeman
October 24th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Duncan & Ryken are only diversifying their parachurch portfolio; remember ACE, or as I heard it called “Presbyterians and Baptists Together”.
I wish they’d do more to emphasize the “Confessing” part and less to emphasize the (contemporary) Evangelical side!
theokosmos
October 24th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Is a congregation not allowed to fellowship with other Christian congregations that happen to be in different denominations? It shouldn’t be considered a betrayal of one’s denomination… unless the denomination declares that it is the only true Church, outside of which there are no Christian churches. Isn’t it a testimony to the true brotherhood we have in Christ, that a Presbyterian church and a Baptist church can associate with one another in love? I understand this is the aim of groups like TFG and ACE… except these only include ministers/teachers. Why can’t whole congregations join in this kind of ecumenism?
stevez
October 24th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
theokosmos,
I don’t think anyone wants to keep you from a few with your friend the Lutheran or from playing chutes and ladders with your Pentecostal buddy; heck, I just finished planning a family reunion with the Roman Catholic side which I intend on enjoying most fully.
Here is why we need the bright lines of cultic work and cultural endeavor, in/visible church, archetypal and ectypal distinctions, etc. If we had better, brighter lines we could do less villianizing of one another and enjoy ourselves more. Why can’t everyone be satisfied with their cultic parameters and be done with it?
I was never so schismatic and parochial and positively un-ecumenical as when I had such fuzzy lines.
Steve
efwakeman
October 24th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Mr. Lamb, I don’t want to speak for Elder Hart, but I think he was asking a rhetorical question for the purposes of stimulating discussion.
Theo, I think there are a couple of issues with your the position suggested by your questions and comments. First, how would a Baptist and Presbyterian congregation “join in this (sharing of word and sacrament) kind of ecumenicism” when they have mutually exclusive ideas of each? “Means of grace” is a phrase that denotes Romanism in the circles I was raised in, much less “sacrament”. It sounds like you don’t quite recognize the chasm that exists between the professed doctrine of Baptists and other low-church groups (whether a Baptist can be Calvinistic at all is for another thread) is far deeper than views on the sacraments even. There are hermaneutic issues at stake between their respective Biblical theologies as well as presuppositional issues at stake with regard to their systematic theologies.
Furthermore, as Stevez implies, there is a distinct difference between individual members (or even ordained officers) of groups like this gathering for discussion and debate over the latest ideas… yes, I meant to quote from the intro to White Horse Inn. They are guys getting together to talk about what they have in common and that is wonderful… more power to ‘em. If that is all that Pastors Keller Ryken, and Duncan are doing here then great. As I said, more power to ‘em. The problem is they talk about the ministry of word and sacrament. No, the PCA is not the only true church, but suggesting that they think they are if they don’t allow a Baptist (or anyone else not in recognized ecumenical relations with them for that matter) to preach and administer the “ordinances” (as the Baptists I know would have to call them) in their congregations demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of the purpose of Presbtyerianism generally and subscription specifically. As SteveZ says, the lines must be stark. Not as a snub to the authenticity of the message of other groups, but to maintain each individual doctrinal identity while at the same time being able to work with one another to the extent that those identities allow.
Have you ever heard of a guy named Fosdick?
Baus, right on sir. You got it. “Big tent” doesn’t just mean “relatively loose in terms of the broader reformed world,” but “relatively loose”. There are rock solid congregations in the PCA and I’d have no problem being a member or Elder in many of them, but that denomination has flirted with growth in the worst ways.
D Hart
October 24th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Horace Lamb, I guess your question might have more force if the Gospel Coalition had undertaken its work in a quiet or behind the scenes way. But since its founders don’t seem to be bashful about their work, and since others have blogged positively about it, is raising a question publicly really off limits?
Theokosmos, congregations outside denominations can join in this kind of ecumenism, I guess. It is a free country. But denominations are not free in the same way. In fact, officers in churches like the PCA take vows every bit as solemn as those taken by spouses in marriage. Church vows may be more solemn because ordination vows, unlike marriage ones, are holy. And if you look at the PCA vows it looks to me like its officers have a certain obligation to ecclesiastical relationships with those in the denomination, and also with those communions with whom the PCA’s committee on ecumenical relations has established fellowship. If congregations were as free as you suppose, then a PCA congregation could have an Assemblies of God pastor preach in its pulpit. Even the PCUSA in the 1920s recognized the problem of having a Baptist preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick, fill in for the congregation at First Church NYC.
Bumble
October 24th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
You guys are too funny. While you general arguing the left front or the right front are more important for Kingdom advancement, many lives have been lost when the enemies overrun various spots on the frontline.
I am just a foot soldier around here. I don’t really care which battalion general Keller or Piper or Warren or McArthur or McLaren came from. Whoever can give me the supplies and the weapons to continue our group mission for the King, I will say thank you and move on.
You guys are obviously officers from the home office or something… Man, grab a gun and move it. Otherwise you will be in another bodybag or something. Most of us soldiers don’t really know the difference between inerrancy from infallibility of the gun you supplied us. We just want to know, can my life depends on it.
Horace Lamb
October 24th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Dr. Hart, my question still stands. Rather than writing a headline and a blog post which suggests that a wedge has been driven between Dr. Keller and the PCA, why not simply ask *him* the question? Would that not be the more charitable route to take? Why assume the worst?
stevez
October 25th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Bumble,
“I don’t really care which battalion general Keller or Piper or Warren or McArthur or McLaren came from.”
Why do I get the feeling you might get hot and bothered about Mitt wanting to run the country on theological grounds? Maybe it is because I find that those who place such a low premium on cultic generals make up for it by foisting a higher premium on cultural ones and begin talking about propositional truth exactly when it doesn’t apply. But maybe that is not you.
May I take my cues from Vatican City as well as Colorado Springs? Or might I expect that a Protestant with such low views of who his generals are leads him/her to include all sorts (including one who calls himself at once a Fundamentalist and a Liberal, an Arminian and a Calvinist) will all of a sudden have a problem with that? Should I take marching orders from Utah?
“We just want to know, can my life depends on it.”
Well, now you are just asking way too many home office type questions. I thought you just wanted to fight? Now you want to know if your rifle is plastic or not?
Steve
D Hart
October 25th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Mr. Lamb, a lot of blogs have assumed the best. I asked a legitimate question. Why do you assume the worst about my question? Also, why, on the basis of your own point, wouldn’t you email me privately?
Bumble, I’m glad you’re amused. But I’m surprised you need any generals since you seem to have the only weapon you need, your own understanding of what the Bible teaches and your own experience with Jesus. But if you really do want weapons supplied by generals, you may want to ask how those guys got their orders. Believe it or not, their commission from Jesus was mediated through the church, not necessarily the same communion, or even a denomination, but the last I checked each of your generals is a minister of a church. So you yourself implicitly recognize the importance of ecclesiology and the need for some order and chain of command in fighting the Lord’s battle.
efwakeman
October 25th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Bumble, your post makes the assumption that Kingdom work is something set apart from doctrine. The Church throughout the ages, as many were inclined to think as you do, has discussed the details of the message that we’ve been charged to bring to the world.
What kind of bullets are you shooting? Where are the front lines? The Church has historically recognized that the question of who the enemy is and is not is more complex than you seem to recognize. Perhaps the doctrinal nuances of Nicea are what you’d consider issues only for “officers from the home office” or not, but it is a question that sets apart the true church from the false… unless you consider the Jehovah’s Witnesses to be another batalion, in which case you’re posting on the wrong site to gain any traction. And if you do recognize Trinitarianism as a central tenet of historic Christianity, then the question becomes where are you subjectively drawing lines (salvation by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone? this would be a formulation Mr. MacClaren would care nothing for), and what makes your subjective standard better than one (namely the findings of the Westminster Assembly) which has stood the test of time?
synthesizer
October 25th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Bumble, How are you advancing the kingdom? I am a foot soldier also, and I think it is pretty important to know where your marching orders are coming from. We live in an age where the authority of scripture (our ultimate marching orders) is attacked by the world and even undermined by some of the “generals”, so we need to be well prepared as soldiers to defend the faith.
You seemed to be saying that “inerrancy” and “infallibility” when speaking of the Word are not essential to the advancement of His Kingdom. Do you really believe that?
Bumble
October 25th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
D Hart,
Foot-soldiers like us can only squeeze a trigger and do damage. We knows how to survive until the return of the King. But of course we need big shot generals, even you guys from the back office because that’s where strategies are debated and deployed. I think we might do a disservice to the troop when we argue that just because the guys in the Navy always have air-conditioning quarters, they are less of a real soldier than guys who sleep in their tanks or those of us who lives in the fox holes behind enemies line.
Over at my group right now (check my blog http://www.xanga.com/i12know ), I am riding the 40 Days of Purpose vehicle sent to us by general Warren. But of course the engine sucks, it made too much noise. So for years I sat there looking at the vehicle and couldn’t use it in covert operation of our territory. Then I found general Keller’s turbojet engine pack. And voila with the turbojet engine mod, the 40Dope vehicle is now fits for service, at least for this campaign.
Next year, we are trying to get these turbojet engines on our backpacks. The thing was pretty light, quiet, generate no heat so far. I have been using it on myself and it seems to help a lot on my patrol. Unfortunately we will probably have to remove all the labeling because my own commander really dislike stuff made from other branches of the army. It took me a while to pull the 40Dope vehicle together because my commander objected that it was made by Warren’s Panzer division, (and what does he know about Special-Ops in our jungle)? Similarly my commander will object stuffs from Keller’s Air Command R&D office, for no doubt some of his gadget won’t fly here in the jungle.
But as a foot-soldier, I can tell you that we don’t really care if Keller works for Air Command or Strategic Command. As long as we figure out how these shiny turbojet engine packs work, it would be great for us. Who knows, by getting him from Air Command to Strategic Command, it will removing all the labeling and help my commander to be willing to let us use these stuff more in the war.
Yeah, I recognize the need for some order and chain of command. But the last I heard from the King was the commission to advance the Kingdom until He return, and not necessarily about who is running the war. 500 years ago, the 5-Stars Branch-Generals rejected the idea that Pete’s Office is running the war and plead loyalty only to the King. May be we should continue the course and trust that the King’s Spirit will continue to guide all branches of the King’s military to accomplish His plan.
No doubt that some branches are more effective than another (that new copter from the Army is a joke), but that should not prevent us to fight the war effectively. Oh yeah, don’t even tell my commander what I told you, he still believed that only stuff with our own Special-Ops label is battle-worthy…
efwakeman
October 25th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
10-4 good buddy. Over and out. We’ll see you in the DMZ ’round about the time we hit the little “up” arrow in the chart. Thanks for the down-low on the operation tip. Do me square and tell bro-bro his doctrinaire is daggin’.
stevez
October 26th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Bumble,
“I don’t really care which battalion general Keller or Piper or Warren or McArthur or McLaren came from.”
Why do I get the feeling you might get hot and bothered about Mitt wanting to run the country on theological grounds? Maybe it is because I find that those who place such a low premium on cultic generals make up for it by foisting a higher premium on cultural ones and begin talking about propositional truth exactly when it doesn’t apply. But maybe that is not you.
May I take my cues from Vatican City as well as Colorado Springs? Or might I expect that a Protestant with such low views of who his generals are leads him/her to include all sorts (including one who calls himself at once a Fundamentalist and a Liberal, an Arminian and a Calvinist) will all of a sudden have a problem with that? Should I take marching orders from Utah?
Steve
synthesizer
October 27th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Wakeman, that is funny stuff!!! Unfortunately, my experience in contemporary envangelicalism has been typical of Bumble’s take on things. Theology doesn’t matter much, because God is doing a “New thing”. What is hot today will be on the ash heap tomorrow. Many are left shipwrecked in the faith because they weren’t grounded in the Word. A mile wide and an inch deep. It really is sad when Warren and Osteen are considered “Generals”.
efwakeman
October 27th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Synthesizer, The area of New England is known as “The Burned Over District” due to the abuses of the revivalists after the second great awakening. That is what we see in the broader Evangelical world… as you say, new movements sprouting up without any concern for whether they reflect the true Gospel, or true Church.
That is what I was referencing when I initially said that Pastor Keller’s work to give greater specificity to the bumper sticker theology of the Evangelical world is great. I just wish he’d use the Church rather than para-church to do it, since that is God’s ordained institution.
Bumble
October 27th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Hi Stevez and all,
I know that I am making a fool of myself here because all of you would have a much higher theological education than I do. That’s why I claimed to be a foot soldier. But what I am trying to say is this: Don’t let denominationalism ruin the work of God.
I am not from the PCA. In fact, as a Vietnamese Christian immigrant, I’ve never heard of the PCA until I found Tim Keller a year ago. The C&MA missionaries brought the Gospel to Vietnam 96 years ago, so we all grew up thinking that Christianity “is†the C&MA.
I live in Orange County, CA. And here my choices of influences were Rick Warren, Chuck Smith, and John Mac. As I told you before, I didn’t even know about Tim Keller and the PCA until a year ago. (I thought all Presbyterians – at least in my neck of the wood – are PCUSA).
I don’t minister to your typical church. Even though our congregation speaks English, but the people are mostly blue collar Vietnamese youth (under 30 years old). We have about 100 people, and 5-6 of them were ex-cons. I am also working full time in a community college as I pastor this congregation.
And I am not even called to pastor. I am only capable to be an Elder in your typical church. But because of the youth work was dying, so I have been shouldering the youth for the last 18 years here at this church. From 6 Junior Highers, to a High School ministry, then college, then young adults and now they got married and have kids so we became this English speaking congregation. Out of necessity I got my MDiv from an accredited school (but they would probably disown me since I am not a very good student).
While you are sitting in your corners and thought that “the Presbyterian Church in America itself was a ‘gospel coalition’†and “no other evangelical cooperative effort has even considered doing the work of the church…†You are forgetting that churches like mine are struggling daily to even figuring out what to do.
Brian McClaren raised some valid questions, but has no solution (New thing?). Rick Warren offered solutions, but it’s not deep enough. And I found Tim Keller’s Gospel-Theologizing very promising so I have been trying to learn everything I could from the man.
I track the web regularly for Keller’s breadcrumbs, and that led me here. Of course I was speaking like a foot-soldier fool before you all officers. Honestly, I don’t even know who is Mitt and how his theology will run the country. I don’t know about all the fine lines of doctrinal differences and why people make a big deal of paedobaptism vs. credobaptism. I don’t even know how long I would last in this ministry. I just know that God is gracious, and he won’t hold my stupidity against me. After all, was it Karl Barth said the essence of theology was that old song, “Jesus loves me yes I know, for the Bible tells me so…â€
Sorry for any foolishness I have caused. I am just a foot soldier, looking for breadcrumbs to feed my troops from the generals (yeah, even Warren – and from Osteen, the only thing I could used from him is his winsome smile).
D Hart
October 28th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Bumble, I appreciate your candor and your efforts on behalf of our Lord. For what it’s worth, if ministerial celebrities are your only options, Mike Horton is a California native to whom you might turn for insight. But beyond the celebrities exist a whole host of publications, magazines, books, pamphlets, that address the ministry of the word in the local church.
At the same time, I find it puzzling that Keller’s work is appealing to such a diversity of circumstances — to Anglo-Americans trying to plant churches for hip downtown residents, to Southern denominational executives living amid Staples, Home Depot, and Whole Foods, to seminary practical theology profs, and even to first-generation Asian-American congregations. That could suggest, as no doubt it would to many of Keller’s supporters, that his views are correct and so apply universally. But I thought that part of his point (learned from Harvie Conn) was that cultural context matters, that no size fits all, that an urban ministry will differ from suburban ones, that egg-head theology can’t reach latte-sipping fast-talking career gals. So maybe all the pomo talk of cultural diversity is really proof that modernity has won and turned us into one culturally uniform mass in which Keller’s third way reassures everyone that they can have it all. Less filling and tastes great. Woo hoo!
stevez
October 29th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Bumble,
“Don’t let denominationalism ruin the work of God.”
I am not a denominationalist; I have nothing but disdain for denominationalism. But, at the same time, denominations are something I consider to be endured in order to be able to do the visible church. I consider there are “clowns to the left” and “jokers to the right” who are so ingrained in their parochialism that they in fact do harm to the Church (which is to say, “the work of Godâ€).
Interestingly, I find your harmful sentiments to be how one does parochialism negatively, sort of like how people might disdain reality TV in order to participate negatively. You betray a negative denominationalism that thinks it can do better than those of us slogging it out within denominational parameters. Pick whether yours is “clownish†or “jokerish,†but the other group seems so smitten with denomination that it throws year-long birthdays for itself (CRC, anyone?) and spends 94% of its time merely cheerleading its plethora of programs.
It is the positive-parochialist or negative-parochialist both inside and outside the denominations that I find to be doing harm. Both seem to confuse Church with denomination, pleading with souls to stay in the boat no matter what or enticing souls to others or to leave them altogether—that is what it is harmful. For my money, I will err along on the side of the positives since they at least begin correctly by making the distinctions between the in/visible Church. True, the wheels often fall off after that, but it is better to begin there. “The Church is a whore, but She is my Mother.â€
Steve
P.S. You have one M.Div more than me. Congratulations.
stevez
October 29th, 2007 at 10:53 am
“But I thought that part of his point (learned from Harvie Conn) was that cultural context matters…”
It is exactly is.
As one brought in by Jesus-freak-bait-and-switch and discipled in contemporary revivalism, I like to think I know it when I see it. Keller’s is simply the more principled and tutored expression of an un-principled and under-tutored Willow Creekism, which is just revivalism warmed over. Witness the CRC’s own Stand Mast frankly admitting an application of the Willow Creek model for all those with raised pinkies who have a penchant for processionals and vestments. The tie that binds is the doctrine of relevancy, or that “cultural context matters.” Start there and you will get as much latte in your gullet as you used to get sawdust in your teeth. At the risk of sounding like a bigot, despite whatever superficial differences, they all look the same to me: the showtunes and lullabies of the nineteenth century translate quite easily into praise choruses, but don’t think a cultural inclination for Bach is one iota different from what’s going on where ever it is felt that “cultural context matters.”
Steve
Bumble
October 29th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Dr. Hart,
Thank you for your kind words and dialogues. Thank you for the referral to Mike Horton, I am bookmarking him for further reference, especially as I need to learn more about presuppositional apologetics in order to deal with the onslaught of the new waves of the militant atheists of Dawkins and Hitchen.
Ministerial celebrities are not the only options, but in this day and age of information overload, the loudest ad will get our attention (and when I say “ourâ€, I meant to regular ignorant foot-soldiers who receive all tidbits about God through random media bombardment and not through intentional transmission). Therefore, ministerial celebrity grab our attention, we says “Kewlâ€, we listened to their interpretation of Scripture, we “double-checked the scripture as the Berean didâ€, and if it sounds right, we believed and followed their theological trajectory.
In fact, when I heard of Keller, his lack of celebrity status made his message more skeptical to me. None of the people in my circle even heard of Keller, except for a young doctor in my congregation who used to attend Redeemer back in the late 90s. But the young doctor is no theologian, and so he was no great help besides for just personal testimony. Worse, Keller didn’t write books (except that one book on Mercy Ministry 10 years ago). So it takes a great deal more from my part (to listen to his sermons/lectures) to consider him at the same “celebrity†level.
What I am trying to say is this: the culture we live in is saturated with noises, what could you do to be heard among these noises? As I said before, through Keller I learned about the PCA and the “confessing†church, I also learned that there is a Westminster Seminary around here. Interestingly as I selected a seminary a few years ago, it was not even “on my radar.†The “big three†were Talbot, Fuller, and Claremont, and the “celebrity schools†were Master Seminary, Calvary Chapel Bible College, and perhaps Azusa Pacific. If I knew about Keller at the time, I would have considered Westminster. Who knows?
So while I understand that some of you in the PCA may worry that Keller has left the denomination, I would encourage you to embrace some of the positive side effects like free promotion as I have recounted above. Of course, some may object, “we don’t really care about name recognition because the Gospel is all we care about.†Sure, if a Gospel-tree fall in the forest corner, which is filled with all the non-celebrity noises; would anyone hear its sound?
Keller’s work is appealing because it cuts through the denominational layers to the core of the Gospel, and makes sense of the Gospel’s implication to the foot-soldiers like me in any denomination. Surely Keller kept his own PCA distinctiveness at his church. But the Gospel is the core below all denominational distinctiveness. We are not a “confessional†church, and I doubt if we will ever becoming one. And the beauty of the parachurch-like Gospel Coalition is that it will allow the foot-soldiers to come together base on the commonality of the Gospel central core, rather than the denominational distinctiveness of how we do things. And the idea of Harvie Conn (which Keller amplified) will help us all apply the Gospel in our cultural context.
Yes, there will be some misguided foot-soldiers, who will attempt to replicate Keller’s Redeemer effectiveness in the middle of rural Idaho with the approaches intended to reach Manhattanites. But that’s their fault and irresponsibility. I myself have been studying Keller’s church planting manual for a few months now, and is still trying to figuring out how the Gospel would shape our immigrant church. (Keller has exactly one paragraph about low-income/immigrant church in his book, but since he is working with the Manhattanites, he would not know the implementation details for our church type either).
Similarly, I will have to work out some other theological implications that Keller has. For example, when Keller speaks about “The City†his audience is often Anglo-American and hence “The City†is the culture. Whereas for us, since our audience is first generation immigrant, the exilic message of Jer. 29 can be applied to us in a more direct way, and “The City†could have “The Host Country†implication. By keeping his theological focus consistent at the central core of the Gospel, Keller helped everyone, regardless of their denominational background.
Is it just “less filling and tastes great� On the contrary, this is the most costly encounter for my 40 years walk as a Christian. As I told you before, I didn’t listen to Keller until last year. I got started in July 06 because I was wrestling with how to communicate with the church’s kids. (The first generation Christians were great, they knew that they were sinners, and so I understand grace. But their kids were growing up in the church, being nice kids all the time, and they don’t see themselves as “sinners†– the may be intellectually agree with the doctrine, but not functionally/experientially in their lives). Keller’s lecture “preaching to believers and unbelievers†about the third way gave me some direction for it.
But then disaster struck. My brother-in-law got arrested and thrown in jail with charge of child-abuse. His family was shredded apart by Child Protective Services. The mother is in one end, each of the children is in different place. His older daughter is with us; his younger son is diagnosed with brain-damage and was placed in a group home. He is facing a life-in-prison sentence if convicted.
My wife is completely devastated. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t functioned. And it was very strange because she is not even closed to her brother. Then as I listened to more of Keller, I realized that our idols were being unmasked. My wife’s main thing was control, and when that was taken away, she’s undone: God, what’s the point of a good man following you and you fail to protect them? (Her brother has always been a good man, mortgage agents, no criminal record, no smoking, drinking, gambling, fighting - not even a traffics ticket in all his life). My idol was comfort, and therefore I didn’t really want to get involved with the situation. After all, it’s wasn’t my family, and if the man committed the crime, he deseseves it, right? (That was the acceptable logic for the religious leaders like me).
But besides unmasking our idolatry, what is the relevance of the Gospel in our situation, (and more importantly in any other situations)? As pastors, we often know how to pat our answers with “Trust in the Lord, the Gospel will transform you!†But in practicality, we have no idea of “How?†As I turned to Keller and listened to how he guided his NYC church deal with the aftermath of Sep. 11, I learned how to apply the balm of the Gospel into my own souls. We stepped up and battled Child Protective Services to have custody of our brain-damaged nephew; we stood by the mother in her long battle trying to get her kids back; we mortgaged our house to help the dad with the legal fee. And all of this was done according to what we have learned about the Gospel from Keller: not to earn any merit before God, but because we want to be like Him. The Gospel also gave us so much liberation to know that even if we failed in our efforts, our standing before God will never be in jeopardy. For our righteousness is because of what Jesus had done, and not because of us. (This is the stuff that filled my journal on http://www.xanga.com/i12know for the last year anyway)
The beauty of grace is that we know that even our suffering won’t bring about any positive end results a few years from now (our brother may ends up in prison row, our nephew may ends up like another Terri Schiavo, my family iis getting in debt, etc.) we would still experience lots of joy and grace and glory living out the Gospel anyway. If that is truly “less filling and taste greatâ€, praise be to God!
May blessing be on you as you consider the implication of what Keller have done to the people of God outside of the PCA so far…
Bumble
October 29th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
SteveZ:
I had some battle scars fighting the denominationalism in my own visible church and so that may colored my view on the issue of whether Keller is with the PCA or not. I agreed with you it is harmful to “pleading with souls to stay in the boat no matter what” as well as “enticing souls to others or to leave them altogether”. I recently asked the question about our own parochialism, “If there are so much problems here, why cann’t I just leave?” Then of course I learned that any other denominational system will have the similar problem: the problem is the sinfulness of the people involved in the denominational system. The visible churches constantly need the Godliness of the invisible Church to make it more Godly.
Dr. Hart: If you used this URL instead of the generic one I gave earlier, you could skim through my heartaches for yourself and evaluate how Keller’s explanation of the Gospel could help the simple foot-soldiers like me on the front line: http://www.xanga.com/I12Know/tags/trial
D Hart
October 30th, 2007 at 6:02 am
Bumble, did you ever consider that you are the Keller of your congregation and family? You have the same spiritual powers that he does. And believe it or not, lots of pastors are shepherding their flocks and liberating their people from the bondage of sin and death and they’ve never heard of Keller, blended services, or mercy ministries.
stevez
October 30th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Bumble,
It seems to me that the point here is that Keller and crew are taking upon themselves in the GC the work of the Church, which, granted, is different from souls taking their battle scar balls to another corner to play. One may be petty while the other may have a more noble purview; one may be characterized by ignoble political squabbling over the color of carpet while the other talks about “renewing our faith in the gospel of Christ and to reforming our ministry practices to conform fully to the Scriptures..intend[ing] to [serve the church] through the ordinary means of his grace: prayer, the ministry of the Word, baptism and the Lord’s supper, and the fellowship of the saints.â€
While they may run the gammit of nobility, they both seem to comport under the idea that an individual or group of individuals knows better than the collective cloud of witnesses of the visible church, which really is ignoble. Keller’s reminds me of the high opinion/ low view of the confessional forms, for instance, in my own CRC as it contemplates a horrid post-modern Revision to the Form of Subscription. Just as we ought not mistake a high opinion of the forms for a high view, we ought not mistake Keller’s et. al. noble effort for a churchly one.
Steve
Rusty O.
October 30th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
“…why have the founders of the Gospel Coalition not recognized the novelty of their endeavor?”
I frankly don’t see how their endeavor is novel. It’s just one more denomination if it exhibits the marks of the church. What might be novel is this sort of denominational layering. Either way their unifying element, like any presbyterian denomination, is an abstract, legal construct. If the GC were disbanded tomorrow, we would be short one more imaginary institution. The local church lives on with Christ really present in word, sacrament, and fellowship.
Bumble
October 30th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Dr. Hart and Steve,
Thank you for the dialogues. I trust that at this point we can see each other views in truth and love. Even we may be disagreeing on how best to proceed to advance God’s Kingdom, we can agree that our hearts are loyal to Him and have His Kingdom’s interest before us.
I pray that God would continue His work in us and through us to accomplish His plan.
Bumble, over and out.
BeautifulMess
January 18th, 2008 at 1:20 am
This is possibly one of the most ridiculous blog posts I’ve read in a while.
Main Entry:
coalesce
Pronunciation:
\ËŒkÅ-É™-ˈles\
Function:
verb
1: to grow together
2 a: to unite into a whole : fuse b: to unite for a common end : join forces
3: to arise from the combination of distinct elements transitive verb: to cause to unite
Main Entry:
co·a·li·tion
Pronunciation:
\ËŒkÅ-É™-ˈli-shÉ™n\
Function:
noun
1 a: the act of coalescing : union
b: a body formed by the coalescing of originally distinct elements : combination
2: a temporary alliance of distinct parties, persons, or states for joint action
Coalitions, by definition, are a temporary alliance of *distinct parties* or persons for joint action. They involve a uniting of distinct elements. By defintion, Christians themselves should be a coalition.
I see absolutely nothing anywhere about anyone leaving their individual denominations. (Bryan Chapell would most certainly be out of a job, now wouldn’t he? And how scandalous that Mahaney would leave the denomination he founded!) Nor do I see anything remotely close to a denomination or church itself. (As far as the sacrament issue is concerned, the PCA table is open to all believers in good standing with any evangelical church - the BCO is quite clear there.) Nor do I see anything in the Bible which calls us only to unity with our own denominations. We are called to the Body of Christ, to the unification of Believers. I am SEVERELY bothered by the condemnation and assumption made in the post title alone, not to mention the ridiculous statements in the post itself or the comments, without any grounding in truth. (And here I thought this post would be about women in the deaconate!)
If there’s one thing presbyterians have historically been known for it is how quickly they will split into a new “presbyterian” denomination at the slightest sneeze. We should be ashamed that we are known for our own denominational divorces, rather than our unity. Kudos to these guys - PCA or not - for an attempt to counter our lack of unity within the evangelical, confessing church, and to counter a “replacing of the gospel” so rampant in so many churches - yes, even within some PCA churches.
Our lack of unity is tragic. If it is not breaking your hearts, it should be.
In everything I have read in their statements, I see the Coalition as a “church assisting” organization, rather than a “counter-church organization” (which is really what so many people implying with their throwing around of the term “parachurch”).
If you wish to read more of my opinion on the matter, you’re welcome to read a post I wrote over a year ago on the subject: http://michaelaforbes.com/archives/1451
Additionally, I’m sure you’d be a little upset if people starting making such assumptions without any real grounding or talking to you first. I’m quite sure the Bible DOES have some serious things to say about that.
D Hart
January 21st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
But imagine how brilliant it was 3 months ago.
Okay, I’ll bite beautifulmess if you’re still reading. So the Gospel Coalition is only a coalition, and it is only a church assisting operation. So will they assist churches to baptize babies or not? Wouldn’t you think having such an agreement sorted out would be important for any organization that tries to follow the Great Commission since baptism is part of what Christ commissioned his disciples to do?
So if GC is made up of paedo baptists and credo baptists, does that make it an oxymoronic coalition?
Keller and the PCA « The Confessional Outhouse
February 28th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
[...] D.G. Hart once wondered if Tim Keller had left the PCA for the Gospel Coalition, are Keller’s words here hints that he may be heading for the door? What if the Gospel Coalition could give him all the accountability he thinks is still needed? [...]
What is the difference between T4G and the Gospel Coalition? « Leviticus and Stuff
February 29th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
[...] Darryl Hart has written a post concerning Keller’s relation to the PCA. In particluar he notes the following: How else should we interpret his involvement in the Gospel Coalition. Co-founded by such evangelical heavyweights as D. A. Carson and John Piper, GC is a fellowship of churches that have come together for the purpose of “renewing our faith in the gospel of Christ and to reforming our ministry practices to conform fully to the Scriptures.†GC plans to execute its promotion of the gospel through the ordained means of word and sacrament. “We intend to [serve the church] through the ordinary means of his grace: prayer, the ministry of the Word, baptism and the Lord’s supper, and the fellowship of the saints.†(emphasis added) [...]