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?

Main Entry:
coalesce
Pronunciation:
\ˌkō-ə-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:
\ˌkō-ə-ˈli-shən\
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.

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.

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.

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.”

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

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