I won’t be posting much of anything other than “Quote of the Day” for the next few days as I entertain houseguests (juggling? karaoke?) and spend Thursday and Friday in downtown Lewiston on business. Feel free to organize your spice racks or something while I’m gone. Better yet, come do mine.
I do, however, want to make note of a book I just got, “The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology” by Dr. Guy Prentiss Waters, a Reformed author and theologian. Our local FV’ers are well represented — which is to say that their theology is much-discussed, and while I believe they are accurately represented, Waters’ conclusions pronounce those theologies unwell indeed. I’ve spent much of the summer reading the Knox Colloquium/”The Auburn Avenue Theology,” which presents pro-con essays on the FV from Wilson, Leithart, Steve Wilkins, John Barach, and Steve Schlissel and six anti-FV theologians; Wilson’s “Reformed is Not Enough;” Schlissel’s “Christian Culture in a Multi-Cultural Age;” and “Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism, and Arminianism: A Theological Primer,” by Drs. Kenneth Talbot and Gary Crampton. I even held my nose and read Reconstructionist Gary North’s “Backwards, Christian Soldiers” and David Chilton’s odious “Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators,” because I’ve wondered about the link between the Recons and the FV’ers. Looks like Waters will develop that, and further comment will be following.
And from the “comments” section, here’s my response to John Lofton, the Reconstructionist who still takes me task over my assessment of Rushdoony’s theology and application — Lofton calls it “bearing false witness” when I say I think Rushdoony and the Recons are wrong, based on Scripture. I said:
“A good place to start, in reference to Rushdoony’s insistence on instituting Mosaic law in current-day society, might be the account in the Gospel of John wherein Jesus absolves the woman found in the act of adultery. My reading of this suggests that He offered, and established, a new way of looking at sin that, while failing to satisfy Mosaic law (which He in His perfect sinlessness did fulfill), more than fully — redemptively — satisfies the law of love that reached its apex in the Gospel. Further, even if I were to embrace Rushdoony’s call for reinstitution of the Law, I find that he is less than even-handed in its execution (no pun intended). His theonomy calls for the maintenance of societal (gender and class) distinctions obliterated, I believe, by the Gospel. His is not the way of Christ on either account. Thanks for your comments.”
I believe Reconstructionism to be entirely wrong, and I disagree vehemently with Federal Vision theology. It’ll be interesting to see where any marriage of the two began . . .