Debating Covenantal Infant Baptism

Here's a link to a broadcast debate between James White and Gregg Strawbridge over infant baptism (part 2 is here). Strawbridge is the editor of The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism.

The debate is on Covenant Radio.

Updated: Evidently, the podcast has been removed. You can listen to it here.

Updated yet again: You can listen to it here and here, as well or you can subscribe to Covenant Radio here and it will be put on your iPod or RSS reader.

Free Offer of the Gospel

Yes, God does freely offer salvation to all and yes, it is Reformed to say that. Here's a link to my digest of John Murray's article "The Free Offer of the Gospel" and here's a link to Mark Horne's defense of that article.

“We are trying to save civilization.”

Absolutely excellent article on Doug Wilson's New St. Andrews College in the NT Times Magazine!!! (I know I was shocked as well.) It's well-balanced and it's written in such a way that it doesn't treat the subjects as aliens from another planet (a problem with a lot of articles written about Christians).

I thought this was funny:

The college handbook forbids students to embrace or promote “doctrinal errors” from the 4th through the 21st centuries, “such as Arianism, Socinianism, Pelagianism, Skepticism, Feminism.” If drawn to such ideas, they must “inform the administration immediately and honestly in a letter offering to withdraw from the College.” Cultural revolution cannot tolerate heretics.

And this is pretty amazing when you remember you're reading the NY Times:

The phrases that N.S.A. students are trained to use — like “Christian worldview” and “presuppositions” — are the tag lines of the theological tradition that partly inspired their college. In the early 20th century, a Dutch theologian named Cornelius Van Til introduced a kind of theology called presuppositionalism. He argued that no assumptions are neutral and that the human mind can comprehend reality only if proceeding from the truth of biblical revelation. In other words, it is impossible for Christians to reason with non-Christians. presuppositionalism is a strangely postmodern theory that denies the possibility of objectivity — though it does not deny the existence of truth, which belongs to Christians alone.

According to critics, this school of thought equips young Christians to read and discuss non-Christian ideas without ever taking them seriously. “The trouble is that once you’ve figured out someone’s presuppositions, you can write them off as right or wrong without having to deal with their arguments. . . . It becomes anti-intellectual,” says Darryl Hart, a historian who has taught at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, the birthplace of presuppositionalism. Token “anti-Christians” like Margaret Sanger, Karl Marx and Charles Darwin appear on N.S.A. syllabuses, but students say these rarely generate serious debate. Darwin, for his part, remains only “a curious event in the history of modern secularism,” Matthew McCabe says.

Presuppositionalism Van Tillianism defined on the pages of the NY Times! Unbelievable!

And given that this is the NT Times it's incredible that the really bad stuff is at the end of the article:

Students at New St. Andrews rarely read Van Til’s dense theological treatises. They absorb his ideas from their teachers. A few faculty members at New St. Andrews also had links with a largely defunct offshoot of Van Til’s thought called Christian Reconstructionism. The movement’s founder, Rousas John Rushdoony, wrote that Christians should gradually take control of society and reinstate Old Testament law — including the execution of adulterers and homosexuals. Most N.S.A. faculty members are quick to distance themselves from the movement, but not Doug Wilson.

Wilson emphasizes his flexibility when it comes to Old Testament law. “You can’t apply Scripture woodenly,” he says; instead of executing them, “you might exile some homosexuals, depending on the circumstances and the age of the victim.” He adds: “There are circumstances in which I’d be in favor of execution for adultery. . . . I’m not proposing legislation. We’re saying, Let’s set up the Christian worldview, and our descendants 500 years from now can work out the knotty problems.” Gene Veith, who is provost of Patrick Henry College and active in classical Christian education, fears Wilson’s views are a handicap for the movement. “One of the frustrating things for me is that people sometimes associate the classical Christian education movement with Doug Wilson, so some people are sort of afraid of it,” he says.

I wonder if the reconstructionists would consider their movement "largely defunct?" BTW, just so you know, I'm not a reconstructionist. I'm not even a post-mil. I'm an amil which means I believe that Christ reigns through his people in his kingdom that transcends nations. His kingdom is not of this world and can't be seen (it is by faith and not by sight). Post-mils believe that Christ reigns through the church visibly -- that governments become Christianized.

Wilson liked the article but made some points of clarification here which included a further explanation of Van Til:

The article missed a theological point concerning the thought of Cornelius Van Til. "In other words, it is impossible for Christian to reason with non-Christians." The point here is that when they are reasoning from their respective presuppositions, it is impossible for believers and unbelievers to have a meeting of the minds. We can only reason with one another when we share the premises, which the Van Tilian argues the non-believer unwittingly does, borrowing from the Christian worldview in order to function in the world God actually made. So the point was not that it is unnecessary to interact with non-Christians, or with non-Christian thought, or to deal with their arguments, but rather that we should do so intelligently, recognizing the foundational role of presuppositions in all of it.

And this:

And those liberals really worried about actual executions of adulterers and homosexuals perhaps need to think about signing up to support Bush's newly developing exit strategy for Iraq -- it is starting to look as though he might go out through Iran. But I don't really think that will make them happy either.

(all links via)

Updated: I corrected the post to reflect that it was Van Tillianism (this is how closely I link presuppositionalism with Van Til -- to me they are synonymous) that I was amazed to see in the pages of the NY Times.
Updated: Ugh! As I was driving to church yesterday after I published this post, I realize that I didn't make myself clear about the distinction between amils and post-mils as regards Christ's reign. And then when I came home I forgot to correct the post. But a commenter reminded me that I had to fix it, so I did.

The Problem of Evil

How can a good God ordain evil? John Frame has an interesting way to look at the problem:

I borrowed the Shakespeare/Macbeth illustration from Wayne Grudem’s excellent Systematic Theology. But I do disagree with Grudem on one point. He says that we could say that either Macbeth or Shakespeare “killed King Duncan.” I agree, of course, that both Macbeth and Shakespeare are responsible, at different levels of reality, for the death of Duncan. But as I analyze the language we typically use in such contexts, it seems clear to me that we would not normally say that Shakespeare killed Duncan. Shakespeare wrote the murder into his play. But the murder took place in the world of the play, not the real world of the author. Macbeth did it, not Shakespeare. We sense the rightness of the poetic justice brought against Macbeth for his crime. But we would certainly consider it very unjust if Shakespeare were tried and put to death for killing Duncan. And no one suggests that there is any problem in reconciling Shakespeare’s benevolence with his omnipotence over the world of the drama. Indeed, there is reason for us to praise Shakespeare for raising up this character, Macbeth, to show us the consequences of sin.

The difference between levels, then, may have moral significance as well as metaphysical. It may illumine why the biblical writers, who do not hesitate to say that God brings about sin and evil, are not tempted to accuse him of wrongdoing. The relation between God and ourselves, of course, is different in some respects from that between an author and his characters. Most significantly: we are real; Macbeth is not. But between God and ourselves there is a vast difference in the kind of reality and in relative status. God is the absolute controller and authority, the most present fact of nature and history. He is the lawgiver, we the law receivers. He is the head of the covenant; we are the servants. He has devised the creation for his own glory; we seek his glory, rather than our own. He makes us as the potter makes pots, for his own purposes. Do these differences not put God in a different moral category as well?

The very transcendence of God plays a significant role in biblical responses to the problem of evil. Because God is who he is, the covenant Lord, he is not required to defend himself against charges of injustice. He is the judge, not we. Very often in Scripture, when something happens that calls God’s goodness in question, God pointedly refrains from explaining. Indeed, he often rebukes those human beings who question him. Job demanded an interview with God, so that he could ask God the reasons for his sufferings (23:1-7, 31:35-37). But when he met God, God asked the questions: “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me” (38:3). The questions mostly revealed Job’s ignorance about God’s creation: if Job doesn’t understand the ways of the animals, how can he presume to call God’s motives in question? He doesn’t even understand earthly things; how can he presume to debate heavenly things? God is not subject to the ignorant evaluations of his creatures.

(via)

Go read the rest and make sure to read the earlier posts as well.

Reformed Chicks aren't allowed to blog about anything but theology?

I'm sorry but I guess I didn't read the memo to all the Godbloggers that explains the rule that Godbloggers who use the word "Reformed" in their title can only blog about Reformed Theology. I'm a little stumped as to how I do that and blog about current events as well. I guess I'm just going to have to be creative or do something like this (not explicitly Reformed but it's probably close enough to qualify -- I could always throw in a comment about total depravity to cover the bases). What do you think?

Susan, I hope you're taking note that you need to work Reformed Theology some way into your post since there are brothers in Christ who are keeping track of this, we wouldn't want to grieve them that we aren't mentioning Calvin enough.

Here's a great site to get Calvin quotes, maybe we could find one that's appropriate to the story we are blogging about, like this:

“God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us - as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray”

And then label our posts: WWCS (What Would Calvin Say).