Roger E. Olson

I don’t have a definite answer to that although I tend to think Social Darwinism is incompatible with biblical Christianity.

My point here, however, is simply that many American Christians seem to be able to embrace Social Darwinism while rejecting (often vehemently) biological Darwinism.

I live in a social context strongly influenced by Christian fundamentalism. It’s very common to see anti-evolution bumper stickers. Books and seminars against evolution abound. Not far from where I sit there is a “Creationism Museum.” Letters to the editor often express outrage at evolution taught in public schools.

And yet, Social Darwinism seems to be the default philosophy of economics in this social context. “Survival of the fittest” is rejected as a biological explanation of the creation and survival of species, but it is embraced as the basis for proper economics.

A good example of this contrast and even contradiction appears in today’s local newspaper–owned and operated by a Christian family who, when they bought the paper, immediately put “In God We Trust” immediately beneath the paper’s name on page one. Numerous letters to the editor applauded that.

Today’s edition contains an unsigned editorial (which always reflect the editorial board’s opinion) defending “free-market” economics: “Americans should allow Darwinian, free-market dynamics to continue in the ebb and flow that so characterize this [capitalist] system.” (Waco Tribune-Herald, May 16, 2012, 6A)

I have written a letter to the editor simply asking how this affirmation of social Darwinism is consistent with “In God We Trust.”

What I really wonder is how so many even educated Christians fail to see the contradiction inherent in belief in the Christian God, the God of Jesus Christ, together with belief in Social Darwinism. Surely “In God We Trust” (in this newspaper) does not mean “In the God of Deism” we trust. Or at least that is not what most readers who applauded the motto’s inclusion thought it meant.

I am willing to bet that I am only one of a tiny number of readers who will notice this contradiction. I am willing to bet that IF the newspaper published an editorial including an affirmation of biological Darwinism there would be a huge outcry and many subscribers would drop their subscriptions. I doubt there will be even a ripple of dissent in this case.

Why do I say “contradiction?” I assume that should be obvious to any reflective Christian (or person!). The God of Jesus Christ does not endorse survival of the fittest; he endorses care for the poor, the widows and the orphans.

Now, I can just hear someone screaming “separation of church and state!” I am not recommending that Christians enforce Christian economics (whatever that would be); I am simply criticizing Christian endorsement of Social Darwinism as state policy.

This seems to me to reveal a failure of integrative Christian thinking. I have taught now in three Christian universities in which there has been controversy over “integration of faith and learning.” I can see why–when some Christians want to follow a “two truths” approach to the world of knowledge. This is, however, a failure of discipleship and a betrayal of the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all aspects of reality and truth.

I suppose an argument could be made that a Darwinian approach to economics is pragmatically best in that, overall and in general, it works better than any alternative approach. But that seems like an impossible argument for a Christian to make if it is intended as a defense of survival of the fittest.

Even Adam Smith, the quintessential philosopher of capitalism, argued that capitalism can only work if there is an “invisible hand” (clearly a covert reference to God and/or government) to regulate it. Without that, extremes of wealth and poverty will inevitably develop in a totally unregulated free market economy. It as only AFTER Smith and Darwin that some economists applied survival of the fittest (not Darwin’s term but a good description of natural selection nonetheless) to economic life and argued against government regulation of business on that ground.

IF a Christian is going to embrace and endorse free-market capitalism, he or she should AT LEAST explain how “the least of these” are going to be cared for in that system. Reference to “Darwinian, free-market dynamics” seems to me to imply no care for the least, the unfit, the weak and powerless.

This whole incident simply supports my argument that Christian churches have largely failed to inculcate any serious understanding of Christian truth in their members. We have largely adopted the Kantian distinction between “facts” and “values” and cordoned off Christianity from things like economics.

Integration of faith and learning does not mean there is one “Christian economics.” It means there are some economic theories that are absolutely contrary to a Christian world view. The vast majority of American Christians think that about socialism and communism, but not about Social Darwinism. That is a failure of Christian teaching.

A New Calvinist Book on Justification Perplexes

I have been asked to review Justification: A Guide for the Perplexed by Reformed theologian Alan J. Spence (T&TClark, 2012). Spence is a United Reformed Church pastor in the U.K.

I was asked to review it for The Evangelical Quarterly whose editor is I. Howard Marshall. I like the EQ partly because it has over the years published many excellent articles friendly to Arminianism.

I won’t repeat all my points about Spence’s book here. You’ll have to wait and read my complete review which I just submitted to the book review editor yesterday. I don’t know when it will be published.

However, I do want to mention some problematic points that I see in the book. I invite others who have read it, even Spence himself, should he see this review or the EQ one to respond.

As this is a blog devoted somewhat (if not primarily) to expounding and defending evangelical Arminianism, I will focus here primarily on issues of concern to Arminians raised in Spence’s book.

First, however, let me just say that I found much good in Justification. Unlike many other treatments of the subject by Protestants (especially Lutheran and Reformed theologians), it lacks the expected polemics against Catholic theology. Spence rightly distinguishes between, for example, what Thomas Aquinas actually taught about justification and what Trent taught. According to him (and I agree), Aquinas’s real doctrine of justification is much closer to Luther’s than most people recognize.

Spence is sympathetic to Augustine’s and Aquinas’s accounts of justification even though, in the end, he finds them inadequate. He clearly favor’s Calvin’s view of justification as synonymous with Union with Christ, but his main point throughout the book is that the entire Western tradition, up until Schleiermacher and N. T. Wright, was focused on justification as pardon.

Spence’s foil throughout the book is not Catholic theology but Wright’s “new perspective” on justification especially as expressed in What Paul Really Said (1997). The entire book appears to be a polemic against Wright’s idea of justification even though that is only discussed in the penultimate chapter.

Overall and in general, I agree with Spence that justification is about divine judgment and pardon. I’m not as confident as he seems to be that Wright would disagree. Especially in Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (2009) Wright seems to include that dimension within his overall emphasis on ecclesiology as the setting for properly understanding justification. My final “take” on the matter is that Spence’s account of Wright’s concept of justification is wrong insofar as it fails to take into account Wright’s clarifications in Justification. As I have written here before, it seems to me that Wright’s main point is not to deny the connection between justification and salvation (or even forensic righteousness by faith) but to rediscover the proper setting for that doctrine which is membership in the people of God.

I am equally troubled by Spence’s treatment of Barth, but I’ll leave that for later and perhaps even for the review when it is published in EQ.

Here I wish to raise a question I only touch on in my review for EQ. It has to do with Calvinism and belief in heavenly rewards for faithful service.

When I was growing up in evangelical Christianity much emphasis was placed on future rewards given by God in heaven for faithful obedience to Jesus Christ in Christian living. This was simply assumed; it rarely had to be defended because there are so many Scripture passages that refer to them. This promise and hope was used to encourage us to strive for personal holiness and self-sacrificial service.

I remember my surprise when I discovered that Calvin also taught this. One locus is Institutes III:XVIII “Works Righteousness Is Wrongly Inferred from Reward.” Even in the thoroughly Arminian evangelicalism I grew up in this was emphasized—that when we receive our rewards in heaven we will joyfully cast them at Jesus’ feet out of gratitude for his sacrifice on the cross. (And thus, the name of the Christian band “Casting Crowns.) But we sang hymns about such rewards as reminders that there will be rewards in heaven for obedience and sacrificial service. (For example, “Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown?”)

I often wonder why this doctrine of heavenly rewards has dropped away so entirely from most evangelical churches? I haven’t heard a sermon on them or even an illusion to them in a sermon in many years. Nor have I read them mentioned in any book of evangelical theology in a long time.

That’s why my attention was drawn to one particular passage in Spence’s book on page 151. Spence rightly emphasizes that even the justified will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of their lives and will receive some kind of evaluation from the Savior for works done (or not done) in the body:

“At the end, each one of us will be required to give a full account of our lives before the risen Christ, the plenipotentiary of God. He will graciously reward every loving act that he has accomplished among the faithful through his Spirit and grant to them the gift of eternal life.” (151, italic added for emphasis)

This is completely consistent with Calvin’s explanation of heavenly rewards in the chapter of Institutes mentioned above. Calvin and Spence both say that our heavenly rewards, though very real, are not grounds for boasting because they will be based on what God has done in us, not on our own achievements.

But, to get to my main point, this seems highly problematic to me. What is the purpose of the promise of rewards (and implied threat of no rewards!) if they are given out based solely on what God himself, through his Spirit, has accomplished among the faithful? That is, if you believe that every good work you accomplish is solely God’s accomplishment in you and not at all your own achievement, even by means of free acceptance of the Spirit’s work in you, then what is the point of reward? Is God rewarding himself? But, then, why are there differences of rewards—some greater and some lesser? Would God accomplish by himself, monergistically, anything less than perfection?

In other words, as difficult as it is for me to conceive, I can at least imagine that God constitutes very person’s life by divine decree so that whatever they accomplish or do not accomplish is God’s will. What I cannot even imagine, however, is a reasonable and good God meting out rewards in varying degrees of approval based on what people achieved or did not achieve (in terms of obedience and service) when whatever they achieved or did not achieve was wholly, entirely and solely accomplished by God in and through them.

The only way to make any sense of this is to say that 1) any good achieved and accomplished by a person is due entirely to God’s gracious enablement (so that nobody can boast), but 2) people are responsible freely to allow God to do his work in and through them.

On the one hand, Calvinists rightly wish to avoid any possibility of boasting. On the other hand, Arminians rightly wish to preserve the meaningfulness of the judgment seat of  Christ and of rewards for obedience and service. What we MUST agree about is that such rewards will not be grounds for boasting. Arminians can affirm that together with Calvinists because, at the moment of receiving the reward, whether great or small, the person will know that he or she would have been unable to do anything apart from God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling power.

But we must also agree that the rewards will be real and meaningful rewards for freely deciding to allow the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit to work in believers’ lives.

My fear is that Spence, and Calvin before him, rob rewards of any meaning and imply that God is actually rewarding himself and not believers. If that is the case, why mention rewards at all? Why preach or teach heavenly rewards as motivation for obedience and service as the New Testament clearly does?

Ah, yes…the Calvinist will say “foreordained means to a foreordained end.” Back to that. But this seems to take to an extreme a right emphasis on God’s sovereignty and glory. The upshot of it all, then, is that whatever a believer is or is not accomplishing is out of his or her control. And that at the judgment seat of Christ all God will be doing is rewarding himself. Now, this might make sense WERE IT NOT FOR THE DEGREES OF REWARDS ISSUE. Clearly there will be degrees of rewards. How is God glorified in awarding to himself a lesser reward than is possible?

My point is that the Calvinist doctrine of rewards involves a conundrum. It actually makes no sense at all. Which is perhaps WHY preaching and teaching about heavenly rewards has virtually ceased. They only make sense within a synergistic view of sanctification.

In the past, and perhaps to some extent still today, SOME Reformed preachers have taught that justification and regeneration are monergistic while sanctification is not. That doesn’t seem to fit with a consistently Calvinist understanding of God’s sovereignty, however, and as Calvinism has become increasingly consistent under the influence of people like Sproul and Piper (and yet, in my opinion, still very inconsistent) any element of synergism, even in sanctification, is slipping away (if not totally condemned).

It seems to me that heavenly rewards is an inescapable biblical truth. Calvin believed that. Obviously Spence believes it. Who can even deny it? And yet it makes no sense within a strictly, consistently monergistic soteriology (in which even sanctification is interpreted as solely God’s work to the exclusion of any free human contribution in which “free” is understood as power of contrary choice).

 

I don’t normally do this at my blog, but friend Brian Abasciano of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical Arminian, has written an important book on Romans 9-11 from an Arminian perspective. An early review appears to misrepresent some ideas of the book and Brian has asked me to post his response here. If you know someone who has read the review in question, please see that they read Brian’s response.

Here is the response:

Steve Moyise recently reviewed my book (Brian J. Abasciano, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament in Romans 9.10–18: An Intertextual and Theological Exegesis [Library of New Testament Studies 317; New York: T&T Clark, 2011]) for the Review of Biblical Literature (http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8334). I have to say that I am quite disappointed in this review because of its unfair criticism based on misrepresentation of what I actually say and argue in the book. I would not normally seek to respond to a book review in this fashion (i.e., posting a reply on a friend’s blog). One expects book reviews to be critical in varying degrees, and interaction can be taken up in further published work if appropriate. But I think that this review deserves a prompt and direct response in this manner because it actually misrepresents me and the argument of the book. I will not address all of the criticisms Moyise leveled at my book, but try to remain brief and take up those that are based on misrepresentation rather than simple difference of perspective or approach.

In Moyise’s first main criticism, he gives the impression that I argue that Paul largely derived his view that ethnic Israel’s hardening is temporary from what is said about Edom and Pharaoh, and that everything can be deduced from the local context of Pauls’ Old Testament quotations. But that is simply false. My argument is far more nuanced, arguing that one of those texts contributed to Paul’s view of the hardening as temporary (not that it is the main text contributing to Paul’s conception nor even one of the main texts) and that the other gives some subtle support for the idea in our assessment of Paul’s intention. With regard to the former, I wrote, “It would appear that Mal. 1.2-3 provides *some* of the scriptural basis for Paul’s conviction that God’s judgment of unbelieving ethnic Israel would bring Gentiles to faith and that his merciful treatment of the Gentiles would bring Jews to faith, summed up in 11:30-31” (72-73; emphasis added). With regard to the Pharaoh text, I said that it “gives *some support* to the reversibility of the hardening of 9.18” (212; emphasis added), and then later, on the same page, specify the nature of this support as hinting and subtle. Nowhere do I say that everything can be deduced about Paul’s argument from the local context of Pauls’ Old Testament quotations. However, if Paul was drawing his arguments from the Old Testament texts, as he seems to claim and I believe I have shown, then we should expect a great deal of his argumentation to be elucidated by examination of the Old Testament texts he quotes or alludes to. Moreover, I do examine the original contexts of Paul’s Old Testament quotations and compare them to Paul’s argument. If that yields many striking correspondences, then it behooves us to acknowledge that. Indeed, we should follow the evidence wherever it leads. Moyise himself concedes that I “provide a significant challenge to those who think that Paul had little interest in the original context of his quotations.”

Moyise’s other major criticism is that I assume Paul’s readers would be able to follow Paul’s exegetical moves. But he again misrepresents what I actually say (unintentionally I am sure). Moyise claims that I argue that Paul’s readers would take ἐξήγειρά σε  in the sense of “I have spared you” because they would know that the Hebrew uses the hiphil of עמד (“to stand”), which was rendered by the LXX with διετηρήθης (“you were spared”). I neither say nor imply any such a thing. I do point out that the both the Hebrew and the LXX (i.e., the original context of Paul’s quotation in both language versions) carry the sense of “I have spared you,” and that this accords with Paul’s only other usage of the verb ἐξεγείρω, as well as with his dominant usage of the cognate verb ἐγείρω. These are standard types of exegetical observations for scholarly biblical literature, and it is surprising if Moyise would find it objectionable for them to be cited as support for construing Paul’s intention. But even if he does, they do not make the sort of claim that Moyise claims I make. He has simply misrepresented me here.

I believe that Moyise and I have sharp differences in our approaches to Paul’s use of the Old Testament, differences that reflect major debates in the field of Old Testament in the New studies. These differences come out in his review, and I have intentionally not addressed them much in this format since such criticisms are par for the course in book reviews. However, Moyise’s two main criticisms of my book are grounded in misrepresentation of what I actually say and argue. That is not par for the course for scholarly book reviews and calls for correction. We should represent others’ views rightly before we criticize them.

 

How to Believe without Being Fundamentalist

Because of the prevalence of fundamentalism (and what I have here called “neo-fundamentalism”) in American religious life, many moderate Christian pastors struggle with how to preach and teach Christian truth, doctrine, without being absolutistic, narrow, presumptuous and exclusive. I receive questions like that all the time and it seems to be a question hanging “in the air,” so to speak, in many, if not most, moderate Christian churches and educational institutions.

I have been critically reviewing chapters in The Gospel as Center. I often have the impression that these authors, all members of something called The Gospel Coalition, have a fundamentalist mentality. That is, they approach and exposit doctrine from within a fundamentalist ethos. In varying degrees they treat truth as black and white (absolutistic). Beliefs are either “gospel truth” or heresy. (There are, of course, exceptions to this. One came up in the chapter I most recently reviewed. It had to do with tolerance of both cessationism and continuationism. However, the author condemned belief in the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a second definite work of grace as “horribly mistaken.” That kind of language is, to me, fundamentalist. It was the kind of rhetoric used by fundamentalist forces that tried to keep Pentecostals out of the National Association of Evangelicals when it was formed in 1942.)

One way I describe fundamentalism (as an ethos) is its tendency to shift most beliefs from the “opinion” and “doctrine” categories into the “dogma” category. (I’ve explained these three categories and their inevitability and importance in detail in several of my books.) That is to say, beliefs most Christians view as important but not essential get re-placed in the category of essentials of the faith (“fundamentals”).  One example of that in the current neo-fundamentalist phenomenon is monergism.

In this climate, dominated as it is by neo-fundamentalists and (in the social and political arenas) the religious right, many moderate to progressive evangelicals struggle with how to preach and teach Christian truth. Some even struggle with the idea of truth itself. The result can be the reduction of Christianity to a spirituality consistent with anything and everything. I have spoken in churches that would not consider themselves “liberal” that have deacons or elders who do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, miracles, etc. They are afraid to deal with them, that is, exclude them from leadership positions, lest they come across as fundamentalistic.

In this atmosphere of absolutism and fear the traditional evangelical middle, what I call moderate evangelicalism, is disappearing. Oh, it’s not gone; it’s just not as prominent as it used to be. The result is that many people who are not prone to fundamentalism can’t find an evangelical church that preaches and teaches the gospel and essential Christian doctrine without apology or compromise. So they join a fundamentalist or neo-fundamentalist church and get sucked into that ethos or just endure sermons and lessons that harshly condemn anything other than rigid, narrow, absolutistic conservative Protestantism and that promote as “biblical truth” things like youth earth creationism, TULIP Calvinism, restriction of salvation to the evangelized, dispensationalism, etc. Or, they join a liberal church that promotes a culturally accommodated version of Christianity in which therapy and social transformation totally replace doctrine and virtually anything goes in terms of beliefs and lifestyles.

So what is the disappearing middle ground I talk about and seek? It holds firmly and uncompromisingly to Jesus Christ as God and Savior and lovingly excludes from leadership persons who claim to be Christians (are may very well be saved) but who do not believe in the divine Lordship of Jesus Christ or his sole Saviorhood.  At the same time, people inhabiting this middle ground admit that they do not know or fully understand all that this confession means, that they are not privy to God’s own mind so that they can explain how the incarnation works. But THAT Jesus Christ was and is God incarnate is part and parcel of authentic Christianity.

People inhabiting this middle ground do not look around for Christians who do not agree with every slight interpretation of the incarnation and condemn them as heretics. For example, one conservative evangelical theologian-philosopher I know argues that the kenotic theory, that the Son of God set aside his attributes of glory so that he did not always know he was the Son of God from heaven, the second person of the Trinity, and that his power to do miracles was a gift from the Holy Spirit rather than his ability to use his deity, is heresy. I suspect that if that theologian-philosopher explained to most evangelicals who read and listen to him what HE believes about the incarnation (viz., that Jesus was omniscient even as a baby) they would be shocked and ask him what Luke 2:52 means.

My point is that it is possible to hold firmly to, proclaim and teach, the incarnation of God, the deity of Jesus Christ, even a full bodied doctrine of the Trinity, and not do it in a rigid, narrow, absolutistic way. One mark of fundamentalism and neo-fundamentalism is going beyond belief in and proclamation of the incarnation to insistence on a certain theory of how it worked as essential to the incarnation and deity of Jesus Christ.

We can say lovingly and unapologetically that we believe in Jesus Christ as God and Savior, the only Mediator between God and humanity, without including in that confession interesting but non-essential theories of how that can be the case. We can share with each other and non-Christian inquirers our theories (e.g., kenoticism) without implying that they do not “really” believe in the incarnation or the deity of Christ unless they agree with us. In other words, we can have our secondary doctrines and interpretations without absolutizing them. (Actually, I know very few if any people who do this with the kenotic theory of Christology. More commonly it’s the other way around—neo-fundamentalists tend to confuse their own theory of Jesus’ deity and humanity, the incarnation, which usually is something called the “two minds theory,” with belief in the incarnation itself so that people who do not agree are suspect of not even believing in the deity of Jesus Christ.)

Surely it is possible also to preach and teach that Jesus is the one and only Savior of humanity, Lord of creation, redeemer, friend, without insisting that people who have the disadvantage of never hearing his name have no hope of being saved through him. Now that might be your opinion and you might share that in a teaching situation, but only neo-fundamentalists feel the need to preach that (restrictivism) as part and parcel of the gospel itself.

If a person lacks confidence that Jesus Christ is God and Savior, the one Lord of everything, the only Mediator between God and humanity, friend of the friendless and hope of the hopeless, then he or she should not be in the Christian ministry. Does that sound fundamentalist? If so, then you’re confused about what Christianity is. There’s nothing fundamentalist about holding fast to belief in the incarnation and even insisting on belief in it as intrinsic, essential to mature Christian life and faith.

The same MUST be said about universal sin and need of redemption, salvation through Christ’s death and resurrection alone by means of God’s grace alone through faith. The same MUST be said about miracles, especially the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The same MUST be said about every person’s need for repentance and faith as trust in Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, for reconciliation with God and a right relationship with him. These are not the private preserve of fundamentalists. Fundamentalism appears when these essentials of Christian belief are loaded with non-essential theories and when Charles Hodge’s (or some other Protestant orthodox) systematic theology is equated with the gospel itself.

Who are some balanced, sane, moderate evangelicals to read in this regard? I recommend John Stott (e.g., Authentic Christianity), Donald Bloesch (e.g., Essentials of Evangelical Theology), Alan Sell (e.g., Doctrine and Devotion), Stanley Grenz, (e.g., Created for Community). There are others, of course, who strike the right balance, but these have been among my guides in seeking balanced evangelical Christianity that avoids both fundamentalism (and neo-fundamentalism) and theological liberalism.

 

 

 

Part 10 of Response to The Gospel as Center: Chapter 10: “The Holy Spirit”

The chapter’s author is Gospel Coalition member Kevin DeYoung, a minister of the Reformed Church of America.

Like many other chapters of The Gospel as Center, this one does not provide the fodder for controversy and criticism one might expect. For the most part it is a straightforward exposition of traditional Protestant doctrine of the Holy Spirit as person, God and distinct from the Father and Son. One statement with which I might quibble is that “the Son and the Spirit are [not] one in terms of their being.” (174) The author continues by saying their oneness is in their “shared redemptive activity.” However, unlike some neo-fundamentalists I know, I won’t jump on that but practice a hermeneutic of charity and interpret it as meaning nothing more than that the Son and Spirit are not the same person (as in modalism). I just think the choice of language is unfortunate and could be misleading.

The author continues by describing the work of the Holy Spirit as: convicting, converting, applying, glorifying, sanctifying, equipping and promising.

DeYoung clearly believes that conversion is solely the work of the Holy Spirit; he makes no mention of any human response that is not itself a gift of the Spirit. That is, of course, a symptom of monergism. This excludes from believing the full gospel all synergists, including evangelical synergists (Anabaptists and Arminians). This ignores, of course, all the biblical imperatives to believe and receive and repent, etc. When it comes to sanctification DeYoung offers at least a hint of personal involvement that is not already the Spirit’s sole work.

Many evangelicals will object to DeYoung’s insistence that there is no “second blessing” of Spirit baptism subsequent to conversion (179-180). For him, Spirit baptism is simply our union with Christ at conversion/regeneration. Every true Christian is already Spirit baptized. I think it is possible to read the New Testament differently. DeYoung equates Spirit baptism with being “baptized by one Spirit” into one body which many evangelicals interpret as water baptism, distinguishing that from Spirit baptism which is a second work of grace. He interprets 1 Cor. 12:13 as referring to Spirit baptism—something common to all Christians. It is possible to interpret that as referring to regeneration only and not at all to Spirit baptism as that is referred to in Acts.

All evangelicals believe that every true Christian received the Spirit at regeneration and were inserted into the body of Christ at baptism. SOME evangelicals (and not only Pentecostals and charismatics!) believe there is a second work of the Holy Spirit called being “filled with the Spirit,” the “enduement with power,” every Christian’s own “Pentecost.” Some of them believe it is always accompanied by the sign gift of the speaking in tongues. In my opinion, DeYoung’s treatment of this debate is shallow and dismissive of the second blessing tradition. He seems unfamiliar with that tradition’s concept of the second blessing as being “filled” with the Spirit. On the other hand, it would probably be best for that tradition to use only that language and drop baptism language for the second blessing. The problem is, as I often say, Scripture is not as clear about this subject as we would like.

Another area where I don’t so much disagree as think DeYoung’s exposition and argument are shallow is “The Holy Spirit Glorifies” (180-182). There he focuses entirely and exclusively on the Holy Spirit’s glorification of Christ. That does rightly come first. But he brushes aside in too cavalier a manner the Spirit’s glorification of believers (2 Cor. 3:8 and 2 Peter 1:4). As expected, he is only interested in God’s glory and not at all (so it seems) in God’s glorification of us which is a New Testament theme. The fullness of that is, of course, eschatological, and its purpose now and then is to unite us with God to his honor and glory but also for our transformation and glorification. I see no problem in highlighting that as the New Testament does. It seems to me contemporary neo-Calvinists are allergic to anything, even biblical passages, that refer to our glorification as if that would somehow detract from God’s.

Also as expected, DeYoung vilifies inclusivism as “horribly mistaken.” (182) But, once again, his exposition of it (because it is not really one thing!) is shallow and even distorted. Not all inclusivists believe non-Christian religions are means of grace for salvation. His argument against inclusivism is that it detracts from the glory of Christ. I don’t follow his reasoning there at all. As often, I detect in this discussion that a certain view of God’s glory is pitted against God’s love as if extended his love to those who never hear of Jesus Christ (in this life) somehow diminishes Christ’s glory.

Finally, DeYoung talks about the controversy between “cessationists” and “continuationists” and seeks to please both sides. He says they have more in common than they disagree about. (186) He says “One of the encouraging signs in the evangelical world is how cessationists and continuationists have been able to partner and worship together in recent years, realizing that their commonalities in the gospel are far greater than the issues that separate them with regard to spiritual gifts.” (186)  Really? Where and when has that happened? Is he aware that the Southern Baptist International Mission Board and several seminaries have required missionaries and professors to sign statements that they do not speak in tongues even in private (as a personal “prayer language”) on pain of being fired?

I think cessationism is simply silly in that it is inconsistent with something most cessationists loudly proclaim—taking the Bible seriously as God’s Word for us today. What I wonder is how a group as devoted to biblical authority as The Gospel Coalition can include cessationists who clearly fly in the face of Scripture out of fear of fanaticism and/or (out of) accommodation to modern naturalism.  I can’t think of any other reasons for it. Appeals to 1 Cor. 13:8-10 simply won’t cut it. “When the perfect is come” cannot refer to the completion of the canon. The other reasons DeYoung gives in support of cessationism (185-186) are equally insipid. Now, neglect of the supernatural gifts is not necessarily the same as theological cessationism. And that’s another issue. But to claim that cessationism is consistent with faith in Scripture as God’s inerrant Word seems to me illogical.

I grew up in a form of evangelical Christianity that proudly proclaimed itself “full gospel”—implying that other forms of evangelical Christianity (such as cessationism) are “partial gospel.” I now think that all forms of Christianity are partial gospel; there is no truly “full gospel” Christianity; we all have much to learn from each other about the full meaning and implications of the gospel. We all have various forms of truncated gospel. I weary of those who proclaim that they and they alone have the “full gospel.” However, cessationism does seem to me a good example of a theology that has consciously rejected a portion of the New Testament as irrelevant to today for no good reason and therefore obviously, at that point, has a truncated gospel and stands in need of correction. DeYoung fails in that.

Overall, I was disappointed with this chapter’s lack of emphasis on the interior work of the Holy Spirit and our believing and receiving response to the Spirit’s initiative and empowering presence. The emphasis falls mainly on the objective work of the Holy Spirit as if we (especially in conversion) are puppets or mere objects being taken over and controlled by the Spirit without our consent or cooperation. That is not, in my opinion, New Testament or true evangelical Christianity. I realize it is part of Protestant orthodoxy, but that’s just because it’s been around a very long time. To me and to a very large segment of evangelicalism, the neglect of our free participation in the Spirit’s work in conversion by repentance and faith is pernicious to the power of the gospel message.