Recently I argued here that every theological system has flaws that should be acknowledged so that the entire system is held somewhat lightly and open to revision.  One problem is when a system, such as Charles Hodge’s “stout and persistent theology” (David Wells’s description) is treated as if it were simply stating divine revelation in other words and therefore not really (as opposed to theoretically) open to correction and revision.

But I see another problem in theological systems.  SOME have not only flaws but also what I will call fatal flaws.  A fatal flaw is a sheer contradiction–something it is simply impossible to believe because attempting to believe it results in thinking and speaking utter nonsense.

Earlier here one of my former students reported having a picture of me standing in front of an erase-a-board with the words “creech, creech” written on in it as if they were coming out of my mouth (cartoon style).  I know what that was.  I was explaining to my students way back then that attempting to affirm a sheer contradiction is no different than saying nonsensical syllables such as “creech, creech.”  (My apologies to people whose last name is “Creech!”) 

A mystery is one thing; a paradox is a closely related thing; a logical contradiction is something else entirely.  Here I agree entirely with Reformed theologian R. C. Sproul (Chosen by God, pp. 46-47).  God is transcendent and therefore will always be mysterious to us.  Mystery results in paradox because God is transcendent and we are finite and fallen.  But contradiction is something even God cannot embrace because to embrace it is to fall into complete incoherence and unintelligibility.

It is not as easy as some believe to identify a logical contradiction.  For example, when people say that the doctrines of the Trinity and deity/humanity of Christ are contradictions I have to laugh.  The whole point of the doctrines (as worked out by the early church) is to show they are not contradictions.  The doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is NOT that God is one and three–left at that.  It is that God is one substance and three persons who share that substance equally.  We have no exact experience of that in human life or in nature (although there are analogies) so it is a mystery.  But it is not a contradiction.  Nor is the doctrine of the hypostatic union a contradiction.

A contradiction is always in the form “A is not A” when “A” is meant both times as exactly the same.  For example, it would be a contradiction to say “Jesus Christ is exclusively human and exclusively divine.”  But nobody says that–unless they are completely ignorant of both the Bible and doctrine and care nothing about logic.

Now, to the point.  Do some theological systems include contradictions?  I believe so.  They are almost always unrecognized and/or unadmitted.  Sometimes they have to be ferreted out by careful examination and argumentation.  When it can be shown conclusively that two elements of a system actually do contradict each other the system must change to accommodate that.  And I cannot embrace a system that contains unresolved and unresolvable logical contradictions.  (I may agree with parts of such a system, but I cannot swallow it whole.)

If even one logical contradiction can be identified at the heart of a theological system that is a fatal flaw for the system itself.  At that point the system must be radically revised or given up and replaced with a different system.

I have identified here and elsewhere what I believe to be a fatal flaw in SOME Calvinist systems of belief.  That is, insofar as a person believes that God foreordains and renders certain everything without exception FOR HIS GLORY and also believes that heresy (for example) diminishes or reduces God’s glory by robbing God of some of his glory he falls into contradiction.  Both beliefs cannot be held at the same time.  It is not a case of ordinary paradox–apparent contradiction.  It is a case of sheer, unresolved and probably unresolvable logical contradiction.  That is why, I believe, no Calvinist has ever risen to my challenge to explain it.

Every Calvinist that I know (and I don’t know them all) says that some beliefs (e.g., panentheism) detract from God’s glory and that is why we must oppose them with all our (persuasive) might.  They diminish and detract from God’s glory.  They dishonor God.  They rob him of glory.  Every Calvinist I know also says (usually elsewhere in his or her book or article or sermon or whatever) that God foreordains everything without exception FOR HIS GLORY.

Now some Calvinists might take the approach that panentheism (for example) does not really, ontically rob God of glory as that is impossible for any creature to do, but it diminishes recognition and acknowledgement of God’s glory in the minds of its believers.  But, so what?  God foreordained that also-for his glory.  That a panentheist is a panentheist was foreordained and rendered certain by God for his glory (according to the Calvinists I know). 

It also won’t work to say that God foreordained panentheism so that he could overcome it and by revealing it as false glorify himself.  Even then, the existence of panentheism, if determined by God to redound to his glory when he overcomes it, in the meantime glorifies God insofar as it is decided by God as the means to that end. 

For the life of me I cannot figure out why Calvinists of my acquaintance do not see this as a sheer logical contradiction and move to resolve it.  I have asked many about this issue and they have always just looked at me as if they never thought of it or they rely on some version of an answer I just mentioned above which are no answers at all.

All that is to say, one reason I am not a Calvinist is that to be one I would have to sacrifice my intellect IN THE STRONG SENSE of embrace sheer logical incoherence and unintelligibility.  NOT IN THE SENSE of embrace mystery with which I have no absolute problem.  I believe this is a fatal flaw in so-called “consistent Calvinism” (which, in light of this flaw, is really “inconsistent, consistent Calvinism!). 

Many contemporary Reformed theologians have moved away from decretal theology, divine determinism, and I think that has something to do with this issue.  Certainly it has also to do with another possibly fatal flaw in traditional Calvinism about which I’ll write more later.

I admit it.  I am a fallibilist–with regard to human beings (except when being infallibly inspired by God).  My definition of “theology” is human reflection on God’s infallible revelation.  (Or, in the case of philosophical theology–human reflection on God insofar as unaided reason is able to know something about God.)  In other words, I assume that all theologies (outside Scripture itself) are fallible because they are created by finite and fallen human beings.

Unless a person is quoting Scripture in the original language, he or she is humanly interpreting Scripture.  There is no such thing as a statement about the meaning of Scripture that is not human interpretation.  “It’s interpretation all the way down” applies to every theological system and doctrinal statement.

That is not to say all theologies are equal; surely some are better interpretations than others.  Some are simply incoherent and others (or the same ones) have little or nothing to do with the actual import of a passage.  Still, even the best theological systems are someone’s interpretation of Scripture (and possibly of human experience of God) and not God’s Word.  And yet, especially conservative evangelicals have a tendency to forget this and treat some system or tradition as functionally infallible and thus equal in authority with Scripture itself.

I am often puzzled by this habit of the evangelical mind: Two declarations about Scripture and doctrine–1) all doctrinal statements are true and authoritative only insofar as they faithfully reflect Scripture’s meaning (sola or prima scriptura) and 2) some humanly devised statement of faith or theological system (e.g., Hodge’s systematic theology) is beyond questioning.

Some years ago a leading conservative evangelical college president declared in writing that if a faculty member has mental reservations about any part of the college’s statement of faith he or she should resign.  Yet, during that president’s own tenure at that college someone found a serious flaw in the college’s statement of faith and the president and board of regents revised it.  To the best of my knowledge, that college president never learned a lesson from that or at least didn’t allow that incident to affect his conviction that any faculty member who hold mental reservations about the statement of faith should resign.

I hope you see the contradiction there.  IF one holds to sola or prima scriptura (the Scripture principle) and believes only Scripture is infallible and at the same time treats a statement of faith or creed as incorrigible there is a contradiction.  I was taught at an evangelical seminary that all creeds and confessions of faith are secondary in authority to Scripture itself and open to revision whenever they can be shown to be inconsistent with Scripture.  Very seldom have I witnessed a conservative evangelical organization actually practicing that Protestant principle.  Instead, they tend to elevate doctrinal statements and systems of theology to a level functionally equivalent with Scripture itself.  (Admittedly conservatives ADD TO their statements of faith but that is not what I’m talking about here.  I’m talking about correcting them.)

My question is why can’t we all (evangelicals) just admit that our systems of theology and statements of faith are fallible and keep examining them for possible errors and revising them in light of fresh and faithful interpretation of Scripture?  That means creating some method by which a sincere Christian faculty member (for example) can question some part of the statement of faith–from Scripture–without fear of being fired.  The same would hold true for denominations and churches and all Christian organizations.

Now, applying that to our Calvinist/Arminian debate.  As a classical Arminian I freely admit that my theological system is human (not a “transcript of the gospel” as Spurgeon famously described Calvinism) and therefore fallible and probably flawed.  But I have never yet encountered a theological system that did not have unresolved and possibly unresolvable problems.  In my opinion, anyone who claims to have such a system is coming close to idolatry.

Part of intelligently deciding which of many competing theological systems to believe is deciding which problems you can live with and which you can’t live with.  Take for example Calvinism and Arminianism.  In my opinion (and also in the opinion of a leading Calvinist theologian I know) BOTH systems can build strong cases from Scripture.  BOTH have problems (which is to be expected as they are both humanly devised).  The question is WHICH ONE’S problems can I live with?  For me the answer is simple.

What would happen, though, if both sides of this evangelical debate openly admitted that their systems are fallible interpretations of Scripture and not “transcripts of the gospel” (which is the same as to say equal with Scripture in authority) and that adherents of the other system are not wrong-headed or insincere or stupid or whatever but people sincerely seeking to trace out the meaning of Scripture where it is not as clear as we would like it to be?

I think there are adherents of both theologies who show such humility, but the problem is there are adherents of both who don’t show such humility and argue their system’s superiority AS IF it were the case that anyone who disagrees with it is simply not honoring Scripture.  Swiss theologian Emil Brunner called that “theologismus”–confusing theology with God’s Word itself.

What would happen is humility and peace and brotherly cooperation and reconciliation would break out all over the place!  Why don’t we do it?  Because we have so much personally invested in our theological systems?  Because we have made idols out of them?  I think the answer is some of both.

Am I advocating an indifference toward doctrine and theology?  Not at all.  I can advocate my beliefs and argue against others’ without implying that mine is tantamount to God’s Word while theirs is stupid or heretical.  (It isn’t often said quite that bluntly, but one gets the message when a leading Calvinist says that non-Calvinists are not “honoring God’s Word.”) 

Let me step out and dare to name a problem with Arminian theology and then challenge a committed Calvinist to do the same.  One thing I wrestle with about Arminianism is the mystery of free will.  I don’t know how it works.  There does seem to be an element of uncaused effect in it.  (I don’t think that’s a contradiction, but it is a mystery.)  And I’m not sure how God foreknows with absolute certainty libertarianly free decisions that haven’t been made yet.  That does seem to be a mystery and therefore a problem insofar as I would very much like to have an answer for it but don’t.  These elements of classical Arminianism cause me some cognitive dissonance.  I can live with that–at least more easily than the problems I see in competing theologies.

Do I have any classical Calvinist takers?

I get asked this all the time.  Especially students, but also strangers, ask me “What do you think of emergent churches?”  (Here I will use “emergent” and “emerging” interchangeably even though some are trying to distinguish between them.)

I can’t claim expertise.  Others have studied the phenomenon much more thoroughly than I have.  But I have attended several well-known emergent churches and I am either acquainted with or count as good friends some of the movement’s leading spokesmen.

Some years ago Pastor Kyle Lake of Waco’s University Baptist Church (where David Crowder is the music minister) sought me out and we became friends.  We had lunch together about once a month from the time I arrived here until his tragic death.  We talked a lot about emerging churches and the movement.  Through him I came to know many others involved in the movement.

I led a retreat for emerging church planters, attended conferences where most of the speakers and attendees were somehow affiliated with the emerging church movement, had lunches and dinners with leaders of the movement, read books by emerging church leaders and about the emergent church movement. 

What I have been searching for is something all the self-identified emergent churches have in common.  But just when I think I’ve identified one, an exception pops up! 

There are some generally true, superficial similarities (family resemblances): mostly young leaders and attenders (20-something to early thirties), no creed or statement of faith that everyone has to affirm, belief and practice of the “belong, believe, behave” philosophy of community, experimentation with worship styles (especially interest in ancient forms of worship), eclecticism, candles and art (almost anything except Solomon’s head of Christ picture!), contemporary Christian music (more performed by a leader or worship band than sung by the congregation), and a vague, generalized dissatisfaction with traditional churches.

In some ways the movement reminds of the Jesus People movement of the early 1970s (of which I was sort of a part).  But there are differences, as well.  Most emerging churches tend to be a little more cerebral than the Jesus People movement which also tended to be more fundamentalist in its theology.

Below the surface is where I want to go.  What’s “down there”–on the deeper level of motivation and driving concern?  The one thing that stands out to me as underlying almost everything about emerging churches is a passion for authenticity.  It seems to me that most of the emergent church leaders and followers are convinced that most traditional churches (at least that they are familiar with) go through motions but don’t know why–except “that’s the way we’ve always done things.”  Emergent church people are turned off by anything they consider inauthentic.  I know some of them would rather than an authentic atheism than an inauthentic Christianity.  (Kind of like the old Pietist saying “Better a live heresy than a dead orthodoxy.)

So what do they consider inauthentic Christianity?  Any form of Christianity, church life, that is just going through the motions because it’s respectable or traditional or they fear change.  I respect their concern for authenticity.

One hesitation I have is that many emerging churches seem somewhat adrift doctrinally.  I’m not a dogmatician or creedalist, but I would like to see a greater emphasis on Bible study and doctrine in some of the emerging churches I’ve encountered.  I’d also like to see more emphasis on transformative spiritual experiences (conversion, Spirit baptism, renewal through rededication, etc.).  And I worry that some emergent churches tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater in their search for authenticity.  Just because something is done inauthentically doesn’t mean it is itself inauthentic.  (For example, hymn singing.)

Overall, however, I applaud the emerging churches and their leaders (with a few exceptions I don’t care to mention by name).  And I am turned off by the ridicule heaped on them by some self-appointed spokesmen for evangelicalism.  (Go to youtube.com to see them.) 

So what is the future of emerging churches?  Like everything else, the movement will probably tend to go mainstream as the leaders and leading followers age and have families, etc.  I hope and pray they retain their passion for authenticity.  And I suspect someday their grown children will think their songs and worship styles, etc., are kind of “old school.”  It’s inevitable.  Alexander Pope said “We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow.  Our wiser sons no doubt will think us so.”

This past Saturday evening my wife and I attended an all community hymn sing.  (I mentioned this in an earlier post.)  One part of it was especially striking.  On stage together were Kurt Kaiser (of my generation) and David Crowder.  What a contrast!  Yet, Kaiser was one of the founders of “contemporary Christian music.”  I think a lot of his work has enduring value.  Suddenly this thought struck me: Someday the middle aged children of Crowder’s fans will come to see him perform with their parents and say “Oh, he’s so old school.”  Just an observation; not a value judgment.  But it’s something to keep in mind lest anyone think the music or worship styles of their own generation are the pinnacle, the apex that will last forever.

I have to give them credit.  Reformed theologians are prolific when it comes to writing about their own tradition.  I have in my library (and have read) several excellent volumes expounding the Reformed theological tradition.  (E.g., Introducing the Reformed Faith by Donald K. McKim, The Westminster Handbook to Reformed Theology edited by McKim, The Basic Ideas of Calvinism (really a book about Reformed theology in general) by H. Henry Meeter, What Is Reformed Theology? by R. C. Sproul. 

The newest addition to my library is Reformed Theology by R. Michael Allen (Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Knox Theological Seminary at Fort Lauderdale, FL [which I think, if I'm not mistaken, was founded by the ministry of the late D. James Kennedy].)  Allen’s volume is, in my judgment, the best of the lot. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in knowing about and understanding one particular strain or flavor of Reformed theology.  (In my opinion, each of the above mentioned books describes Reformed theology from a particular angle.  I don’t know of any one book that provides a “God’s eye view” of Reformed theology although McKim’s Handbook contains articles by various authors covering most of the diverse territory of Reformed thought.)

Allen’s volume is concise but thorough and and, with regard to what he considers alternative views, pointed but fair.  With one major exception.  (My full review of Allen’s book will appear sometime next year in a British evangelical theological journal.)  That one exception is the pietist-revivalist tradition which he lumps together with liberal Protestantism as emphasizing religious experience to the detriment of doctrine.  He is surely over-reaching when he declares that in both liberalism and revivalism “there is no positive account of what Christ brings.” (p. 93)

Having grown up in a revivalistic tradition (and being part of another one yet) I find Allen’s judgment simply false.  Sure, like every religious tradition (including Allen’s own) revivalism has had its excesses and even its lunatic fringe.  (How would he like it if someone treated the entire Reformed tradition as equal with hyper-Calvinism or even supralapsarianism?) 

It’s one thing to critique another tradition.  Allen would be well within his rights to say that there is real difference between (his version of) the Reformed tradition and revivalism.  (Although I have certainly known of revivalist Reformed people!  The Christian Reformed pastor who officiated at my aunt’s funeral gave a passionate altar call!)  But to claim that among revivalist Christians “there is no positive account of what Christ brings” is offensive and patently false.  He attempts to justify this claim by saying (immediately afterwards) that liberal and revivalist notions of Christian salvation deny the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and replace it with “an affirmation of the worth of the believer’s own imperfect, yet persevering faith.” (p. 93)

Again, having grown up in the thick of revivalism I have to object to this claim most strenuously.  To be sure, some revivalists may be guilty of this inflation of subjective faith, but the tradition as a whole is not.  I would like to ask Allen if he thinks Billy Graham is guilty of this?  Does Graham preach that Christ’s righteousness is not imputed to us on account of faith?  I don’t think so. 

Interestingly, Allen does not quote from a single theologian of the pietist or revivalist tradition to justify his claim.  He mentions Schleiermacher and Finney but quotes conservative Reformed authors as his authorities. 

In recent years there has been a tendency among conservative Reformed theologians in America to blame everything pernicious in American religious life on revivalism and especially the Second Great Awakening and especially Finney.  While I disagree with Finney on some important points of theology, do these Reformed thinkers deny that Finney did anything good at all?  I despise some aspects of Jonathan Edwards’ theology, but I confess him to be a great Christian thinker and preacher and attribute much good in American Christian life to his legacy.

Finney once wrote of Edwards “The man I adore; his errors I deplore.”  I might say the same of Finney.  But to tar the entire revivalist tradition with the same brush and link it all to Schleiermacher’s subjectivism and Finney’s semi-Pelagianism is, in my opinion, to ignore the great contribution of revivalism to the vitality of American religious life.

Earlier I said that Allen expounds a particular strain of Reformed theology.  His magisterium, so to speak, is Reformed confessions of faith–especially ones from the 16th and early 17th centuries.  But today “Reformed” designates a wide swath of world Protestant Christianity.  This year (2010) two world wide Reformed ecumencial bodies merged to form the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC).  It includes as a full charter member the Remonstrant Brotherhood of Holland–the denomination that traces its roots back to Arminius and the Remonstrants.  It seems that Allen does not want to acknowledge this “big tent” approach to defining Reformed theology even though he does occasionally quote from Karl Barth and other modern Reformed thinkers with whom he probably disagrees about many things.  (He quotes approvingly Serene Jones, the feminist president of Union Theological Seminary in NYC!) 

Overall, in spite of the flawed treatment of revivalism and its tendency to limit “Reformed” to a particular swath of the Reformed faith today, Allen’s book is better than most others and I highly recommend a critical reading of it.

I see two opposite and equally dangerous trends pulling evangelicals apart and thereby weakening our witness to the world.  One is, for lack of better terms, particularistic tribalism and the other is generic, plain label Christianity.  Please allow me to explain.

I value Christian particularity.  That is, I want Baptists to be Baptist, Pentecostals to be Pentecostal, Wesleyans to be Wesleyan, Presbyterians to be Presbyterian, etc.  While it would be ideal for us all to get together and have one big, nice denomination, that’s not likely given human nature or the nature of a free society.  Our theological and liturgical differences are likely to remain until Christ returns.  (Then, I suspect, in the millennium, there will be only one Christian variety!)  And I think we need many different voices singing different theological parts to balance and correct each other and to give the evangelical community a harmonious witness that covers all the major motifs of the gospel.

I view evangelicalism as like a choir.  Presbyterian Calvinists are the bass part, Pentecostals and charismatics are the soprano part, Baptists and Free churches are the baritone part, Wesleyans are the alto part, etc.  I see Billy Graham as the choir director who strove to make all the parts sing in harmony without silencing any of them.  For a while (e.g., during my youth in organizations like Youth for Christ and the National Association of Evangelicals) it seemed to work.  Evangelical Christians of many different denominations and theological orientations came together in cooperation and declined to drown each other out by, for example, proselytizing each other.  There were enough unreached and unchurched people for all of us. 

For example, I recall one Billy Graham associate evangelist who came to our city when I was in seminary.  I was assigned by the church where I served to be its liaison with the advance team.  The local committee was made up of evangelicals from many different denominations.  There was also an evangelical ministrial fellowship that reflected the whole spectrum of evangelical churches.  (Only liberals and fundamentalists refused to be part of it.)  After the Billy Graham evangelistic crusade (led by an associate evangelist) closed the committee members got together and simply divided up the “inquirer cards” submitted by people at the evening services.  There was no attempt by any church or tradition to dominate everything or steal sheep.

And yet, the evangelical churches knew who they were and valued and preserved their distinct and particular theological and liturgical identities.  The Wesleyans preached entire sanctification.  The Pentecostals preached the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the initial, physical evidence of speaking in tongues.  The Baptists preached conversion and believer baptism and (usually) eternal security.  The evangelical Presbyterians and Reformed preached unconditional election and irresistible grace.  But these distinctives did not hinder broad and deep cooperation in all kinds of endeavors such as the local Union Gospel Mission, annual evangelistic crusades led by various evangelists, Thanksgiving and Easter services sponsored by the evangelical ministerium, etc. 

During the past two decades I’ve noticed that unity-in-diversity breaking down among evangelicals.  Some (many?) evangelical churches are sacrificing their heritage’s distinctives in favor of what I call “generic Christianity.”  Here’s how that looks.  If you blindfolded me and took me to four different churches of different evangelical traditions on four Sundays I might have trouble discerning which is which based on what I hear.  If you took the blindfold off I might see something like the denomination’s initials printed in tiny letters beneath the church’s otherwise bland and generic name (e.g., Grace Family Fellowship).  But chances are, the theology, preaching and worship would be the same in all four churches in spite of the fact that they belong to four very different traditions.  (E.g., one might be Nazarene, another one Assembly of God, another one Baptist and another one Presbyterian.)  I have attended Lutheran churches that were exactly like Pentecostal churches!

The other force is opposite–tribalistic particularism.  Some evangelical denominations, churches and leaders have reacted to the genericizing of Christianity digging deeply into their own wells of theology and worship and have begun to imply, if not just outrightly say, that they are the only “real” evangelicals or that their flavor of evangelicalism is so much better that it justifies them trying to steal sheep from other evangelical churches.

I see this happening especially on evangelical campuses.  Various evangelical student groups, led by workers paid by denominations, sometimes compete with each other for followers by putting down other evangelical groups and their traditions as somehow defective.  I see this tribalistic particularism in books written about evangelical traditions by theologians.  The “text behind the text” says “My version of this tradition is the only right one; all others are ‘revisionist’.”  A plethora of books published in recent years more than imply this.

For example, right now I’m reading (to review) a new book on Reformed theology published by a major theological publisher.  The author teaches at a very conservative Presbyterian-related seminary.  It seems to me the author, like others I know, wants to narrow down the identity of “Reformed” to one particular strain of that broad tradition.  Many denominations of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (recently merged with another group) would not make the cut (of being truly “Reformed”) if this author’s description became the norm.  Other Reformed theologians have written and told me that ONLY monergists are truly evangelical so that Arminians are not authentically evangelical.  (One Reformed theologian who has said this publicly also told me that Presbyterians aren’t truly Reformed!)

Call that the Balkanization of evangelicalism.  I call it tribalism–taking historical and traditional particularity to an extreme–beyond pride in it to exclusivity about it.

Both opposite forces are wrong, in my opinion.  Evangelical churches should rediscover their particular traditions and hold them up proudly as who they are and let them permeate their preaching and teaching and worshiping without building walls around themselves that keep them from encountering and learning from and even enjoying the particularities of other evangelical churches and denominations.

Last evening my wife and I attended a city-wide (really county-wide) “hymn sing.”  There must have been three thousand people there.  Many churches came together with their choirs and there were several notable recording artists present to lead singing and offer special performances.  It was wonderful.  But it was all Baptist.  I’m glad the many Baptist churches in our county (about 150 of them!) can come together in that way, but wouldn’t it be better if all the evangelicals could come together like that?