As I stated in last week\u2019s post, I think the singularly-most significant question facing the emerging generation of Christians is world religions and the \u201csalvation\u201d of those who have never heard the gospel. Terry Tiessen\u2019s study, Who Can Be Saved?<\/em>, is the book we are using to conduct this conversation. Chp 3 is about \u201caccessibilism.\u201d Let me define it, for I suspect that it is the instinctual view of the emerging generation and it might surprise many to learn how many have believed this. As I stated in last week\u2019s post, I think the singularly-most significant question facing the emerging generation of Christians is world religions and the \u201csalvation\u201d of those who have never heard the gospel. Terry Tiessen\u2019s study, Who Can Be Saved?, is the book we are using to conduct this conversation. Chp 3 is about \u201caccessibilism.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[476,1736],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-emerging-movement"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nI think the glaring question is this: Is it consistent with the grace of the God of the Bible to think one must hear the gospel in order to respond? Or, is it more consisent to think God\u2019s grace would somehow reach each person? Here\u2019s a big one: How does one\u2019s view here impact one\u2019s understanding both of evangelism and missions? Is there a softening going on among evangelicals or is there a more consistent understanding of God\u2019s redemptive work in the world?
\nAccessibilism believes that God\u2019s redemptive work includes some who do not know and who have not heard about Jesus Christ, but that the religions of the world are not designed by God as \u201cinstruments\u201d of redemption.
\nNow, Tiessen will argue this viewpoint, and he\u2019ll do so as a Calvinist (which viewpoint is not common for Calvinists), and so he sorts out a summary of who has believed this view in the history of the Church: Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and probably Irenaeus. He shows that the conservative side of Catholicism embraces this view. Luther seemed to lean this way (Calvin didn\u2019); Zwingli did. Then he shows accessibilist strains in the Second Helvetic Confession, in the Westminster Confession (1647), and in the Church of Scotland\u2019s Declaratory Act (1879).
\nThis view is found in Richard Baxter, and Gerald McDermott thinks there are inklings of such in Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley affirms it, as did Lesslie Newbigin and Norman Anderson. So does Alister McGrath.
\nThe view is more prominent among Arminians \u2014 synergists who think Christ died for all and that, through prevenient grace, all have been forgiven of original sin and are somehow spoken to by God during this life.
\nConclusions: There is no consensus among Evangelicals and this lack of consensus does not lead against evangelism and missionary work.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"