{"id":6901,"date":"2017-03-23T09:15:46","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T15:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/?p=6901"},"modified":"2017-03-23T09:15:46","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T15:15:46","slug":"exactly-toxic-effect-tim-kellers-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/2017\/03\/exactly-toxic-effect-tim-kellers-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"What Exactly Is the “Toxic” Effect of Tim Keller’s Theology?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"princeton<\/a>Many have heard the news that Princeton Seminary offered, then un-offered, Tim Keller the\u00a0Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Witness. I wrote up a short piece entitled \u201cIn Praise of Tim Keller: On Princeton\u2019s Decision\u201d<\/a> for the Center for Public Theology. In that piece, I quote from a RNS story<\/a> that cited these words of\u00a0Carol Howard Merritt on\u00a0Keller and his theology:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn these difficult days, when our president says that women\u2019s genitalia is up for grabs by any man with power and influence, I hoped that my denomination would stand up for women, loud and clear \u2026\u00a0<\/em>Instead we are honoring and celebrating a man who has championed toxic theology for decades.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve already made a brief case for why Keller does in fact deserve the Kuyper Prize, so I won\u2019t do that here. You can read more of my response to Merritt<\/a>\u00a0if you like. Let\u2019s think about this carefully: what exactly is the effect of Keller\u2019s \u201ctoxic theology\u201d?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a quick snapshot of some of the fruit of Keller\u2019s\u00a0ministry:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013He planted Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and has seen it grow by divine aid to a membership of around 1,750 people, with around 5,000 total people attending\u00a0each week.<\/p>\n

\u2013He has written a number of best-selling books, including\u00a0The Reason for God\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Prodigal God<\/em>, and has sold over 1 million copies of his texts.<\/p>\n

\u2013He has launched a church-planting movement in global cities called City to City, which has helped start over 380 churches in 54 cities.<\/p>\n

\u2013Keller is part of the Presbyterian Church in America, which began as just\u00a0a handful of folks and now includes over 370,000 members<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2013He started The Gospel Coalition with D. A. Carson, a ministry that now reaches many millions of people per year, and is now as established a website as traditional outlets like\u00a0Christianity Today<\/em> and the\u00a0Christian Century<\/em>. All this in just over half a decade. TGC\u2019s conferences draw between 5000-8000 people, generally.<\/p>\n

Here, by contrast, is what is happening in the PCUSA\u00a0and Princeton Seminary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013The PCUSA lost over 95,000 members in 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2013In 2005, the PCUSA\u2019s overall membership was over 2.3 million. In 2015, overall membership was 1.57 million.<\/p>\n

\u2013The last year of growth<\/a> for the PCUSA as a denomination was 1965.<\/p>\n

\u2013Princeton seminary\u2019s enrollment declined<\/a>, overall, from 660 in 2007-08 to 514 in 2012-13.<\/p>\n

I do not personally wish ill upon the PCUSA and Princeton Seminary. In fact, with many others I grieve these statistics. I take no joy in them. I wish that the days of \u201cOld Princeton\u201d and a theologically flourishing PCUSA were upon us. But the trend of each is toward further decline and possible obsolescence. One can hope that genuine born-again believers in these places will carry the day, unexpected and difficult as that would be. We pray for our brothers and sisters who love Christ within these works.<\/p>\n

For years, we heard that we needed to liberalize the faith to save it. Conservative doctrine was thought, to quote Carol Merritt once more, to be \u201ctoxic theology.\u201d Best to downplay it, soften it, and jettison it. But the strangest thing has happened over the years. God has brought health and strength to Bible-loving, gospel-preaching denominations and institutions. You could say it this way: while no one is assured of statistical growth, the surest path toward that end is to preach sound doctrine. The hot \u201cnew\u201d church growth method: preach the Bible, and evangelize the lost<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have seen this firsthand. I trained and taught at Southern Seminary, which grew like Jack\u2019s bean stalk under the conservative leadership of R. Albert Mohler, Jr. Southern is now one of the largest seminaries in history. I now teach systematic theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City. In a little over three years, student enrollment has gone from roughly 1000 to 3000. The student body has tripled. All this has occurred under the leadership of one of the youngest and most conservative institutional presidents in higher education, Jason Allen<\/a>. On not one but two SBC campuses, we\u2019ve dealt as an organization not with managing decline, but with trying to accommodate more students than our facilities can handle. At MBTS right now, we\u2019re having to move classes, because we\u2019re literally outgrowing our classrooms. By the grace of God, we have too many students!<\/p>\n

Do not miss this: complementarian institutions teaching rock-ribbed theology are not struggling to draw students. Complementarian churches\u00a0teaching biblical sexual ethics are growing like gangbusters. Complementarian theology, and a biblical approach to homosexuality, does not kill churches and schools. It brings them to life. <\/strong>It draws people who love the wisdom of God over the opinions of the world. We do not need to soften our doctrine, friends. We need to hold it, promote it, and celebrate it, for it is the truth of God. It is right, it is holy, and it is good for us.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

All this could change, of course. Princeton Seminary was once the key conservative institution of its day. In the 19th century, it drew large numbers\u2013then, that meant 200 students in a big year (see Paul Gutjahr\u2019s excellent biography of Charles Hodge for Oxford University Press<\/a> for the\u00a0stats). Today, Hodge would struggle to\u00a0land a teaching spot at the institution he helped make great. So with Warfield; so with Machen; so with a long line of faithful men. How sad this is. Kuyper, as some pointed out, couldn\u2019t give his famous \u201cevery square inch\u201d lectures that he delivered in 1898, perhaps the most famous seminary lectures in history.<\/p>\n

The theology these men held would be labeled \u201ctoxic\u201d today. But it was not. It was life-giving. Here is the glorious truth, though: sound doctrine has not lost its luster (2 tim. 4:3). If we preach it, if we evangelize people based off of it, God will reap his harvest. He may be pleased to give spectacular growth, as he has in the ministry of Tim Keller, and as he is at conservative schools like Midwestern Seminary today. We do not know what he will do.<\/p>\n

We do know this: if anything is toxic, it is that which draws the light out of a denomination, out of a seminary, out of churches\u00a0that once brimmed with love for the gospel.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many have heard the news that Princeton Seminary offered, then un-offered, Tim Keller the\u00a0Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Witness. I wrote up a short piece entitled \u201cIn Praise of Tim Keller: On Princeton\u2019s Decision\u201d for the Center for Public Theology. In that piece, I quote from a RNS story that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3753,13045,583,13422,3248,1418,1618,3853,13423,13421,13425,13424,13293],"class_list":["post-6901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abraham-kuyper","tag-al-mohler","tag-bb-warfield","tag-carol-howard-merritt","tag-charles-hodge","tag-gospel-coalition","tag-j-gresham-machen","tag-jason-allen","tag-kuyper-prize","tag-princeton-seminary","tag-prodigal-god","tag-reason-for-god","tag-tim-keller"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Exactly Is the "Toxic" Effect of Tim Keller's Theology?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many have heard the news that Princeton Seminary offered, then un-offered, Tim Keller the\u00a0Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and\" 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