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Baptist Popery
Oxymoron
Baptist popery should be an oxymoron. I’ve heard the two terms (Baptist and Pope) put together like this, but the two together are meant as an oxymoron. Even though it is an oxymoron, does it really happen, that is, Baptist popery? Because I’ve seen it, I believe it does.
Why is “Baptist popery” an oxymoron? The attributes of Baptists so contradict characteristics of Roman Catholics that the two seem surely mutually exclusive. Baptist and pope just can’t coexist.
Contradictions
Baptists believe the Bible is sole infallible authority — not Roman Catholics. They believe in the priesthood of the believer — not Roman Catholics. They believe in the autonomy of each church — not Roman Catholics. Baptists believe that baptism and the Lord’s Table are the only two church ordinances — not Roman Catholics. They also believe in only two church offices, pastor and deacons — not Roman Catholics. And finally, Baptists believe in the separation of church and state — not Roman Catholics.
All of the contradictions of the last paragraph say no Baptist popery. Baptists don’t believe in popes. They don’t believe in apostolic succession. The true church isn’t catholic, but it’s local. So is there really Baptist popery? Baptists don’t believe in hierarchical church government. They believe in a congregational form of church government, where a pastor himself is under the authority of the church (1 Timothy 5:19-20). No Baptist speaks ex cathedra — no new revelation of scripture since the close of Revelation (Jude 1:3).
Wannabe Popes
The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church says:
The Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.
This is more than any Baptist pope could exert. Yet, how would a Baptist pope operate if he were at least like a Baptist pope, albeit not exactly one — maybe a wannabe pope? I believe several examples exist of this type of practice among those who call themselves Baptist. Baptist pastors or churches exert control on the outside over other churches like the pope or the church of Rome. Not necessarily in this order, here’s what’s toward Baptist popery, if not the actual thing. It tends toward, has a trajectory toward popery.
Conventions, Associations, or Fellowships
One, the most obvious form of control over churches comes in denominational groups, conventions, associations, or fellowships. They aren’t mentioned in the Bible, but they’re justified through silence. Scripture is sufficient and God doesn’t need someone to improve His program. One of our church members called this “teeing up a one world church,” using a golf analogy. True success is very often seen in the climb up a denominational ladder. One Southern Baptist pastor wrote this:
Today’s Southern Baptist Convention has a problem with power. Local churches—which may still exist in name—in fact are being overtaken (a better word might be “consumed”) by the dominating leadership and financial appetite of the larger denomination.
He continued:
Our crisis has its roots in a wide variety of decisions and trends [that] have a special impact on the loss of local church autonomy . . . used as . . . instrument(s) of control.
Kevin Bauder talks about a few of the ways denominational association tends toward popery (without using the word). About a few of these, he writes:
It is also not unusual for the association to end up controlling the churches. Any time an individual or agency serves as a gatekeeper for pulpit placement, that person or institution gains immense de facto power over churches. . . . An association provides a power structure that unscrupulous individuals can use to promote themselves. It also furnishes a mechanism that these people can employ to exert pressure upon the churches. These political maneuvers may lead to informal but, nevertheless, real interference with the autonomy of local congregations.
Fitting into the convention or association requires finding a lowest common denominator to remain unified. If God wanted the bigger organization or institution, He would have instituted it. He didn’t. They invented themselves. The heads of these organizations do bring in quasi-popery at least.
Parachurch Organizations
Quid Pro Quo
Two, Baptists in most cases today accept the existence, propagation, and power of parachurch organizations. This would include Baptist publishers, mission boards, colleges, universities, and seminaries, Christian school associations, and camps. When I was in fundamentalism, the parachurch organization was the pinnacle or summit of Christian acclaim. One of these trades on exchanges of favor, a kind of quid pro quo. If the pastor or church supports it, it promotes the pastor or church. Parachurch organizations create celebrity pastors.
Like the denominational associations or conventions, parachurch organizations are not in the Bible. Jesus didn’t give them the necessary tools to accomplish His ends. As a result, they will surely fail at doing what Jesus wants. The programs of the parachurch organization try to be and stay large to fulfill purpose and meet payroll. The truth is not usually a factor. Also like the denominational structure, to keep their relevance, they must settle on a lower common denominator to keep their coalition together. Also they compromise to stay relevant.
Hurting Churches
Publishers mostly don’t think about what needs publishing, but what will make enough money to fund the publisher. Mission boards must work with all sorts of different churches with different beliefs and practices. When a missionary claims that board, he most often associates himself with a larger variety of belief and practice than his church. This comes back to effect the churches, which in turn weakens the board, and continues a downward slide, feeding off each other. Everyone of the above parachurch organizations will have similar problems. One man criticizing the parachurch organization wrote:
Thus, I find it very disturbing when church leaders start to be known more as leaders of a particular parachurch group than as leaders in their churches. This serves to create a confusing image in the mind of the Christian public, whereby the boundary between church and parachurch is eroded, or, worse still, the parachurch is regarded as the place where the real action and excitement take place. This in turn consigns the church to an apparently less important role, and serves to relegate to the level of secondary or even tertiary importance the doctrinal elaboration and distinctives for which individual churches . . . stand. The Christian public comes to regard these ecclesial distinctives as hindrances.
Baptist popes come out of these parachurch organizations, because of their ability to influence and control churches. They get money from a lot of different sources that enable them to have a more widespread influence that corrupts churches.
Some might say parachurch organizations help churches. They exist to aid the churches. Scripture doesn’t support this. Some short term gain can occur, but over the long term the parachurch organization is a loss to churches. It’s detrimental overall even if it can point to individual successes.
More to Come
Normal Now Extreme and Dangerous
Extremism
In the first year of living back in Indiana, my wife and I tried fried chicken at two regional, renowned restaurants. When I say that, get in your mind very homey places like Wagner’s Village Diner in the small town of Oldenburg. It won the James Beard award in 2023 for its chicken. Why do these restaurants do better than others? They are extremists, compared to others. Each goes to far reaches to prepare the best chicken.
In reading through the Bible again, today I read in 2 Chronicles, where my schedule has me. In 2 Chronicles, Solomon builds the temple and at the dedication he offered God 22,000 oxen and 20,000 sheep. I was thinking, “That’s extreme. . . . in a very good way.”
Where I left off in my Bible reading today in 2 Chronicles 15, it says in verses 15-16:
15 And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them: and the LORD gave them rest round about. 16 And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.
Today most people would call that extreme. Yet, it’s what God wanted — what should be normal behavior, but isn’t.
Extremism, a Pejorative
What is extremism anyways? Like when someone such as Mark Ward calls a godly individual an extremist and dangerous? Extreme compared to what?
In general, when someone calls someone extreme, he means it as a pejorative, a personal shot, probably implying some craziness to the person. However, Christianity has so declined, what was once normal is now extreme. Regular preaching of the gospel in our community, I’ve found, is extreme where I live in the Bible belt. For sure, it was extreme in California.
I attended public elementary school. My fifth grade teacher had a paddle hanging from his wall. He regularly swatted students for bad behavior. Now no public schools do that. Our Christian school was the last one to use corporeal punishment in California, a state of almost 40 million people. It’s considered extreme.
A “Balanced Approach”
One of Mark Ward’s favorites, Mark Minnick, preaches that ladies must wear head coverings in church. In 2015, he did an eight part series on it and is a favorite in “the head covering movement.” Is that practice extreme? Really, what Ward expects for non-extremism is something he wrote in support of fundamentalism in the MarchApril2017 of the FBFI magazine:
I am not willing to say that all Christians who listen to contemporary styles of Christian music are living in active, conscious rebellion against God. I do not believe that every Christian whose church has a praise band, a drum set, and tattooed worship leaders that I must abandon to Satan a la 1 Corinthians 5.
1 Corinthians 5, I agree, isn’t the best passage to use for separation over false worship, that is, offering the thrice holy God fleshly and worldly music as worship. He could use 2 Thessalonians 3, 1 Timothy 6:3-6, or 2 Timothy 2:20-22, because among other places that church violates Romans 12:1-2, 1 Peter 2:5, and 1 John 2:15-17 among other places. I know though. What I now believe and practice, men like Ward call an extreme form of separation. Expect more rock bands in church with the association of Mark Ward and others. It’s too extreme now to stand up against that like his alma mater once did. Now they take, what their newest president calls, a “balanced approach.”
Anyone who isn’t “balanced” is now extreme. Balanced means that you look at the “extremes” and find the sweet spot in the middle. The Bible doesn’t teach that. Interestingly, it’s only one extreme that gets most of the attention even from evangelicals such as Ward, who slides further from even a former fundamentalist mooring.
Jesus the Extremist and Danger to Religious Society
Jesus, while on earth, told people these things:
Matthew 5:19, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Luke 14:26, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
Matthew 22:37, “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
Mark 9:42, “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.”
So much of the Bible is extreme compared to what people teach or say today. Jesus was considered an extremist by the religious people of his day.
When someone is dangerous, I believe Mark Ward means that he’s leading someone astray from the truth into something harmful. Nothing is more harmful for someone than eternal damnation. Thomas Ross mentioned how that Ward works for Logos Bible Software as a “ministry.” Logos publishes “Roman Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, theologically modernist, and other damnable heresy.”
Ross is exactly right. Apparently Ward sees those groups as part of “the church” that Logos equips to grow (his words). They get silence, while those propagating and protecting faith in the perfect preservation of scripture receive reproach. This manifests the priority of keeping together ungodly coalitions instead of the truth. To use KJV terminology, making money off a false gospel is “greedy of filthy lucre.”
The Divine Expectation
Jesus in His culture was an extremist and dangerous. He was dangerous to the religious leaders. He threatened their popularity with the people and brought potential wrath of the Roman Empire. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus provided the Divine expectation of every “jot and tittle” of His Word. The Pharisees diminished the Divine standard so they could attempt to keep it on their own. Jesus illustrated the paucity of the Pharisaical approach in Matthew 5 and 6. It wasn’t just the keeping of God’s Word, but also the internal attitude and motive. You could murder someone by hating him in the heart and treating him with contempt.
I’m sure Ward would agree with the above verses from Jesus: their practice in real life though, extreme and dangerous. This is not believing what Jesus and the Apostles said. The author of Hebrews writes in 13:13: “Let us go forth therefore unto him [the Lord Jesus] without the camp, bearing his reproach.” I invite others to go forth unto Jesus without the camp and bear the reproach of “extremism” and “dangerous.” Return to normal and stand against the decline of true, biblical Christianity. While those reproaching double down on their reproach, remain steadfast in God’s will for the cause of Christ.
Grace Yields a Higher Standard Than Pharisees
The following recent articles and in this chronological order relate to this post. One Two Three Four Five
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The Pharisees
“The Pharisees” are those historical and biblical characters with whom Jesus interacted in the Gospels. Pharisees are those taking up the mantel of “the Pharisees” since then. The Pharisees inundated the Israel into which Jesus came.
I like to say, “The inside of a barrel looks like the barrel.” If you live inside the barrel, your whole world looks like the barrel. The Pharisees so saturated the thinking of Israel during the life of Jesus that Israel looked like the Pharisees. The world of the audience to whom Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount also looked like or literally was the Pharisees.
The most common viewpoint of the Pharisees is that they added a whole bunch of strict standards to the preexisting rules of scripture. This popular notion says the Pharisees multiplied an immense number of added regulations that burdened down the Israelite people. This idea leaves the impression that Jesus came to relieve people of standards. He came to save them from the imposition of written rules. This is a deadly lie about Jesus and what He did and taught that generation.
Jesus and Matthew 5
I return to Matthew 5 to see what Jesus said at the beginning of His Sermon on the Mount. He said in verse 17:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
The Pharisees and thus the people of that audience suspected Jesus would destroy the law or the prophets. He debunked that speculation and added, “I am come to fulfill the law or the prophets.” “The law or the prophets” in 5:17 is all of the Old Testament scripture.
“To fulfill” the Old Testament at least was keeping the Old Testament, but further transcending it. Jesus’ standard was not the minimized, reduced standard of the Pharisees. It went above theirs; it transcended theirs. His righteousness exceeded theirs. In no way, as He says in verse 19, was He teaching people not to keep everything in the Old Testament. No, just the opposite. Then Jesus illustrates that in six different sections between 5:21 and 5:48.
The purpose of Jesus was showing the sinfulness of the Pharisees and the audience they spawned. Their viewpoint was not God’s. They did not represent God. This would take someone back to the first thing He said in the sermon in verse 3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” His audience needed to understand their spiritual poverty to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Saving Grace
Saving grace as an outcome of conversion, which proceeds from God — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, does not lower the standard for righteousness of the Pharisees. It exceeds it. As a first illustration, Jesus uses one of the ten commandments, “Thou shalt not kill,” in verse 21. Pharisaical thinking justified itself by saying it had not physically killed anyone. That still occurs today. People still think they’re fine because of something they haven’t done. This indicates they lack spiritual poverty.
Using four different examples in verse 21 to verse 26, Jesus shows that His or God’s standard exceeds or transcends the letter of scripture. It is more than just physically killing someone. They’ve murdered someone in their hearts if they even showed contempt toward them. Jesus goes so far to say that they’ve murdered the person with whom they would not initiate reconciliation. Not reconciling is showing contempt. God would not accept their worship as long as they would not try to reconcile.
The Pharisees were not about strict standards. They were about diminishing God’s standards with their own, designed to be more easily kept. They tried to keep these on their own without the grace of God. Jesus was not following their example or trajectory. He taught a different way than theirs.
Evangelicals and Jesus and the Pharisees and Grace
Most evangelicals today take an opposite message from Jesus than the one He told in His sermon. They teach that Jesus came to relieve the people of standards. I use the word “standards,” but you could use laws, regulations, or the like. Jesus kept everything and in verse 19, He said that the greatest in His kingdom would teach others to do the same.
Jesus went further with adultery too. It wasn’t just the physical act, but looking at a woman to lust after her in your heart (verse 28). Jesus is explaining what He meant by fulfilling the law or the prophets. Keeping the standards was never the means of salvation. Yes, the addition of works was a burden on the people reckoned by the Pharisees. People could not escape whatever shortcomings they had with the Pharisee approach.
If salvation came by keeping the rules, no one could do that. This is why the Pharisees minimized or reduced the law or the prophets. They tried to concoct a way of salvation through works. The Pharisees developed their own handbook of sorts to accompany scripture to explain the procedures for keeping scripture. This was not internalizing what God said out of love and obeying it from the heart. Again, this is the burden they created.
The Pharisees made doing suitable good works impossible. This was an exhausting, never ceasing burden. Their system complicated the obedience to actual scripture. It put them, the Pharisees, ahead of God, while claiming credit for God.
The Repercussions of Botching the Pharisees
People like the idea of not having to keep moral standards. This is a very popular view of grace today. This mirrors the Pharisees in that it minimizes or reduces scripture. Pharisees did it to make a way for salvation by works. Evangelicals do it in a way to change the nature of the grace of God. I say that they treat grace as a garbage can, when scripture treats it as a cleansing agent. Grace instead enables the keeping of the standards, rules, or laws of scripture. Unlike the perversion of grace, grace saves from the violations of the law and the salvation changes the life.
You probably notice that churches have gone downhill. They have changed in nature. Part of it is this very interpretation of the Pharisees. Evangelicals use the Pharisees as a reason to reduce standards. They don’t get rid of all of them, which should send up a red flag. If the Pharisees were all about having standards, then why don’t we eliminate all of them? Quite commonly evangelical keep the ones still convenient, very much like the Pharisees did. With this system, you still get credit for doing good works without obedience to everything that God said.
Scripture shows God wants everything He said kept. It’s not grace not to keep what God said. That’s an impostor grace. It claims grace, but it’s a placebo or a poser of grace. God does not accept not believing and not doing what He said, even in the so-called non-essentials. Man’s adaptations, innovations, and modifications do not please God. They are not of faith.
In scripture, God killed people for changing the recipe for the incense at the altar of incense. He killed tens of thousands when David numbered the people against His will. Grace tends toward keeping what God said, not squirming out of it. Grace yields a higher standard than the Pharisees, not a lesser one.
Books By David Cloud Read Aloud: Can You Help Truth Get Out?
Way of Life Literature, run by Bro David Cloud, has many excellent resources. David Cloud has also written many excellent books, as well as useful videos one can find on his website. While not infallible, of course, they are well-researched, sound in doctrine, and something I could recommend highly to almost any Christian. I am very thankful for David Cloud’s works. His books, along with those published by Bible Baptist Church Publications, helped me to become a Baptist separatist instead of a mushy evangelical after I was converted by the grace of God.
Today, sadly, many people do not read. Brother Cloud has given me permission to have at least some of his books read aloud and then made available on fora such as YouTube, Rumble, and Audible.
If you would be interested in reading aloud some David Cloud books, such as his works on Biblical preservation, Bible texts and versions:
Faith vs. The Modern Versions
For Love of the Bible
The Glorious History of the English Bible
Bible Version Question and Answer Database
or some of Cloud’s other books, such as:
Dressing for the Lord
The Future According to the Bible
History and Heritage of Fundamentalism and Fundamental Baptists
and you have a good reading voice–speaking clearly, with expression, and not one that will put people to sleep–and enough commitment to finish something once you have started it, please contact me and let me know.
Thank you.
Modernism Is Not an Acceptable Alternative to Postmodernism: Jordan Peterson
Early Experience with Modernism
Growing up in small town Indiana, no one exposed me to modernism. Without anyone telling me, I read the Bible as literal. Everything happened in it just like it read. When I was twelve, my dad took us all off to Bible college in Wisconsin when he was thirty-five years old, but he was never some theologian.
I interacted very little with modernism in college or graduate school. When I wrote papers, I provided alternative views to my position, so I read a little modernism then. Faculty did not assign modernist books to read in a fundamentalist college. The modernist books, I must admit, I used to pad my bibliographies, quoting them in selective fashion.
My theological separation divided the saved from the unsaved. People either received or rejected Jesus Christ. I did not categorize someone a modernist. He just rejected the truth, an unbeliever. Modernism held no attraction to me. If someone was a modernist, through my lens he was just an unbeliever.
More Mature Understanding of Modernism
In graduate school, I took a class, History of Fundamentalism, taught by B. Myron Cedarholm, because the normal teacher, Richard Weeks, was ill. In that class, I heard how that fundamentalism began as a movement in response to modernism or liberalism pervading and then controlling religious institutions. Modernism invaded Southern Baptist seminaries and the Presbyterian, Princeton Theological Seminary. None of this still mattered much for me. It registered as something written on paper, because I had no experience with it.
After marriage and a move to the San Francisco Bay Area to evangelize and then start a Baptist church, I came into recognition of modernism in a personal way, listening to a liberal radio talk show. I listened to the Ronn Owens Show and his interview with Uta Ranke-Heinemann, a female liberal theologian from Germany. She wrote, .Putting Away Childish Things: The Virgin Birth, the Empty Tomb, and Other Fairy Tales You Don’t Need to Believe to Have a Living Faith.
On a regular basis, I then encountered modernists in the San Francisco Bay Area. They went to modernist churches in almost every religious denomination. They often didn’t reject the Bible. Instead, they viewed scripture in a mystical way, not taking it literally. Modernists likely denied the supernatural aspects of scripture. Many times they allegorized the Bible to make it more malleable for their liberal cultural and social causes.
The Arrival of Postmodernism
As years passed, progressivism turned from modernism to postmodernism. Now postmodernists can make modernists seem at least moderate, if not conservative. Postmodernists rejected modernism. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I ask that you consider what I wrote in 2021:
Modernism then arose and said revelation wasn’t suitable for knowledge. Modernists could point to distinctions between religions and denominations and the wars fought over them. Knowledge instead came through scientific testing, man’s observations, consequently elevating man above God. Man could now do what he wanted because he changed the standard for knowledge. Faith for sure wasn’t good enough. With modernism, faith might make you feel good, but you proved something in naturalistic fashion to say you know it. Modernism then trampled the twentieth century, producing devastation, unsuccessful with its so-called knowledge.
Premoderns had an objective basis for knowledge, revelation from God. Moderns too, even if it wasn’t valid, had human reasoning, what they called “empirical proof.” Postmoderns neither believed or liked scripture or empiricism. This related to authority, whether God or government or parents, or whatever. No one should be able to tell somebody else what to do, which is to conform them to your truth or your reality. No one has proof. Institutions use language to construct power.
Postmodernism judged modernism a failure, pointing to wars, the American Indians and institutional bias, bigotry, and injustice. Since modernism constructed itself by power and language, a postmodernist possesses his own knowledge of good and evil, his own truth, by which to construct his own reality. No one will any more control him with power and language.
Dangerous New Acceptance of Modernism
Jordan Peterson
Modernists today very often stand with conservatives on certain principles. When I hear him talk about the Bible, and he does very much, Jordan Peterson sounds like a modernist. In recent days Peterson appeared in a new series on the Book of Exodus and apparently he wrote a book soon published on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He talked about that in a podcast. In his conversation on Exodus, his interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in a talk about the book of Jonah, Peterson in recent days pushes his modernist position on tens of thousands of especially young men.
What excites many about Peterson’s talks is that he even talks about the Bible at all. He acts enthused about scripture. Peterson thinks the Bible is very important. He puts great effort into communicating his modernist position and interpretations of the Bible. Almost five years ago, I already warned about Peterson, still hoping he might change. He hasn’t and today he’s doubling down on his modernistic approach.
Modernism Versus Divine Verbal Plenary Inspiration
Jordan Peterson does not comment on the Bible like God inspired it. When I say inspired, I mean verbal plenary inspiration. God breathed out every word and all of them in the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Perhaps I will put more time into exposing the false interpretations and teachings of Jordan Peterson sometime in the future. In the meantime, please know that Jordan Peterson does not expose what Genesis, Exodus, or almost anything in the scripture actually says. He leads people astray with his false doctrine.
Don’t get me wrong. Peterson says many good things. You and I can rejoice in that. I’m happy he agrees with freedom of speech. He rejects a cancel culture. Peterson accepts a patriarchy. He does not, however, proclaim an orthodox view of God or the Bible, even though he refers to scripture all the time.
Rick Warren and Evangelical Agnosticism About or Over the Biblical Doctrine of Separation, pt. 2
Rick Warren and Saddleback Church
Expelled by the SBC
February 21 of this year (2023) the Southern Baptist Convention expelled Saddleback Church. Saddleback was the church Rick Warren started and pastored in Southern California. The SBC ejected Saddleback for having a woman pastor. Rick Warren decided he was wrong about woman pastors. The Bible actually did allow it.
Ejection from the SBC is a kind of separation. No doubt. Rick Warren, it seems, wants to fight it. I read an article this week that chronicled a bit of an account in an interview of Warren.
The author of the article learned much from SBC training for a state contracted prison chaplaincy, and he thinks Warren will be back. Part of the reason, it seems, is that he’s already seen that the SBC has many women pastors. Warren maybe thinks the SBC will take back Saddleback because of the 6,000 Purpose-Driven churches in the Convention. He says these churches don’t need the SBC, but he wants to influence the SBC.
Rick Warren in Christianity Today
Former SBC leader and chief editor of Christianity Today, Russell Moore, interviewed Warren March 8, 2023. Even though I don’t like Warren’s belief and practice, his answers to Moore reveal inconsistencies for the SBC. Apparently, the SBC avoided dealing with some abuse of women with a reference to autonomy in churches. Warren claims the SBC didn’t give Saddleback autonomy in their decision for female pastors. I too have seen autonomy as a regular tool for disobedience. It becomes a convenient excuse for pastors doing what they like the most.
I read Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church book right when he published it. I knew nothing of him and started the read with a positive outlook. That assessment became negative when I started reading his rank pragmatism. I think Rick Warren has done as much damage to churches as anyone in the history of the church. Still, his treatment of the SBC brings out a good learning moment about the biblical doctrine of separation.
Ecclesiastical Separation
Assessment of Separation
Ecclesiastical separation means a church separates from another church or even other non-church institutions. The SBC has no biblical authority to separate. If many churches in the SBC continue with many varied types of unscriptural belief and behavior, separation from Saddleback looks political in some way. It also exposes the corruption of an unbiblical Convention system.
I’m taking my analysis mainly from the article by C. D. Cauthorne, Jr. at SharperIron. Warren as reported by Cauthorne supports some kind of separation without addressing ecclesiastical separation. He quotes not one of a multitude of separation verses from scripture and yet says this:
We should be able to expel people over sin, racism, sexual abuse, other sexual sins, things like that.
Who is We?
Rightly practiced, I don’t disagree with Warren. I would start, however, by asking, “Who is “we”?” We expel. Who can expel people. We seems to be members of the SBC. Warren thinks the SBC should expel other members and other churches over certain wrong behavior. I would call what Warren says next, a “riff.” He’s talking from the seat of his pants and making aggressive, false statements. He is inventing material right on the spot really in a typical manner a postmodern world might do that.
This is the same old battle that’s been going on for 100 years in the SBC between conservative Baptists and fundamental Baptists… . Today, a fundamentalist means you’ve stopped listening… . That’s the number one mark of it… . We have to approach Scripture humbly saying I could be wrong. You’ll never hear a Fundamentalist say, “I could be wrong.” A conservative Baptist believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, a fundamentalist Baptist believes in the inerrancy of their interpretation.
Conservative Baptists and Fundamental Baptists?
Has there been a battle for a 100 years between conservative Baptists and fundamental Baptists? Who are conservative Baptists? Warren seems to include himself with conservative Baptists. Who are fundamental Baptists, and especially in the Southern Baptist Convention? Warren seems to think he will get some traction with an audience by weaponizing the term “fundamentalist.” He says it means, “You’ve stopped listening.”
Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism
Warren and Fundamentalism
People who actually will call themselves fundamentalists would not use Rick Warren’s ad hominem definition. Maybe you’re laughing as you read his definition. It is funny what someone can say and get away with it in a mainstream interview. Fundamentalists, Warren says, never say, “I could be wrong.” “A fundamental Baptist believes in the inerrancy of their (sic) interpretation.” The latter is just a rhetorical turn of phrase meant as combative. He’s unhappy, but the female role or female pastor issue isn’t just an interpretational one. In addition, all doctrinal issues relate to interpretation of scripture.
As coarse as Warren is in his take, he manifests a problem with separation in evangelicalism. They have almost no established, systematic or biblical doctrine of separation upon which to operate. Scripture says a lot on separation, but since they never include anything about separation in anything they write, no one knows what to do.
Sounding like a Fundamentalist
Warren himself sounds like a fundamentalist. I understand fundamentalism. I was a fundamentalist for at least the first 35 years of my life. Warren advocates for separation, but like all fundamentalists, he argues over the standard used. The Bible is not the standard. With some kind of social norm as the standard, the arguments about what standard to use will never cease, like they never did in fundamentalism. These debates occur and occurred until the now gradual disappearance of fundamentalism as a movement.
A good question might also be, what makes someone conservative? That isn’t established either, as much as Warren floats the term. He uses “inerrancy” as an ambiguous standard as well as other terms used in an equally ambiguous way. Warren is working at excluding the belief in male only in the office of pastor. He says scripture convinced him. He thinks the SBC should, as it has done in other areas, allow this diversity of “interpretation.” It’s just a different interpretation, perhaps like the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 and the like. Who separates over interpretations?
Biblical Separation
Like a Fundamentalist
Maybe a more preliminary question is, “Who separates?” Or furthermore, “What is biblical separation?” Evangelicals can’t give a good answer on separation because they do not preach separation. They do not teach separation. They are not separatists. Separation, when they practice it, is not about God. It is not about obedience to scripture.
Warren uses all sorts of strategies against the SBC in his interview that sound just like what a fundamentalist might do. He wants to change the criteria for separation and he applies pressure in political ways. Warren pulls the race card and says that “black churches” ordain women. He concludes, “The SBC is holding up a sign saying: All Black churches, look elsewhere. You’re not wanted here.” I wonder what black pastors think about Warren’s statement, who don’t endorse female pastors. Is the idea of “Black churches” itself a kind of racism? All “Black churches”? Warren lumps all into one category of groupthink. Not one church peels off the lockstep, uniform whole according to the Warren assessment.
A tell-tale moment, very fundamentalist of him, Warren says, “This issue, the women’s role, it’s not a primary issue because it doesn’t have to do with salvation. It is a secondary issue.” This way of talking is inherently fundamentalist. Warren is saying that someone separates on “primary issues.” These are what? Fundamentals.
John MacArthur
John MacArthur, when he attempted to answer in the Q and A in the matter of separation, talks the same way as Warren here. He’s attempted to categorize what is primary and what is secondary. MacArthur says, the woman’s role is a primary issue. He says, infant sprinkling, that isn’t a primary issue. That’s secondary, and you don’t separate over that.
MacArthur also echoes Warren or Warren echoes MacArthur with the statement, “It doesn’t have to do with salvation.” MacArthur called this someone who is in the kingdom of God. You’ve got to work with people who are in the kingdom of God. Are these women pastors in the kingdom of God? Are they saved? I think you can see how that this kind of arbitrary, unscriptural standard will not settle issues of separation.
First, do we separate? Second, what is the basis of separation? In part three I want to go through MacArthur’s Q and A answer to show how he falls short. We know that Rick Warren falls short, but he’s talking the same way as MacArthur about separation.
More to Come
Four Views On the Spectrum of Evangelicalism: A Book Review
I recently listened on Audible through the book Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, contributors Kevin Bauder, R. Albert Mohler Jr., John G. Stackhouse Jr., and Roger E. Olson, series editor Stanley N. Gundry, gen eds. Andrew David Naselli & Collin Hansen (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011). The four views presented are:
Fundamentalism: Kevin Bauder
Confessional Evangelicalism, R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Generic Evangelicalism, John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
Postconservative Evangelicalism, Roger E. Olson
When I listen through a book on Audible I usually listen through twice, since it is easier to miss things when listening to a book than it is when reading one.
For most of the book, I was cheering for Kevin Bauder, for reasons which will be clear below.
Let the Wolves In!
Roger Olson’s View
Beginning with the bad people who are fine letting the wolves in: Roger Olson argues that “inerrancy cannot be regarded as necessary to being authentically evangelical. It is what theologians call adiaphora–a nonessential belief” (pg. 165). What is more, “open theists [are] not heretical” (pg. 185). Evangelicals do not need to believe in penal substitution: “there is no single evangelical theory of the atonement. While the penal substitution theory (that Christ bore the punishment for sins in the place of sinners) may be normal, it could hardly be said to be normative” (pg. 183). However, fundamentalism is “orthodoxy gone cultic” (pg. 67). Deny Christ died in your place, think God doesn’t know the future perfectly, and think the Bible is full of errors? No problem. Let a Oneness Pentecostal, anti-Trinitarian “church” in to the National Association of Evangelicals (pg. 178)? Great! Be a fundamentalist? Your are cultic.
Summary: While Christ says His sheep hear His voice, and Scripture unambiguously teaches its infallible and inerrant inspiration (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:16-21) as the Word of the God who cannot lie, and penal substitution is at the heart of the gospel, Dr. Olson thinks one can deny these things and not only be a Christian but be an evangelical. Let in the heretics and the wolves!
Let Some of the Wolves In!
John Stackhouse’s View
John G. Stackhouse, Jr. is only slightly more conservative than Dr. Olson. For Dr. Stackhouse, “open theists are, to my knowledge, genuine evangelicals” (pg. 132). No! But at least anti-Trinitarian Oneness Pentecostals who have a false god, a false gospel, and are going to hell are not evangelicals (pg. 204). Does something so obvious even deserve a “Yay”?
What about penal substitution? “substitutionary atonement is a nonnegotiable part of the Christian understanding of salvation, and evangelicals do well to keep teaching it clearly and enthusiastically” (pg. 136). One cheer for Dr. Stackhouse. But then he goes on:
But suppose somebody doesn’t teach it? Does that make him or her not an evangelical? According to the definition I have been using, such a person might well still be an evangelical. Indeed, the discussion in this section takes for granted that some (genuine) evangelicals are uneasy about substitutionary atonement, and a few even hostile to that idea. But they remain evangelicals nonetheless: still putting Christ and the cross in the center, still drawing from Scripture and testing everything by it, still concerned for sound and thorough conversion, still active in working with God in his mission, and still cooperating with evangelicals of other stripes. Evangelicals who diminish or dismiss substitutionary atonement seem to me to be in the same camp as my evangelical brothers and sisters who espouse open theism: truly evangelicals, and truly wrong about something important. (pgs. 136-137)
So the one cheer quickly is replaced by gasps for air and a shocked silence, as the heretics and the wolves come right back in again. Dr. Bauder does a good job responding to and demolishing these justifications of apostasy and false religion.
Write Thoughtful Essays Showing that the Wolves Need Critique, but
Let the World and the Flesh In and Don’t Be A Fundamentalist Separatist:
Al Mohler’s View
R. Albert Mohler, Jr. calls his view “Confessional Evangelicalism,” although he never cites any Baptist or any other confession of faith in his essay. He thinks you do actually need to believe Christ died in your place, open theism is unacceptable, and an inerrant Bible is something worth standing for (1.5 cheers for Dr. Mohler, led by very immodestly dressed Southern Baptist cheerleaders who know that God made them male and female, not trans). However, Dr. Mohler does not believe in anything close to a Biblical doctrine of ecclesiastical separation. His Southern Baptist denomination is full of leaven that is corrupting the whole lump. His ecclesiastical polity is like the Biden administration on the USA’s southern border–claiming that there are a few barriers that keep out people who are trying to creep in unawares while millions of illegals come pouring in with a nod and a wink.
Dr. Bauder makes some legitimate criticisms of Dr. Mohler, while also being much more cozy with him than John the Baptist or the Apostles would have been. Dr. Bauder says that Mohler is “doing a good work, and that work would be hindered if I were to lend credibility to the accusation that he is a fundamentalist” (pg. 97). That is Bauder’s view of the false worship, the huge number of unregenerate church members, the spiritual deadness, the doctrinal confusion, and the gross disobedience in the Southern Baptist Convention. Hurray? Dr. Bauder’s discussion is not how the first century churches would have worked with disboedient brethren (2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14).
Separate From the Wolves, but Not From Disobedient Sheep:
Kevin Bauder’s “Mainstream Fundamentalist” View
Kevin Bauder is a self-identified “historic fundamentalist.” (But what if there never was a unified “historic fundamentalism”?) He is the only one of the four contributors who actually thinks that ecclesiastical separation needs to take place. So two cheers for Dr. Bauder! Bauder argues: “the gospel is the essential ground of all genuinely Christian unity. Where the gospel is denied, no such unity exists” (pg. 23). Therefore, “Profession of the gospel is the minimum requirement for visible Christian fellowship. The gospel is the boundary of Christian fellowship” (pg. 25). Bauder does a good job showing that people must separate from those who deny the gospel, or those who fellowship with those who deny the gospel. Two more cheers for Bauder.
However, Bauder warns about what he calls “hyper-fundamentalism,” which is actually Biblically consistent separatism (and which gets no voice to defend itself in this book). He has strong words for the “hyper-fundamentalists”–stronger than the way he voices his disagreements with Mohler:
One version of fundamentalism goes well beyond the idea that I summarized earlier in this essay. It could be called hyper-fundamentalism. Hyper-fundamentalism exists in a variety of forms. … [H]yper-fundamentalists sometimes adopt a militant stance regarding some extrabiblical or even antibiblical teaching. For example, many professing fundamentalists are committed to a theory of textual preservation and biblical translation that leaves the King James Version as the only acceptable English Bible. When individuals become militant over such nonbiblical teachings, they cross the line into hyper-fundamentalism. … [H]yper-fundamentalists understand separation in terms of guilt by association. To associate with someone who holds any error constitutes an endorsement of that error. Persons who hold error are objects of separation, and so are persons who associate with them. … [H]yper-fundamentalists sometimes turn nonessentials into tests of fundamentalism. For example, some hyper-fundamentalists assume that only Baptists should be recognized as fundamentalists. Others make the same assumption about dispensationalists, defining covenant theologians out of fundamentalism. Others elevate extrabiblical personal practices. One’s fundamentalist standing may be judged by such criteria as hair length, musical preferences, and whether one allows women to wear trousers. … Hyper-fundamentalism takes many forms, including some that I have not listed. Nevertheless, these are the forms that are most frequently encountered. When a version of fundamentalism bears one or more of these marks, it should be viewed as hyper-fundamentalist. It is worth noting that several of these marks can also be found in other versions of evangelicalism.
Hyper-fundamentalism is not fundamentalism. It is as a parasite on the fundamentalist movement. … Mainstream fundamentalists find themselves in a changing situation. One factor is that what was once the mainstream may no longer be the majority within self-identified fundamentalism. A growing proportion is composed of hyper-fundamentalists, who add something to the gospel as the boundary of minimal Christian fellowship. If the idea of fundamentalism is correct, then this error is as bad as dethroning the gospel from its position as the boundary.
Another factor is that some evangelicals have implemented aspects of the idea of fundamentalism, perhaps without realizing it. For example, both Wayne Grudem and Albert Mohler (among others) have authored essays that reverberate with fundamentalist ideas. More than that, they and other conservative evangelicals have put their ideas into action, seeking doctrinal boundaries in the Evangelical Theological Society and purging Southern Baptist institutions.
Mainstream fundamentalists are coming to the conclusion that they must distance themselves from hyper-fundamentalists, and they are displaying a new openness to conversation and even some cooperation with conservative evangelicals. Younger fundamentalists in particular are sensitive to the inconsistency of limiting fellowship to their left but not to their right. (pgs. 43-45)
By Bauder’s definition, the first century churches would have been “hyper-fundamentalist” parasites. (Note that Bauder also makes claims such as: “Some hyper-fundamentalists view education as detrimental to spiritual well-being” [pg. 44]. There is probably a guy named John somewhere in a “hyper-fundamentalist” church that thinks education is a sin, and there is also probably a lady named Mary in a neo-evangelical church who thinks the same thing, and a big burly fellow named Mat in a post-conservative church who agrees with them, but nothing further about these sorts of claims by Bauder needs further comment. So we return to something more serious.) Do you separate over more than just the gospel? Do you, for example, separate over men who refuse to work and care for their families (2 Thess 3:6-14)? You are a parasite, just as bad, if not worse, than people who do not separate at all. Do you separate over false worship (“musical styles” to Bauder), since God burned people up for offering Him strange fire (Lev 10:1ff)? You are bad–very, very bad. Let the strange fire right in to the New Testament holy of holies (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)!–even though God says He will “destroy” those who do such a wicked thing. Do you take a stand for the perfect preservation of Scripture–as did men like George S. Bishop, one of the contributors to The Fundamentals (see, e. g., George S. Bishop, The Fundamentals: “The Testimony of the Scriptures to Themselves,” vol. 2:4 [Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2005], 80ff.)? You King James Only parasite! Do you seek to follow the Apostle Paul and the godly preacher Timothy, and allow “no other doctrine” in the church–not just “no other gospel,” but “no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3)? Do you repudiate Dr. Bauder’s schema of levels of fellowship to seek what Scripture defines as unity: “that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10)? You are bad–very, very bad. You should be rejected, and we should join hands, instead, with evangelicals like Mohler who write essays that we “reverberate” with while they work in a Southern Baptist Convention teeming with unregenerate preachers and church members which almost never obeys Matthew 18:15-20 and practices church discipline. If you think Scripture is not kidding when it says men with long hair or women with short hair is a “shame” (1 Corinthians 11:1-16), or you do not want the women in your church to be an “abomination” (Deuteronomy 22:5) by wearing men’s clothing like pants, then you are certainly, certainly beyond the pale. Corruptions in our culture do not matter-let them into what should be Christ’s pure bride! Everyone knows that the loving thing to do is to allow half the congregation to be an abomination so that they can fit in with our worldly, hell-bound culture.
Dr. Bauder at least says one should separate over the gospel, and he does a good job proving that Scripture requires churches to do that. He has numbers of effective critiques of positions to his left. He clearly has studied history and is a thinker. But he does not present a Biblical case for consistent separatism-very possibly because consistent ecclesiastical separation is only possible when one rejects universal “church” ecclesiology for local-only or Landmark Baptist ecclesiology, and views the local assembly as the locus for organizational unity, while Bauder believes in a universal “church” and must somehow accomodate Scripture’s commands for unity in the body of Christ to that non-extant entity. As the book A Pure Church: A Biblical Theology of Ecclesiastical Separation demonstrates, churches must separate from all unrepentant and continuing disobedience, not just separate over the gospel. Dr. Bauder’s view is insufficient. Furthermore, his critique of what he labels “hyper-fundamentalism” is inconsistent. If the “hyper-fundamentalists” do things like separate too much and take stands for pure worship, are they thereby denying the gospel? If not, why does Bauder think they should be repudiated and separated from?
One other important point: some of those who would repudiate Dr. Bauder’s view as too weak are themselves to his left, not his right. For example, the King James Bible Research Council and the Dean Burgon Society, prominent King James Only advocacy organizations that would claim to be militant fundamentalists, are willing to fellowship with anti-repentance, anti-Lordship, anti-Christ (for does not “Christ” mean “the Messiah, the King, the Lord”?) advocates of heresy on the gospel as advocated by Jack Hyles, Curtis Hudson and the Sword of the Lord, and the so-called “free grace” movement of Zane Hodges. Fundamentalist schools that stand for gender-distinction and conservative worship, such as Baptist College of Ministry in Menomonee Falls, WI, are willing to fellowship with people who believe the truth on repentance and the gospel as well as with anti-repentance heretics at Hyles Anderson College and First Baptist (?) Church (?) of Hammond, Indiana like John Wilkerson. If you think Kevin Bauder’s Central Baptist Seminary is too weak, but you yourself do not separate even over the gospel, but tolerate false views of repentance or other heresies on the gospel that Paul would not have tolerated for one hour (Galatians 1:6-9, 2:5), you need to reconsider your position.
Take a stand–follow God. Allow “no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3). Separate not just on the gospel, but from all unfruitful works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11). You may be excluded from the book Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, with its more liberal contributors viewing you as “cultic” and the most conservative contributor viewing you as a “parasite” and a “hyper-fundamentalist,” but that is fine-God your adopted Father, Christ your gracious Redeemer, and the blessed Holy Spirit, who has made your body and your congregation into His holy temple, will be pleased. The needy sheep in your flock who had a faithful pastor will embrace you and thank you as they shine like the sun in the coming glorious kingdom, as you led them to faithfulness to Christ and a full reward, instead of compromise. If Christ does not return first, your church may, by God’s grace, continue to pass on the truth and to multiply other true churches for centuries, instead of falling into apostasy because of a sinful failure to consistently practice Biblical separation.
Get off the spectrum of evangelicalism entirely and follow Scripture alone for the glory of God alone in a separatist, Bible-believing and practicing Baptist church. You will be opposed now, but God will be glorified, and it will be worth it all, when we see Jesus.
–TDR
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Yes and Then No, the Bible with Mark Ward (Part One)
My last post of last week, the shell game with Bible words, if you followed the links, referred to a session Mark Ward did at Bob Jones Seminary, where he did refer to Thomas Ross and myself. Someone sent that to me, and in my path to watching it, I became curious in another of his videos. I’ll deal with both here. One I essentially agreed with, and the other, no.
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Chronologically, Mark Ward first made a podcast from his greenhouse about attending an IFB meeting close to where he lived. An IFB pastor invited him because R. B. Ouellette was going to preach on the King James issue. He didn’t say which church this was. It was surely revivalist in the Hyles/Sword realm. Ward started out ready to deal with KJVOnlyism, but it turned into something else. Here’s the podcast.
Ward traveled to a special meeting at a revivalist IFB church to interact with KJVO. Based upon a heads-up from its pastor, he expected something promoting KJVO. Ward reported much he liked about the service all the way up to the Ouellette sermon. Ouellette opened to Job 31:35-36 to defend KJVO. A plain reading of Job 31 does not appear to do that.
Ward and Ouellette both graduated from Bob Jones University. In his criticism, Ward distinguished between using the Bible for what a man wants to say and preaching what the Bible does say. By his account, Ouellette did the former. He was not a herald, who delivers the Word of the King. Ward titled his podcast, “The Biggest Step the IFB Needs to Take.” He treats IFB with generosity, more than what I would. Instead of the KJVO issue, he found a “preaching” one instead.
YES
Bad Preaching
I wrote, “Yes,” in this title. I agree with the criticism of this typical, popular IFB preaching. If IFB apparently cares for the perfection of its Bible, then preach the Bible. Its leaders very often preach like Ward described. He reported loud “Amens” shouted all around, which supported a message that twisted the Word of God. Ward exposed a reason for someone to separate from IFB churches and men. I say “Yes” to Ward. I agree with him.
What causes a man to preach like Ouellette? It’s not that he is unable to preach the Bible. Why would he settle for something entirely not what the passage says? Underlying doctrinal problems exist especially regarding the Holy Spirit. Keswick theology, second blessing theology, or revivalism, all similar error but with a nuance of difference, affect preaching.
Many IFB believe the preacher becomes a vessel for a message from the Holy Spirit. They believe that through the Holy Spirit God gives the preacher something others can’t even see in a text. This is called “preaching.” God uses “preaching,” but by that they don’t mean the Bible. The Bible is used, but the preaching is something unique. They trust the man of God has been given something they haven’t ever seen and can’t see.
However, I dispute preaching as the biggest step for IFB. It isn’t the “I” (independent) or the “B” (Baptist) in IFB that’s the problem. “F” for Fundamentalism is at the root of the problem. Actual preaching of the Bible isn’t a fundamental of fundamentalism. In general, IFB does not confront bad preaching. It allows it and even encourages it. If someone spiritualizes or allegorizes a passage and reads something into a text, it doesn’t bring condemnation. However, the biggest step for fundamentalism isn’t its preaching.
False Gospel
Fundamentalism is rife with a corrupted gospel. Ward commended the evangelism of IFB. What is the evangelism of IFB? Look all over the internet at the gospel presentations. Most IFB removes biblical repentance and the Lordship of Christ. Let’s say Ouellette rejected KJVO and started using the ESV, or even just the NKJV. Would he become acceptable to Ward, reaching his primary goal? Ouellette argues against repentance as necessary for salvation (I write here, here, and here). When you read doctrinal statements and the plans of salvation of those churches most associated with Ouellette, they’re the same.
A few years ago, James White participated in an interview with Steven Anderson. In White’s many criticisms of Anderson, he never mentions his false gospel. Anderson hosts an anti-repentance website. Anderson is worse than Ouellette, but both fall short of a biblical gospel. As White ignores Anderson’s gospel, Ward does Ouellette’s. This diverges from the often stated emphasis of evangelicals, the gospel of first importance. The version issue stokes greater heat than the gospel does.
Some IFB churches preach a true gospel even as some preach biblical sermons. Yet, a false gospel subverts IFB unrelated to the version of the Bible it uses. Years ago IFB allowed and even promoted the introduction and then acceptance of a false doctrine of salvation. I am happy Ward noticed the bad preaching of Ouellette, but his focus harms his ability to see the biggest IFB problem. Ward doesn’t mention the wrong gospel.
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