Originally Posted by Tom Lauder

I have heard repeatedly now from theonomists and lovers of Greg Bahnsen the charge that the Westminster Seminary Journal denied Bahnsen an opportunity to respond to Meredith Kline's review article of his work. The accusation and implication is not only censorship, but also the inability to refute Bahnsen's work on theonomy (appears to be a latent martyr complex running here too?). Bringing it closer to home, there was also a charge made that I reflected this same type of tendency since I happen to attend the same seminary where Robert Godfrey (the "bad guy," and editor of the journal back then in 1978) teaches.
Besides the obvious fallacy in this type of argument (I never even heard of this supposed issue till certain ones brought it up, let alone do I know Godfrey enough to be majorly influenced by him), I suspected that the proponents of such a view were wrong in their assessement of the situation. Finally, after recently listening to another theonomist malign Godfrey, which is supposed to lend support to their cause that theonomy is the biblical view since no one can refute it and all others can do is "suppress the truth," I went and asked Robert Godfrey about these accusations.
[Responding to these accusations]...Godfrey said plainly "These are lies." The position of the WTJ was that responses to book reviews are not allowed since this could end up in a never ending response to the response syndrome (just look at the Calvin Club during disputes). This policy was not put in place just to refuse Bahnsen an opportunity to respond either, but had been the WTJ policy.
Bahnsen came and spoke with Godfrey about his anger with Kline's review and wanted an opportunity to respond. Godfrey told him "no" to the response on that piece, but instead told him to write a full article that deals with critics like Kline and he would happily publish it. Bahnsen never responded with an article.
But what of the charge that Kline rigged the deal by making publication of his review contingent upon Bahnsen not being able to respond? It is true that Kline did ask Godfrey to not publish a response (Godfrey told him he was against that), but it didn't matter since the policy already stood about no responses to review articles. Kline's position, as related by Godfrey, was that he did not want to get into an endless debate with Bahnsen et al.. Still, be that as it may, the decision by Godfrey to not print a response to the review article was not motivated by any desire to suppress Bahnsen, or to deny him an opportunity to respond, and hardly because theonomy was known to be irrefutable.
An interesting side note, Bahnsen demanded of Godfrey that if he responded with an article then there could be no editorial changes to his article. Godfrey told him that no editor makes that type of concession. One wonders if this is not where Bahnsen misunderstood Godfrey and thus the whole censorship accusation started. Godfrey's point was not to have some way to alter what Bahnsen wrote, but to continue with normal editorial freedom. Nevertheless, as stated above, it was Bahnsen who never submitted an article back to the WTJ.