__________________
Christian
One Pilgrims Progress

I do see a problem if the pastor or elder believes another officer is guilty of heresy but does not move to charge him for whatever reason. My understanding is this is largely how the PCUSA was lost.

McArthur weighs in John H Armstrong : Interpreting the Bible: The False Assumptions of Modernism

__________________
Bruce
PCUSA
Ocean City NJ

As I am understanding what the content of the controversy is about, I realize it has barely been tackled in this thread. Ens and others contention is that modern insistence for wooden literal factual historical accuracy on the ancients is unwarranted. Any thoughts?

Not really in this context since your earlier comment had to do with a pastor reading a book and giving pastoral advice to students under his care as to which seminary to attend. So it was not really a personal matter. Now you have turned it into a personal matter, which is fine as far as it goes.

But it fails to address my earlier concerns about publically labeling brethren based on personal opinion.

Scott Clark said something in another thread that I think is important and speaks to the fundamental issue:

Exactly! That is what I have been trying to say here wrt the private, individual pronouncements against Dr. Enns. You may read his book and consider it troubling, even heretical. But Dr. Enns is a man under authority, the authority of a presbytery called by God to make judgment calls as to a man’s confessionalism. I would even go so far as to say that any pronouncements by an independent seminary amount to no more than “private views” ala Dr. Clark’s comment.

All you may say at this point is that he doesn’t appear to agree with your interpretation of the confession. You may think that's enough to withdraw fellowship or reco young students not attend his seminary, but I certainly wouldn’t go that far.

__________________
Tom Albrecht
Elder elect, Covenant URCNA, New Holland, PA.

"When I find the time, I'm going to write the social history of bourbon."

Which presbytery is it, and how are they involved at this time?

Interesting related article by Reed DePace over at Green Baggins.

I do not know what Presbytery he is apart of.

I do not know what his Presbytery is doing or how involved they are, but I think it is safe to assume that they are aware of this situation and will deal with it. As you know, the wheels of Presbytery turn very slowly.

__________________
~Wayne Wylie~
Member, Mid Cities Presbyterian Church (OPC)
Ruling Elder - Inactive
http://www.mcopc.org
Bedford, TX

Job 28:28 - And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

The public-private distinction you make is not the issue. I used two examples to reason with you -- one a pastor counseling a seminary candidate, and two a hypothetical dialog between you and me.

The public-private point you make is what we in the law call a "distinction without a difference." Or, a distinction that makes no difference to the point at hand.

The point at hand was the legitimacy of WTS exercising orthodoxy determinations in terms of whom it retains on its faculty.

You questioned that legitimacy; I defended it.

It makes no sense to characterize WTS's decision to let the professor go as a "private" decision. It was very public the instant they announced it. Hundreds of churches and thousands of presbyterian church members are interested in the orthodoxy of WTS's professors. And rightly so.

They took 3 years to act on this professor's book.

It took Reformed Jackson only one year to get rid of Bahnsen after his Theonomy in Christian Ethics was published.

And the latter was not a matter of orthodoxy, but merely controversy.

I question the wisdom of that, but not the para-ecclesiastical authority.

It was very unwise of them to run Greg off, but they surely had the authority.

__________________

HaigLaw, ruling elder
Grace PCA, Shreveport, LA
http://www.xanga.com/HaigLaw

We are in agreement that WTS decision was not a "private matter".

We disagree as to whether independent WTS has the legitimate authority to determine orthodoxy (what is confessional and what is not), and base faculty decisions on such independent determinations.

I’m still waiting for any argument on the nature of independent authority in the matter of confessional determination.

That is the distinction with a difference, IMO.

I think where I would net out on this is in the scope of a seminary's authority in contrast with the authority that a Presbytery has, say. A seminary has the authority to determine what it is going to teach within its bounds, just as a presbytery has the authority to determine what is going to be taught within its bounds. A seminary therefore has the right to determine what constitutes confessionalism within its range of authority.

__________________
Rev. Lane Keister
Teaching Elder, PCA, North Dakota (working out of bounds in a CRC and an RCA church)
http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com
http://brahmsgreenglove.blogspot.com
http://accenttranslation.blogspot.com
Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Hi Lane, Is there anything on your blog that discusses Enn's thrust that ancient literature is being forced to be something it was not intended to be by modern interpreters? Thanks

I don't think so. The only real issue I have dealt with in regard to Enns has been the situation as a whole, and how it is being handled by WTS. I have read I&I, however.

Well? Any thoughts you wish to share in public? If not I understand.

Of course WTS has authority. They pay the money. We are not talking about civil servants here.

__________________
Scott Roberts
Ruling Elder, Lakeside Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Southlake, Texas

I think I would agree to some extent with Enns on this, though there need to be boundaries set. I do think that ancient history writing differs from modern history writing in some significant ways. However, what Enns does not do justice to is the fact that the biblical writing was always polemical against the ANE. I get the feeling with Enns that there is way too much continuity between ANE writing and the Bible. I remember having a conversation with him at GA last year in which I was commenting on Poole's Synopsis Criticorum. Enns seemed a bit neutral with regard to the work. But he did comment about how we now have the Dead Sea Scrolls. The comment seemed to assume that whole paradigms have shifted in biblical interpretation since the Reformation, by means of discovering such scrolls as these. Now, far be it from me to denigrate using the DSS in seeking to understand the first-century world. I have no doubt that many good insights have come from that. However, the main interpreter of Scripture is Scripture, not outside texts. I wonder how much he would affirm that.

It seems to me that if we need the DSS to understand the Bible, then the scriptures would be of little value to anyone but speculative scholars.

We know where a presbytery gets its authority. It is divinely instituted and strictly regulated by the Word of God. It has the power to institute and define confessions, require subscription of its members, define the boundaries of subscription, and discipline those who stray.

From whence cometh the seminary's parallel authority? I can’t find anything in the Bible to instruct an independent seminary in this regard?

Or is this just a business proposition? It can make rules for its employees same as Penn State or Pizza Hut.

Is it merely de facto authority and I should just get over it?

Right. However, there is a difference between those passages of Scripture that are so clear that a normal person, aided by the Holy Spirit, can come into a correct understanding of them for salvation. And indeed, even the other parts of Scripture would not be misunderstood as to their general content, even if we had no extra-biblical texts available to us. However, I would not be willing to say that extra-biblical sources have never helped us to understand better any passages of Scripture.

Well, I think that the question of a seminary's authority, and the question of whether there ought to be independent seminaries are two separate questions. I have wrestled with the latter question for some time. I am not in the least happy with my own denominational seminary. It doesn't seem to have done a whole lot of good for that seminary to be under the aegis of the PCA. I don't know that any biblical case can be made one way or the other.

Are there Biblical text that indicate the HS role in aiding of interpretation? The one's I know of seem to be specific to faith in the Gospel and to the teaching to the apostles equipping them specifically ie John.

ISTM the trouble with Tom's position is that it cuts off at the knees the primary strength of an independent seminary, which is its ability to withstand the errors of doctrine which might come in from the various denominations from which it has drawn its professors. An independent seminary hopefully can act as a stabilizing influence in the Reformed world as it works to maintain a consistent confessionalism, even though on or more erstwhile Reformed denominations go peculiar.

If the seminary is forced to bow the knee to any self-professed Reformed denomination, no matter how unconfessional it has become, then there's no "independence" worth mentioning.

__________________
Anne Ivy
Christ Chapel Bible Church
Fort Worth, Texas

Widowed mother of six, grandmother of eight.

The Ivy Vine (my blog)

I apologize for not responding directly to your earlier comments. Hopefully I can cover them here.

I don't have a problem with the charge because, fundamentally, I'm not an independent. The spirit and illusion of independency, especially in a seminary ostensibly purposed with training men for Reformed churches, is troubling, at least it is to me.

I guess it is possible to justify the existence of these bodies based on the practical experience of denominations going bad, but that reason, if taken to its logical conclusion, could justify all sorts of anti-ecclesial independent activities.

I found an interesting comment on the WTS describing the school:

Now I understand that at this faculty-oriented institution the faculty voted 12-8 to support Dr. Enns’ views, but because of the division the board voted to suspend Dr. Enns and ask a committee to "recommend the appropriate process for the Board to consider whether Professor Enns should be terminated from his employment at the Seminary." It will be interesting to see the process recommendation.

When a church needs to decide how to proceed against an officer with potentially errant views, it at least has the authority from God to act and an assurance of divine guidance (Matthew 16:19; 18:18).

BTW, Scripture tells us that gates of Hades shall not prevail against the Church, not independent seminaries. Even though they are all officers in "self-professed Reformed denominations", the board of WTS does not exercise the keys of the kingdom. I might argue that by their very nature (independency) the path to error is wide before them. WTS may merely be well along that path. There is no divine institution to pull them back.

In my opinion, "self-professed Reformed denominations" are far better off than self-professed yet independent Reformed seminaries.

How would you compare Enns use of ANE versus Kline's use of ANE.

Ah. Then it's "independent seminary" as a class that you're against.

That clears up a lot.

It was puzzling, for you seemed to be arguing against an independent seminary behaving as one would expect an independent seminary to behave, but without making plain that in your opinion WTS/P ought not to have been set up as an independent seminary in the first place.

If I may be so bold, it'd probably have been best to have framed your objection like this in the first place, rather than criticizing the seminary for behaving precisely as one would expect an independent seminary to behave.

"In my opinion, "self-professed Reformed denominations" are far better off than self-professed yet independent Reformed seminaries."

Hmmm. ISTM the PCUSA and quite a few other denominations would act as effective arguments against this.

But there....that's what makes a horse race, eh? ;^)

Tom, I am perhaps too uncomprehending (as a baptist) to speak on the issue. However, whether we should have independent seminaries or not, we certainly do. Are you asking from whence their authority derives since they do not have the keys to the kingdom? This is really a problem of independent modalities within presbyterian polity . While it would still be a practical problem for a baptist it would not be an ecclesiastical one.

It would seem to me that whether one has ecclesiastical authority or not one ought not reduce it the description to "just a business proposition." From a legal perspective the trustees are the stewards of the mission, vision, and values of an organization. While Penn State and Pizza Hut have a mission that is "just a business proposition," para-church ministries aspire to more than than. Again, the irony of the whole "para church" thing is not lost on me, particularly from a confessionally Reformed perspective. But, we are not debating whether they should exist, but how they have a right to control the theological outcomes.

Since attempting to serve some niche within the Christian community, in this case providing trained pastors for Reformed churches, involves theological boundaries, the seminary has every right to insure that the institution continues to stay within that mission. Allowing professors to graze outside the fence will defeat the ability of the institution to fulfill its mission, vision, and values.

In one of my previous posts, I suggested that Dr. Enns is accountable to the trustees for his employment and to the presbytery for his ministerial standing. The two are separate. As an employment matter, the trustees have a right to determine if teaching will likely produce the outcomes that the school wants to achieve in order to continue its particular mission. If they decide that it will not, it is imperative that the trustees act in accordance with the mission, vision, and values of the school since they are, after all, the "trustees" of that reality.

If an independent (there is that strange irony for presbyterian polity again; most of you would not allow such a situation to take place) publishing house hired seminary graduates to write Sunday school curriculua, it would have a responsibility to be sure that the products of that writing conform to the doctrinal and ecclesiastical expectations of the churches its mission calls it to serve. One would not need ecclesiastical authority to judge whether a CEO of a publishing house could/should fire a writer who had gone off the reservation. A publishing house serving charismatic churches would not want someone dissing that point of view. Similarly, someone preparing Calvinist materials would not tolerate one of its writers promoting Open Theism.

Absent the ecclesiastical authority (which you have to accept will be absent if you allow independent seminariesn to exist at all), the controlling principle must be conformity to the mission. The decision here is intellectually separate from the question of what a presbytery would determine. The school has no right to determine what is or is not "confessional" for the churches. It merely acts to decide if its teachers are fulfilling its mission of training pastors who can satisfy the requirements and expectations of the churches it has determined to serve.

__________________
Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Actually, if you go back and read my opening comments here you’ll see that I was not speaking against WTS per se. WTS was just the instance to illustrate the problem with the class.

I do not expect any seminary to act independently of the courts of the church in determining the fate of their faculty or staff. Any seminary that does is, IMO, fundamentally at odds with the only divinely-instituted body for making such a call.

Again, I do not expect any seminary that is training man in the Reformed faith to not respect the oversight role of the presbytery for its officers. WTS does not train independent, non-confessional men for pastoral roles. It trains men who are expected to live and work within a connectional ecclesiastical sphere. It trains students who are expected to respect church courts in the definition of what it means to be confessional. I expect the teacher to play by the same rules.

In this particular case, my sincere hope is that the WTS committee that has been tasked with determining the appropriate process wrt Dr. Enns will come back and say that Dr. Enns confessional standing ought to be decided by his presbytery and that we, the seminary, will respect the will of the church.

But I suspect that you will feel the spirit of the PCUSA makes that unwise if not impossible.

Like I was saying above …

BTW, I have yet to see anyone tackle this question: who gave Machen the right to start WTS? Or is that question akin to asking who gave Dave Thomas the right to start Wendy’s?

I agree.

It is fundamentally a question of whether a private institution can govern its own employment practices. WTS is not making an ecclesial judgment and is not exercising the power of the keys in church discipline. WTS is exercising its own discretion to determine whether WTS should continue to spend its money to employee this man. The Board has a fiduciary obligation to the institution to exercise its discretion and act as a good steward of its limited resources. If the Board believes that Enns is no longer the best employee, the Board should get rid of him rather than keep spending money on a person that does not advance the institution's goals as well as other men could.

However, we're not discussing whether the man can make a decent batch of fries. So it doesn’t sound like any regular employment situation. The man is being judged, and his future employability decided, either directly or indirectly by his confessional credentials. In my Reformed circles, confessionality, or lack thereof, is the concern of the Church, not the parachurch.

If Wendy’s (a private institution) made adherence to the Reformed confessions a term of employment, folks would wake up and take notice. Folks would (righty) question whether Wendy’s management has both the right and ability to make such a call.

But, we don’t seem to notice when it is (private institution) WTS.

BTW, having spouted off on this for the last several days, I do realize that WTS has not said how it will decide whether or not to retain Dr. Enns. There is still hope that it will make the right call on process as well as outcome. We also do not know what if any action his presbytery will take. Both are items for prayer.

I have all of the answers, and that being true, I also know all of the problems.

Here's the problem: People aren't brought up to think critically. I wasn't, I had to learn it. I'm the bane of any professor's existence because I dismantle what they say in order to determine just what exactly they're trying to get me to believe. No one else does this that I know. I just get funny looks when I break down what someone said into presuppositions and worldview assertions.

This sounds like one problem that was mentioned in an earlier post. Professors would espouse damning heresey, leaving students wondering why in the world they should believe in Christ, to which the professors made a weak emotional appeal to just believe anyway.

I know that's not THE problem, but it sounds like a problem. Please, bring your children up with discerning hearts and minds.

Something else that could be rectified in these seminaries is the nonfeasance that's going on. People supporting WTS because they're under the dillusion that it's still Machen's baby needs to stop. If it's full of heretical liberals and Scripture-haters, then they need to know that and adjust their donation accordingly. It reveals much that's on the hearts of these men when they all but lie to their benefactors in order to get them to donate money to an organization that no longer is what is was, by its own admission. You can't convince me that the faculty and administration of WTS PA is earnestly on the path to seek out truth and godliness when they're doing everything short of lying through their teeth to keep money flowing in so that they can continue to produce apostates.

That's my

__________________
Andrew DeShazo
Husband of Kathryn
Father of Phillip-Giles B. DeShazo
Deacon
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
As in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams.

I think it would be more correct to say that only the church can make ecclesial judgments about individuals. IN other words, only the church can determine whether an individual should be subject to ecclesial discipline (barred from the Lord's Supper, excommunicated, etc.). That monopoly power of the church does not prohibit others from making non-ecclesial judgments or evaluations. For example, if a suitor were to come to court a man's daughter, it would be right and proper for the father to inquire into the depth and understanding of the suitor's doctrine. The fact that the church is tasked with making ecclesial judgments does not rob the father of the right to evaluate the scope of the suitor's understanding of reformed doctrine.

Likewise, nothing prohibits an insitution from making similar evaluations. WTS has a limited amount of money and can employee only a limited number of people. It has a duty to employee only those people who best advance the institution's mission. Part of that inquiry involves ascertaining the person's understanding of relevant doctrines. If that area was closed off, then they would not be able to fulfill their fiduciary duty.

I agree with your premise of being willing to question. But these comments clearly show your unfamiliararity with what is going on at WTS.

I don't know whether this gave him the right, but it helps to remember that he'd gone through years of having the northern Presbyterian church telling him to abandon the independent mission board, and defrocking him for refusing.

Anyone want to take up the other issues of WTS-PA? Such as M.Divs for women?

__________________
JC - PCA - PA...homesick for SC
A we n' de Ya, ho; I mak sikker; Deus juvat

Indicabo tibi o homo quid sit bonum, et quid Dominus requirat a te: Utique facere iudicium, et diligere, misericordiam, et sollicitum ambulare cum Deo tuo. Michaeas 6:8

"Who says you can't go back, been all around the world and as a matter of fact. There's only one place left I want to go, who says you can't go home" Bon Jovi

Sometimes the OT can be a good place to ask questions like that. The OT church was run by Levites, but prophets could be from any tribe, like Daniel from Judah and so on. We have the example of the School of the Prophets spoken of in 2Kings 2 and other places that could serve as an approved pattern of a teaching institution under the authority of the church and at the same time independent.

So you could have an teaching institution independent of the church, but at the same time bound by rules of the church. For instance, a professor at a Bible college who taught heresey or was caught up in a serious sin would still be under the discipline of his church of membership, and on the positive side a local church could divert tithe money to that institution.

__________________
Tim Vaughan
Member, Redeemer Presbyterian, OPC,
Santa Maria
California

I'm sorry, but what's ANE?

Sure; what about it?

Ancient Near East

__________________
Davidius
Husband of Emily
Member of All Saints Anglican Church - Chapel Hill (AMiA / Anglican Church of North America)
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German and Classics

Thanks!