...

__________________
Richard
CofE
UK

Two of my friends who like the FV wound up going Anglican, as the FV fits nicely within its doctrinal parameters.

To be honest, however, considering all the problems the CoE has within its ranks, the FV is fairly low on list. Might even be an improvement for some theologians in it, which is an unnerving thought.

__________________
Anne Ivy
Christ Chapel Bible Church
Fort Worth, Texas

Widowed mother of six, grandmother of eight.

The Ivy Vine (my blog)

The highlighted bit is damnable heresy. Just because they say they do not believe in merit does not mean that they do not believe in merit. This is clearly implying that good works are of the essence of faith - not the fruit of faith. On this basis, we are ultimately saved by our works of covenantal obedience, and not by the imputation of Christ's active obedience.

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

Anything which teaches damnable heresy - under the pretext of being Reformed - is most certainly a grave danger. At least you definitely know the Liberals are not orthodox. These guys are more slippery.

You know, the FV really hasn't caught on in Baptist circles that I can tell. Maybe I'm just not looking in the "right" areas. Obviously it's a Presbyterian thing but I'm sure it has legs and is only a time before it makes it's way to some Reformed Baptist Churches. Does anyone know whether that's already happened?

__________________
Bill Brown
Elder
Reformed Baptist
Maryland

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The FV may be "slippery" but it leads to error rather than necessarily being error in itself. Most of the confusion comes from a refusal of the FV to debate on confessional terms, not due to actual heresy itself.

I would agree with Gryphonette that if the C of E went FV it would be a move in the right direction. The majority of the C of E do not even believe in biblical authority.

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Mike
London City Presbyterian Church
London
England

"Surely, we wish to be orthodox, but we must first learn what real orthodoxy is. Surely, we wish to be progressive, but we must first have a basis to progress from."

Given FV's major emphasis on paedobaptism and covenant theology, it is doubtful you will see many FVers in Baptist churches. Despite the boogeymen erected on Reformed blogs, it really is only a tiny subset of the Reformed church.

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

Confused, but still believe the Bible, many seem to be.

__________________

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

So you feel it's an entirely different gospel, then?

You might see former baptists go from credo immediately to FV...but I don't think there's much chance of it spilling into Baptist circles.

One of my best friends went from baptist to paedo...based partly on discussions I had with him...but mostly from the writings of FV (James Jordan especially)...and now he's Roman Catholic.

Yeah, paedobaptism would be a big step for any baptist.

Are his initals "J.B."

I think you need to clarify what you mean by stating that the FV is a "boogeyman".

It is certainly more than a "fear" that men and women in NAPARC congregations have been led astray by the error, not the least of which were personal friends of mine.

If, by the statement you only intend to note that it is relatively small group of people then that is generally accurate but it still doesn't qualify as a boogeyman when the error still infests and harms real life people in Reformed Churches that have taken great pains to investigate and condemn the error.

__________________
Rich
PCA, Northern VA
Student, New Geneva Theological Seminary

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If there are genuine dangers then I would not want to deny them. However, I have seen some people list FV as the number one threat to Christian faith today.

Well, we shouldn't be party to being extreme in either direction. Just because it is an overstatement to state that it is the biggest threat to Christianity does not imply the only alternative is that it is merely a "boogeyman".

Yep.

In some denominations or churches, the FV is simply not a problem, but there might be a significant attack on the veracity of Scripture, or the divinity of Christ, or His physical resurrection, or the nature of the atonement ("cosmic child abuse"?).

If a denomination's been quite sound but an error like the FV comes sidling in, then by all means, go after it with gusto. Whup it good before it can take root.

But were I in the ECUSA I wouldn't be especially concerned about the FV....I'd worry about that lunatic woman running the show, and her clear rejection of Christ as the sole means of salvation.

Battle the tiger actually in YOUR cage, not the tiger in the cage three over.

And the "YOUR" isn't Rich or anyone in particular. The whole thing was meant as a general reflection.

Rereading it, I fear it comes across as directed at Rich, and it's not.

The problem is that the "boogeyman" is running loose in our "tiny subset", which makes it a big deal.

__________________
~Wayne Wylie~
Member, Mid Cities Presbyterian Church (OPC)
Ruling Elder
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.

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If one believes that view of justification, then they believe another gospel.

I read their writings and see your point. Otoh, I have friends in their camp who I think don't get it the way it's taught, and probably are true believers. So I exercise charity.

Sorta like I view Dispensationalism as heresy, but I was in dispensational churches my first 8 years as a believer, 1969-77, before I discovered the Reformed Faith and the PCA, and it was just all over my head. Once I "got it," I quickly left it. I believe there are sincere believers still in it, who still don't get it, but believe what the Holy Spirit has put in their hearts, rather than what C.I. Scofield's heretical footnotes try to teach them.

It's just another example of the wheat and the tares, growing side by side until the final reaping -- imho.

Haig, I appreciate your post. Just because a teaching is heretical doesn't mean those who claim it are heretics. The layers are many and we can never judge the heart.

I suppose some FV people would claim not to hold the above mentioned view of justification.

I visited Auburn Avenue last night (in Monroe on business) and I have to ask- Can someone please explain to me how the weight of the Federal Vision took off and caught the Reformed world by storm? I counted 100 people there last night. How does this size of a church have so much influence? Curious.

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Gage Browning (Layman)
Grace Community Presbyterian Church
PCA Fort Worth, Texas

Echoing some of the posts already, I would say the Federal Vision took off and caught the Reformed world wide web by storm. It is a General Assembly issue and mainly survives within the laity on blogs and message boards.

__________________
Christopher Reeder
Husband to Kara, Father to Abigail (8), Caleb (7), Grace (5 1/2), Zoë (4), Elijah (2), Hannah (1), and Mary (due February 2010)

Member: Pilgrim Presbyterian Church (OPC), Raleigh, NC

Our understanding orthodoxy is in the reality of how we have come to understand who Christ is, what the churchs purpose is, and how we are to treat one another. How we come to understand these truths is by the words we accept as defining that truth. So that wisdom is being able to make every word that we speak as being the evidence of what we love the most, and is true of our inner character. So that our words effect the purpose we are determined to live out in the presence of those who we are worshiping with.

Our words expose our failures in many ways. They expose our failures in what we consider is the most important quality in how we view the world, our understanding of what is a spiritual illumination as opposed to what comes from our own minds, so that what we say tells others what we love in order for us to fulfill our part in being connect to one another in the body. Our words are the only true experience of having an understanding of our covenant faithfulness with one another. What we say either destroys that connection or brings unity in the result of faithfully chosen words as an evidence of how we love God and how we love one another. Every word must be true as an evidence of our love of the truth. Thats why our words are measure by the wisdom we have, and that wisdom is from a reverence for God. So that wisdom is saying what we think about God, or thinking thoughts after God.

So that we are required to measure each word because we know that it exposes the reality of our love for unity in the community of the saints, how we are required to view one another as well as how we know who God is. Our words can destroy that unity, by creating a divided reality in each expression of truth. James says a double minded man is unstable in all he does. Cause a double minded man shows what he loves by what he says. And every word that comes from his lips effects the reality of what he believes about the loves and hates of everyone around him.

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Tom
New Life PCA
Florida
He means that no part of our life is to be unoccupied, and to afford room, as it were, for the wish to enjoy some other object, but that whatever else may suggest itself to us as an object worthy of love is to be borne into the same channel in which the whole current of our affections flows. Augustine

While the FV doesn't have the same effect, there is significant penetration of the NPP (New Perspectives on Paul) into some Baptist ranks, even the Reformed Baptist camp. All the more reason to strive as pastors (whatever our affliation) to encourage Berean sensisbilities in our congregations for their profit, His glory and the protection of His church.

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~Pastor Chris Powell~
Covenant Baptist Church, Toronto
Church Website: www.covenantbaptistchurch.com
Team Blog:www.ardentcries.com

Tom,

I seem to be a bit short in comprehension skills this morning (esp. since it's Monday). Would you care to elucidate your meaning in the context of this discussion?

Cheers,

Adam

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Adam B., Wine Country, California, PCA

"I fear not to hold with Junius, de Politia Mosis cap. 6, that he who was punishable by death under that Judicial law, is punishable by death still; and he who was not punished by death then, is not to be punished by death now."

I am going to move on here,
I believe in justification by faith alone. We are declared righteous in the court of heaven when we are justified. Since our sins were imputed to Christ account, and not only our sins, but the guilt and the punishment of our sins as well. Christ righteousness was imputed to our account. So that we stand as completely righteous by faith alone and not by our works.

Our good works are not able to be acceptable to Gods standard of righteousness. First because we are corrupted in all of our parts. Gods standard of righteousness is perfection. Since we are corrupted the only good act we can do is the act Christ has done on our behalf. Our part of the work is corrupted. In this way we reckon ourselves as wicked in order to have an understanding of the truth of our righteousness being acceptable to God by faith. This reckoning is essential for us to have an acceptable trust in the cause of our goodness only coming from Him.

Now , this is very important in the application to ones experiencing a trust that is essential in understanding our veiw of God and ourselves in lite of thinking in the indicative. That is how we define who we are in the way we understand liberty of the will. Since we do not live in a world of having a righteousness by the amount of resistence we can produce in keeping us from sinning. For every effect there is a cause. Since to will is the mind being pleased with one thing over another. Because the will causing the good choice has no reason to exist, for to will is to choose one thing over another. How can a will cause a will to choose? If the will is the cause of the choice then each choice is the cause of the next choice. So that if we go back to the first choice, then there is no cause. And if we define liberty of the will as existing between two equal objects without any inclination to one or the other, that is no will at all.

So we define liberty as the will having a cause to choose. Which brings me back to thinking in the indicative. There is no violation of a mans choosing by having a causal desire as being necessary for him choosing with complete liberty. There is no loss of liberty in being declared righteous as the cause of a man being pleased with that good object. In fact the more desire that springs from an understanding of doctrine of justification by faith apart from works is the cause of a man growing in sanctification.

I'm trying really hard to understand this. The last sentence makes sense but I'm trying to connect it with your previous paragraphs. Sorry...

__________________
Daniel Franzen
Church Creek Presbyterian (PCA)
Charleston, SC

Ditto!


But, I do understand and appreciate what you said about justification!

Cheers,

A possible danger that could come into play with this teaching is that from what I understand Doug Wilson is very popular with homeschooling parents,and is often requested as a conference speaker.
I have been told that if you did not know of this controversy you would not know he has been involved with it, from his speaking on educational issues.
If you are going down a wrong path,it seems it would be hard to seperate truth from error consistently without the error "bleeding over "into your other topics

__________________
Anthony D'Arienzo
Sunday School Teacher
Hope Reformed Baptist Church:
Medford, N.Y.

Yeah, it's a shame that the CREC is at the forefront of the revolution in Christian education.

__________________
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

Some truly are legends in their own minds.

It is, in fact, "too bad" that otherwise well educated children have not been educated in the most important truth of all: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus went to the same synagogue schools as all the other kids in his neighborhood did. One of the seedbeds of the FV error was an imbalanced understanding of what parents are about in the training of their covenant children: especially a desire to have a Covenantal definition that completely obscures the distinction between the visible and invisible Church.

Indeed. Last year I guest lectured to group of Baptist polity students at Fuller. We were discussing ordination. When asked how they felt about some of the controversies of the day (e.g., emergent church, NPP, annihilationism, etc.), several of them gave the "wrong" answer on all of the above, including the NPP!!!

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

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Iconoclast,

if you are able to obtain it, Doug Wilson has written a book called "The Paideia of God".

If you are familiar with Nominalism, you will find it clearly portrayed in this book. There is an essay on the "Great Logic Hoax" in which you will discover, among other essays in this book, that Wilson is a mathematical nominalist. In other words, he doesn't believe in the "idea of one"; he only believes in gravel roads and apples on tables that can be counted.

This shows up elsewhere (can you say FV?) when he talks about the "historical church" but doesn't like the idea of the "invisible church." Basically, he seems to dislike the idea of Realism, though (as a paradox-ist) he would affirm and deny Realism in the same breath.

By nominalism, not only has his philosophy of math been sunk, but his ecclesiology to boot. Also, Classicism is not Christian. To admire and train children in paganism is not countenanced by Scripture, no matter how many people did it who were "Reformed."

Cheers,

Adam