Their view regarding election really is not biblical, as God seems to play games with certain sinners in their perspective.
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Federal Vision Spreading To Baptists? James White & Andrew Sandlin
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Just for some good reference, Pastor Lane has blogged on this issue and was very helpful to me. He also interacts with DW and others in the comment sections. It is a learning experience.
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/an-introduction-to-the-paedo-communion-debate/
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/church-history-and-paedo-communion/
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/the-reformed-confessions-and-paedocommunion/
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/the-old-testament-evidence-concerning-paedo-communion/
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/the-key-passage-in-the-paedo-communion-debate/
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/an-introduction-to-the-paedo-communion-debate/
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/church-history-and-paedo-communion/
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/the-reformed-confessions-and-paedocommunion/
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/the-old-testament-evidence-concerning-paedo-communion/
https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/the-key-passage-in-the-paedo-communion-debate/
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
The excellent post by @brandonadams further convinces me that it is our duty to work day and night until the pernicious influence of mono-covenantalism is expelled forever from all Reformed circles. To paraphrase Tony Blair, we must be tough on the Federal Vision; tough on the causes of the Federal Vision.
It is not enough to disagree with the FVers on justification if we are not pulling up the whole erroneous superstructure by the roots. Doing so will also require us to reaffirm the position of the Westminster Standards, in opposition to certain forms of conditional covenantalism, that the covenant of grace is made with Christ and the elect in him. The notion that more than the elect are properly in the covenant of grace also seems to feed into certain FV ideas.
It is not enough to disagree with the FVers on justification if we are not pulling up the whole erroneous superstructure by the roots. Doing so will also require us to reaffirm the position of the Westminster Standards, in opposition to certain forms of conditional covenantalism, that the covenant of grace is made with Christ and the elect in him. The notion that more than the elect are properly in the covenant of grace also seems to feed into certain FV ideas.
Grant
Puritan Board Graduate
Does FV reject a CoW?
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Almost to a man. DW will try to get around it with pithy sayings but they all deny a works-principle.
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
Yes, it is mono-covenantal in nature. The FV got off the ground owing to the toleration of this error in all too many conservative Reformed circles.
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
Doug Wilson overtly asserts mono-covenantalism in his book, Federal Husband.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
The classic FV essay on it is Jordan's "Merit or Maturity." Yeah, yeah I know. Not all FV. But yeah, it's the FV benchmark.
Yes. The Adamic Covenant to them is considered a part of the Covenant of Grace. They confuse the facts that God's reward for obedience is gracious and that his condescension is gracious as being the Covenant of Grace, as I understand them. That is not what the Covenant of Grace is in relationship to the Adamic Covenant.
I love Bavinck.
https://rpcnacovenanter.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/in-the-covenant-of-grace/
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Do they seem to hold to done form of Catholic light salvation theology as NPP does, at least as held by NT Wright?
Someone else will have to answer that for you. I am not knowledgeable on what Catholic Light Salvation Theology is. I am not even acquainted with the terminology.
Catholics hold that one can never be sure if saved, as we need to assist God enough to merit final salvation, which to me seems a lot like the final vindication Wright and FV teach.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Yeah but you could just as easily accuse them of having x (insert other guy) light theology. They are pure Arminians, not Catholics. Catholics believe that grace is a semi-substance and we lose it by mortal and venial sin. For all of FV's faults, they don't believe that.
NT Wright holds to one not sure of salvation until final judgment, would they agree with that?
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Perhaps. That doesn't make them Roman Catholic, though. That's the fallacy of the undistributed middle premise.
And many hard-core Predestinarian New England Puritans also held that we really couldn't (at least for many) be sure of our salvation until the final judgment.
Abraham Kuyper's descendants believed something similar.
Calvinists of all people should have a firm conviction on eternal life in Christ.
arapahoepark
Puritan Board Professor
Yes. The godfather of the FV, Shepherd, wrote a book a decade ago outlining his own views. All covenants are conditional and Christ becomes merely an example. The FV all follow that model.
Jesus to them would then be the example how we should obey God then? Example, but not our sin substitute ?
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SeanPatrickCornell
Puritan Board Junior
Not "Catholic Light Salvation Theology" but rather "Catholic light" salvation theology.
"Catholic light" in the sense of "Bud Light", "Coors Light", etc. "A milder (lighter) version of xxxxxx".
Those monastery breweries are overrated.
SeanPatrickCornell
Puritan Board Junior
Here's a perspective.
https://calvinistinternational.com/...-of-the-federal-vision-after-all-these-years/
https://calvinistinternational.com/...-of-the-federal-vision-after-all-these-years/
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Wedgeworth's statements need to be qualified. If all Clark said is that this conference was playing "Seven Degrees of False Teacher Doug Wilson," then that is a fallacy. But what Clark pointed out is that Wilson still holds to everything he wrote in the Joint FV Statement. That is damning enough.
As to FV specifics today, I grant that "they've" moved on. But---do they still hold to the Joint FV Statement? That's what it comes down to.
Clark-Tillian
Puritan Board Freshman
Too bad the PB doesn't have an "hysterically funny" button.
I am still trying to see how tha tFV could make a go into RB churches, since we would stress so much that its faith not water baptism that seals and signs us as Christians into the NC now.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Both sides want to fight the Culture War and Baptists are now enlisting False Teachers like Wilson. Yeah, you're theology is (mostly) good but that won't last long with Wilson in the ranks.
This do called cultural war makes me cringe, as it makes Baptists at times line up with Catholic apologists to fight that war!
Pilgrim
Puritanboard Commissioner
That's a good question. And if Baptists take it to its logical conclusion, it ends up with something like Landmarkism (or at least what gets denounced as that today) since Presbyterians and others don't have valid baptism and by that standard Presbyterian churches aren't true churches. Either that, or you have to say that a proper view and practice of the sacraments ultimately isn't a mark of the church--maybe esse vs bene esse.
This may be one factor why DW and at least the milder forms of FV sort of get a shrug of the shoulders from some. Some of the "old time" Baptists said the real issue with pedobaptism is actually soteriology rather than being simply a question of ecclesiology. (Some of that goes back to the days when Presbyterians didn't require a public profession of faith to become communicant members but a man could come to the table if he is "sober and ready.") But viewing one's "covenant children" as regenerate (even in a judgment of charity) is a difference of degree from FV and not one of kind to a lot of Baptists. Plus, most of the people (with the possible exception of Founders, who I haven't seen mentioned yet and who are also partnering with Apologia or Moscow or both in the production of their "cinedoc" if nothing else--I can't keep up) who are all for the DW/Apologia partnership either oppose bicovenantalism or don't really know what it is.
So questions about the marks of the church highlights all the more the problems in this case since Clark teaches that no Baptist church is a true church. I haven't been following it that closely but if he's the main one objecting, it's probably not going to be that effective. Some might argue that his ardent defense of Tullian Tchvidjian's antinomianism is evidence that he sees neo-nomianism under every rock.
I think a lot of people don't realize the extent to which Clark is viewed as maybe a little bit nicer version of John Robbins. Some of the people who don't like him may not know who John Robbins was, but the reaction is similar: "Oh, what's he on about now? That guy thinks that everyone who doesn't cross the i's and dot the t's exactly the same way he does is a heretic."
Plus, you've got Baptist theologians like Piper and Schreiner who apparently teach a form of final justification and it seems to me that they've never really gotten a whole lot of push back because of it. The main (only?) book that I know of that opposed it from a Calvinistic perspective is a slender volume by the late Steve Fernandez entitled "Free Justification" that doesn't appear to be on the publisher's website anymore. (Regardless, I think an early draft of that book, if not the final form, is available online from the church website.) Ironically, that book was endorsed (if memory serves) by John MacArthur who Clark et al accuse of not preaching a clear gospel at best.
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Pilgrim
Puritanboard Commissioner
When the PCA has never effectively dealt with the FV, even acquitting one of the worst proponents in Leithart a few years ago, (and one who had a long association with Moscow and who has worse views on the subject than Moscow) I don't know how realistic it is to expect Baptists to parse all of those differences when many view all Presbyterians except maybe for the explicit viper in covenant diaper types as practicing some form of baptismal regeneration. I'm not saying that Baptists should be indifferent to these matters, but am speaking of what one can realistically expect. (Speaking of diapers, some of the people coming of age now were probably still in diapers when the FV controversy was raging at its hottest. I'm glad Dr. Clark is reminding us of that history.)
I'm sure the calculation goes something like this:
Which is the clear and present danger today, A) Some dodgy ecclesiology--a little more consistent or extreme practice of what Reformed pedobaptism entails or B) Critical Theory, "Gay Christianity," and being told that you're immoral and a proponent of "rape culture" (and harming sex abuse survivors) if you say that David and Bathsheba was "merely" a case of adultery rather than rape. (Allegedly the PCA's denominational seminary spews out both A and B.)
If Calvinistic Southern Baptists are fine being in a denomination with Semi-Pelagians (and with having a statement of faith that seems to allow that view) so that they can get a 50% discount at the SBC seminaries, so that they can get funding for church planting, and so that they can support what they consider to be the greatest missionary sending enterprise of all time, then Doug Wilson and Jeff Durbin don't seem to be much of a stretch. That kind of purism* when it comes to ecclesiastical associations would necessitate them leaving the SBC immediately. (I know that not all involved are SBC, but a good many are as is often the case any time some controversy with Baptists comes up. And Founders (Tom Ascol) is just about as neck deep in involvement with Moscow and Apologia as White is, and that is one source of the push back against their forthcoming cinedoc against SJWism, which Moscow and/or Apologia apparently have a hand in producing. Ascol being associated with them is more of a surprise to me than White is. Years ago, White co-wrote a book on same-sex marriage with a CREC pastor.)
*I don't knock that kind of purism. I'm all for it. But I admittedly I tend to be so much of a purist that I rarely get anything done. To add a little more to my "cred", Back in my Presbyterian days, I was accused of being a "Lone Ranger" for hesitating to join a local OPC congregation after having left a congregation that had no formal membership. But the pastor of that congregation (the one who made the Lone Ranger statement) happened to be best friends at the time with Steve Wilkins and was a former student of Norman Shepherd's who defended Shepherd to the hilt. (This man was staunchly opposed to pedocommunion and Romanizing tendencies in worship, which seemed to have been a significant factor in holding him back from fully embracing FV.) Thankfully, he eventually abandoned that, including his friendship with Wilkins, but I wasn't sure how much of it was being a good churchman following the OPC report and how much of it was a thorough repudiation of the underlying theology of FV and Shepherdism. So I eventually joined that congregation in the midst of all of that after I saw that the public ministry was mostly Vanilla Westminsterian to borrow a phrase. If you want to call that compromise, I'll merely say that literally the only other choices were to pull an Arthur Pink or to drive 2-3 hours one way in an attempt to find a church that wasn't tainted with FV. The only other choices besides Rome and liberalism were Baptists who were into 40 Days of Purpose and/or who were stridently anti-Calvinist, far out charismatics, and a charismatic EPC congregation who had an elder who was promoting a Oneness Pentecostal ministry.
I'm sure the calculation goes something like this:
Which is the clear and present danger today, A) Some dodgy ecclesiology--a little more consistent or extreme practice of what Reformed pedobaptism entails or B) Critical Theory, "Gay Christianity," and being told that you're immoral and a proponent of "rape culture" (and harming sex abuse survivors) if you say that David and Bathsheba was "merely" a case of adultery rather than rape. (Allegedly the PCA's denominational seminary spews out both A and B.)
If Calvinistic Southern Baptists are fine being in a denomination with Semi-Pelagians (and with having a statement of faith that seems to allow that view) so that they can get a 50% discount at the SBC seminaries, so that they can get funding for church planting, and so that they can support what they consider to be the greatest missionary sending enterprise of all time, then Doug Wilson and Jeff Durbin don't seem to be much of a stretch. That kind of purism* when it comes to ecclesiastical associations would necessitate them leaving the SBC immediately. (I know that not all involved are SBC, but a good many are as is often the case any time some controversy with Baptists comes up. And Founders (Tom Ascol) is just about as neck deep in involvement with Moscow and Apologia as White is, and that is one source of the push back against their forthcoming cinedoc against SJWism, which Moscow and/or Apologia apparently have a hand in producing. Ascol being associated with them is more of a surprise to me than White is. Years ago, White co-wrote a book on same-sex marriage with a CREC pastor.)
*I don't knock that kind of purism. I'm all for it. But I admittedly I tend to be so much of a purist that I rarely get anything done. To add a little more to my "cred", Back in my Presbyterian days, I was accused of being a "Lone Ranger" for hesitating to join a local OPC congregation after having left a congregation that had no formal membership. But the pastor of that congregation (the one who made the Lone Ranger statement) happened to be best friends at the time with Steve Wilkins and was a former student of Norman Shepherd's who defended Shepherd to the hilt. (This man was staunchly opposed to pedocommunion and Romanizing tendencies in worship, which seemed to have been a significant factor in holding him back from fully embracing FV.) Thankfully, he eventually abandoned that, including his friendship with Wilkins, but I wasn't sure how much of it was being a good churchman following the OPC report and how much of it was a thorough repudiation of the underlying theology of FV and Shepherdism. So I eventually joined that congregation in the midst of all of that after I saw that the public ministry was mostly Vanilla Westminsterian to borrow a phrase. If you want to call that compromise, I'll merely say that literally the only other choices were to pull an Arthur Pink or to drive 2-3 hours one way in an attempt to find a church that wasn't tainted with FV. The only other choices besides Rome and liberalism were Baptists who were into 40 Days of Purpose and/or who were stridently anti-Calvinist, far out charismatics, and a charismatic EPC congregation who had an elder who was promoting a Oneness Pentecostal ministry.
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Pilgrim
Puritanboard Commissioner
When it comes to NAPARC, while we're at it, let's add OPC minister Mika Edmondson, his wife Christina (Calvin College Prof and one of the hosts of the infamous "Truth's Table" podcast) and RCUS member Bradly Mason to the mix. I'd say that's worse than Mark White, especially because they all have further reach if you assume that everything happens online these days. (And a whole lot of it does.)
If someone says, "Two thirds of those are laypeople, you can't do that!" (As far as I know, Mason is a layman.) Well, Misty Irons was a lay-person too and her writing on same-sex marriage and related issues was a big factor in her husband Lee Irons basically being forced out of the OPC, largely by theonomists.
Pilgrim
Puritanboard Commissioner
There is Daniel Fuller also, who was John Piper's mentor. If memory serves, he was attempting to reject both dispensationalism and covenantalism and ended up with something worse at least with regard to soteriology.
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