Zenas
Snow Miser
I'm an uncharitable type of guy. *shrug*
I have no patience with that type of non-chalant attitude with regard to Confessional Protestantism when one holds themselves out as a Confessional Protestant. Viewing church government as some sort of suggestion that you only need in certain settings doesn't fit well with me. He holds himself out to be a Presbyterian but... well, you read the statement. If the harshness offends you, I apologize, but I don't retract.
From said statement, I get that he wishes the rules were more flexible in dealing with a church his size. I do not see where you somehow read, something along the lines of, "everyone do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it."
I'm not out to "get" Tim Keller. I've gone to see him speak and felt he was quite solid at the time. My RUF campus minister was/is a big fan of him as well. I've heard he was a little less than TR and this seems to affirm more than that suspicion.
The issue is not the calling out of people whenever you believe they are wrong. The problem is the making every problem/issue/sin equal to the worst sin imaginable.
CT
When it's someone like Keller, a small drift away is something to make a big deal about. Apostacy and liberalism don't usually start with someone making the switch overnight, it's a slow process. When a big-time teacher like Keller starts to exhibit leaning the other way, I'm going to point it out loud and clear.
The tone I got from the statement is the BCO is restrictive of the type of church he wants to pastor, one that, from the tone of his interview, seems more "inclusive". His attitude toward Romanism is gut-wrenching as well, and adds to the suspicion that he is a pluralist of some sort. At the very least, I no longer think he is an orthodox Protestant due to his friendly attitude toward Romanism despite the glaring heresey present in their view of Justification.
Stephen's critique of the article is more telling, which quotes like this little gem:
This puts me in a position where I don’t want to defend just one kind of Christianity. I think I want to defend the Apostles Creed. And I want you, as a nonbeliever, to buy the Apostles’ Creed, and then after that figure out where you want to go. I really think I can do that. But, at the same time, I don’t believe I can possibly speak to a lot of these things without [doing so from] within my particularity. So I actually say that there are certain chapters in which I’m going to be speaking as a Protestant because there’s no way not to speak as a Protestant or a Catholic.
When Sproul writes an apologetic's book, it's from a Reformed Protestant view and he's unapologetic about it (no pun intended). I expect that, becase Sproul's goal is to defend Reformed Protestantism because contained therein is the Biblical view of justification by faith alone. The same with James White. James White is a Reformed Baptist, and his apologetics are going to be slanted that way. In either instance, both are arguing for justification by faith alone explicitly. They aren't sending out a call for folks to go join a Pentecostal or Unitarian church, and definately not to join a Roman Catholic church. They want them to have a biblical view of justification, i.e. by faith alone in Christ alone. Keller is obviously deviating from this and adopting a pluralistic approach to apologetics.
Time Keller appears to be admitting he wishes he could write a book without a Reformed Protestant skew, so that he can call unbelievers to any view of justification that has Christ mentioned somewhere therein. That's not kosher man. Not at all. If I'm a bad person for calling the kettle black, then I'm a bad person. I'll own that label.
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