Comments on adrianwarnock.com: Penal Substitutionary Atonement - Precious Gospel ...

"To anyone who thinks that pieces of paper guarant...

2007-07-03T13:50:00.000+01:00

"To anyone who thinks that pieces of paper guarantee doctrinal unity and integrity, I would simply ask them to go and read the 39 Articles of the Church of England. As great a document as that is, has it guaranteed that every member of the Anglican Movement worldwide has doctrinal unity? Of course not!"

The 39 Articles were written in 1562. Unless you can see what Newfrontiers will be like in 400 years time, I don't think you can use the failure of the 39 Articles to discredit having a written statement of faith.

There are plenty of historical examples of groups abandoning their statements of faith - either through neglect of it, or openly getting rid of it. However, what historical examples can you point to of groups that have not had statements of faith sticking to their beliefs over a long period of time?

How do you decide on the order of priority of different topics for unity? Terry Virgo suggests that baptism of believers by immersion, and belief in apostles existing today are more important than being reformed. Why this order of priority? Would a church leader who became convinced of infant baptism have to leave Newfrontiers?

I worry that those who don't have a written statement of faith will inevitably act as if they did. Some issues will be seen as essential to unity, and some as secondary, where disagreement is allowed. But if the essentials are not clearly set out, there may be less opportunity to think through whether the right issues are being considered to be essential.

Not setting out explicitly what are the main priorities may lead to lesser issues being more key to unity than more important issues.

In Phil Johnson's critique of the fundamentalist movement (.pdf) he thinks one of its weaknesses was a lack of doctrinal clarity that led to relatively minor issues being given higher priority than truly essential doctrines. And that is in a movement that set out to defend specific doctrines.

I don't think many people who think Statements of Faith are useful would suggest that they removed the need for relationship.

I am not at all surprised, for example, that as ex...

2007-07-02T22:49:00.000+01:00

I am not at all surprised, for example, that as explained by Mark Dever, despite a willingness to be very open to Arminians, the Together For The Gospel friends have found themselves, as their strong relational ties formed, to all be Reformed.

Yes, I notice those who are getting most upset about Chalke and the atonement seem to be mostly, or all, Reformed. You guys write all these posts and book about how "the gospel" and the "bible" is under attack, as if your tradition was The Truth... when really the discussion about the atonement simply highlights the reality that not all Evangelicals are Reformed and not all Evangelicals think the bible teaches the contents of the Reformed Creeds. Not everyone in the world is Reformed, and you don't have a monopoly on biblical exegesis, so get over it.

Imagine if you got all the Reformed people in the world to announce "we believe the bible teaches the truths contained in the Westminster confession" and write books about it. You wouldn't expect everyone else to instantly convert to your view and say "how right you are", would you? Of course you guys believe those things, you're Reformed. Similarly, other denominations have their own views, which they in turn believe are biblical. Some of us think your tradition's views are totally unbiblical and a complete distortion of the gospel.

You Reformed guys today remind me of the Roman Catholics at the time of the Reformation, standing up for your tradition and trying to silence anyone else who reads the bible for themselves and comes to conclusions not in conformance with your creeds. Or like the Jews... zealous for the traditions of your ancestors but not according to knowledge. I am always disappointed by the lack of quality of biblical exegesis, scholarship, and logic whenever I read things produced by people from the Reformed tradition. But what you guys lack in reasoning you seem to make up for with firm assertions that your views are Biblical and The Gospel, and that anyone else's are not.