In today’s episode of Office Hours, W. Robert Godfrey, President and Professor of Church History at Westminster Seminary California and David VanDrunen, Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics talk about the upcoming WSC Faculty Conference, “Christ, Kingdom, and Culture” to be held January 15-16, 2010 on the campus of WSC. In the interview, Dr Godfrey and Dr VanDrunen talk about what culture is, what the Kingdom of God is, how Reformed people such as Abraham Kuyper have talked them, and how Christ exercises his lordship in every area of life.
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Thanks for listening.
Enjoyable, insightful discussion by some of my favorite Christian minds. Thanks (even if it’s main purpose was to inform the Reformed community about the upcoming conference). There was one little bit that continues to puzzle me. When President Godfrey uses the phrase “loser”, his choice of tone and phrasing seem to suggest to me something unChristian. The winner/loser distinction invoked by him is supposed to be one indicative of material benefits or the lack thereof?
Or does Godfrey intend a connotation that more about the success of relationships? More along the lines of popular/unpopular and/or likeable/unlikeable? That would be more Christian and it could have been what he was conveying in his invocation of the term “loser.”
Anon,
Go back and listen more carefully to what Bob said. He wasn’t calling anyone “a loser.” He was describing a pervasive American attitude and trying to explain why American evangelicals, who would recoil at much of what Kuyper actually confessed, are so attracted to his approach to Christ and culture.
Of course, he wasn’t calling anyone specifically a loser. Then again, he wasn’t condemning this attitude either. It may well have been no more than an excellent bit of effective academic rhetoric in tersely conveying this attitude.
I listened to it last night — I certainly did not think Dr. Godfrey was calling anyone a loser.
Dr. Clark, if you’re reading this, I have one question about the book “The Law is Not of Faith.” Where would the WCF be on the reformed taxonomy chart in the book?
Thank you,
jim
Interesting question, but isn’t the taxonomy an attempt to delineate the different views of men who *all* subscribed (or could have subscribed) to a more general confessional formulation (i.e., that in the WCF)? So it would seem that the WCF formulation would be acceptable to men across the continuum.
Jim,
I flipped through the book after I read this. Which article has the taxonomy chart (page number would be even better)?
JPB,
I’m not sure. I don’t have the book in front of me. You should get the book for yourself and check it out. As I recall Brent has a fairly complicated taxonomy.
I don’t have it with me at the moment. I think it is chapter 3.
jim