The Struggle Against the FV on the Ground in the PCA (Updated)

by R. Scott Clark on February 4, 2010 | 30 Comments

The 2007 GA decision against the FV was just the first phase of the struggle. It was the air campaign but wars are won on the ground and the ground war over the Federal Vision seems to be heating up. Lane Keister at Greenbaggins has an update regarding the complaint that the Standing Judicial Commission of the PCA is “stacked” against the Federal Vision.

Here’s part 2.

Part 3.

Part 4.

Part 5

Part 6

Thanks to PCA TE for this “how to” guide to PCA polity for those who are just tying up the laces of their boots.

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30 comments

  3. Heh. When a hundreds of ministers are defrocked or banished and one of their leaders beheaded, I’d say the Synod was stacked. Right or wrong. Oh wait. That whole beheading thing – I’m guessing R2K folks wouldn’t agree with that. So much for confessional subscription.

  6. Dr. Clark:

    Working my way through the URL’s at the WTS/C website on NPP/FV. A few appear to be broken or the pages removed. But many URL’s are operational, useful, and helpful. Thankful for your site as a resource. It’s a strategic command post.

    And yes, with coordinated air and naval attacks, “wars on the ground” by the “boots” are the ones that “take, hold and occupy territory.” It’s also the messiest. It sees the blood, bodies, and varied body parts here and there. It smells the odours of charred and dead bodies, men, women and sometimes children. It’s not the clinically clean air strike with the pilot going “vertical” after a run on a target. It’s not the naval strikes from sub- and surface assets. Rather, it’s face-to-face, block-by-block, city-by-city, and region-by-region. Regrettably, it’s often those “boots” who bear the scars in their minds and souls, from sights, smells, and “combat nerves.” Those are the “ground pounders” that win the wars.

    Thanks for the command post, a most useful resource.

      • No problem, understand. Even with the few problem URL’s, I got an eyeful and earful from what’s already posted. Dr. Venema’s review is pretty serious stuff as posted at http://www.midamerica.edu/pubs/errors.pdf. The MVP inquiry as well.

        But, on NPP/Dunn/Wright, Dr. Trueman’s assessment at Tyndale Fellowship, Cambridge, 2000, was a combined “air and naval” attack with “timed ordnance on target.”

        Three (3) salvoes from Dr. Trueman, cited below, decked me:

        “What we have in Dunn and Wright is a critique of Luther which proceeds without reference to primary sources or even to the best secondary material. At the hands of the New Perspective, Luther appears to be the victim not of devastating scholarly critique but of negative sound-bites and of tabloid headlines. He is a man who has lost the PR war through misleading publicity — indeed, perhaps not so much sinned against as spinned against.”

        “To reject the entire tradition on the basis of an apparent bibliography that would look less than thin at the end of an undergraduate assignment is a move that can only be described as one of breath taking arrogance and awesome irresponsibility. Reject Luther and the tradition if you wish; but first make sure you know what it is that you are rejecting. And that requires studying primary texts in historical context.”

        “It is on the basis of their consistent and careful application of these procedures that these scholars ask me to trust them when they tell me that the whole of Christian tradition is basically wrongheaded over salvation, that the Reformers were more guilty than most in the perversion of the gospel, and that I should trust them as the only people since Paul to have understood what the gospel is all about. Well, in those areas of their writings where I am competent to judge their application of historical procedure, I find them sadly deficient.”

    • Yes, Kevin, the OPC, the PCA, the URCs, Mid-America Reformed Seminary, GPTS, and WSC are all chastened by this stunning rebuke. It’s evident to all rational men that this appointment is a clarion affirmation of everything Dr Leithart has said about covenant, baptism, justification etc. I’m sure we at WSC will be holding special services and a day of mourning.

  9. Gee, you know, I’d jump on your bandwagon but then you’d accuse me of argumentum ad populum.

  10. Kevin,

    Whatever happened to your blog? And your other blog? It seems like Elder Hoss ceased to exist after they petered out of existence…like one of those “agents” from the Matrix…

    • Kevin, I see we can add perpetual victim to your pathology profile—which is ironic considering the bloodstains on your hands from your years of online raging.

  12. Kevin:

    I wouldn’t celebrate Dr. Leithart’s appointment to the ARIHE as some kind of vindication of the Federal Vision generally or Dr. Leithart particularly. The Association’s membership is rather broad embracing schools that little or no interest in being Reformed in any shape or fashion: Calvin College & King’s University to name a few.

    The question about Dr. Leithart for the confessional Reformed folks is not: is he a recognized scholar or should he be a lecturing professor, but is he Reformed in his theology? The jury is still out on the latter.

  13. Ron: yawn.

    Daniel,

    It’s not something I’m celebrating. I don’t count the appointment by ARIHE as an endorsement but simply an obvious sign that Reformed confessionalism is not quite so narrow as the Radical Two Kingdom Crowd would have us believe (even while maintaining their own exceptions to the historic confessions, state involvement in disciplinary matters being one obvious departure). The river is much deeper and wider then certain folks would like to admit and that’s why this heresy hunting is a bit out of order.

    • Mr. Johnson,

      I don’t believe that there are any as you call them two kingdom proponents that advocate state involvement in disciplinary matters. Please name one for I don’t think such a scholar exits.

  14. Kevin:

    I think the river of Reformed theology & history is deep and wide too but it still excludes women’s ordination and liberal theology both of which are espoused by many of the institutions that make up the umbrella organization which has appointed Dr. Leithart. And, thankfully, it appears that the same river is on the path of excluding the Federal Vision and its proponents as well.

  15. Daniel,

    Time will tell where the river runs. But suffice it to say that all the remaining confessional Reformed denominations in America barely make up a tributary yet they all seem to speak as if they were the entire river. That’s just not the case.

    To add insult to injury, Radical Two Kingdom proponents are particularly guilty of this and as such shouldn’t be heard quite so loudly. It’s like pretending Mighty Mouse is Superman.

    • Mr. Johnson,

      Who exactly are these Two Kingdom proponents? Can you list off a few of them so that your position isn’t quite so vague?

  16. Good one, Ron.

    I had wanted to be the first to post here … about the neither nor there crowd, i.e. the FVs. And yes was thinking of Kevin D Johnson too. Neither catholic nor Reformed.

    • Kevin is the self-appointed screed-person for promoting “true Reformed catholicity” by detaching the essence of Reformed theology from the historic Reformed confessions and catechisms, and by alienating everyone equally for not agreeing with the latest pendulum-swing in his personal views. His “Reformed Catholicism” blog fell apart when his confederates abandoned him to pursue other equally dead-end blog projects, and his subsequent “Prophezei” blog became a model of self-absorbed irrelevance before it mercifully evaporated from the blogosphere.

  18. Give it up, ye FV folks. No matter how you try this or that way, you’re way off being confessional, not to mention catholic. Of course, there is common ground with the Roman Church, half-way I must say. Because forensic justification combined with justification by works has NEVER been propagated in the history of the church before until now. Sorry to have to this all over again: You are a bunch of innovators.

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