The Explicit Gospel, a review

THE EXPLICIT GOSPEL

By Matt Chandler and Jared Wilson

PRELUDE

Simply put, Matt Chandler and Jared Wilson see that Christendom has lost it's way in regards to the Gospel, and have assumed it. Their attack is on "moralistic therapeutic Deism" that is rampant in both mainline protestantism as well as within evangelicalism's back yard. The Explicit Gospel sets out to aim our sights back to the original gospel and to a right relationship with it.

STRENGTHS

This is more of a concession on my part, but I don't care for the writing style of Chandler and Wilson. This is, however, a strength because it will work for most who pick up this book. It is robust, blunt and often intentionally provocative. While I prefer works that are more subtle and indirect, The Explicit Gospel to it's credit deserve praise in this area.

Chandler and Wilson marshal some ample biblical evidence in support of their conclusions about the gospel of the ground and of the air. Though they don't quite delve into the meaty areas they bring up (this is a more popular work), their use of Scripture is generally solid and makes some great distinction between both ground and air.

This book strives for practicality and however it works or doesn't work, praise should be offered for attempting to take lofty themes and make them physically feasible.

They also quote N.T. Wright, which is a nice gesture across the aisle. I wish thy had done this more consistently, but like I said, praise is necessary when gestures are made.

WEAKNESSES

I took the chance to listen to Matt's sermons before reading this, and found them to be largely tangental. This is not necessarily a weakness in a sermon, but The Explicit Gospel seems to meander quite a bit as stories are brought up that only vaguely resemble the original thesis.

Chandler and Wilson also take a lot of potshots at those they disagree with, and often they overstep their bounds. In one section, they insinuate that Christians who believe in evolution are doing so to keep their jobs. One could reverse the claim that Chandler and Wilson are doing that same in defending "historic creationism" as I doubt most pastors would be allowed by their denominations and congregations to openly support evolution. This seems to be a short sight on the parts of Matt and Jared.

I do not think these potshots are merited in the manner of which they are asserted. This also happens with their treatment of egalitarians in an appendix, as cultural conditioning is assumed on their part, and no Scripture is cited to support their thoughts. Essentially, these tangents are polemic and seem far more reactionary than needed.

A final weakness, for me, is indeed something I mentioned in the strengths and that is the style of writing. If it works for others, great. However, much of the book read as an extended series of blog posts, and I do wonder if that would've been a better way to approach the issue, as it allows for the authors and readers to dialogue more on these weighty subjects.

CONCLUSION

Chandler and Wilson, despite their slip-ups in regards to their handling of the secondary issues held to be other Christians, deserve praise for writing a popular and passionate defense of their interpretation of the Gospel. In the grand scheme of things, it works quite well. It is concise and not without many wonderful positives. However, the noted flaws and tangents do detract quite a bit, and the rhetoric often devolves into unnecessary polemics. Worth your time (especially if you want a more Reformed view of the Gospel), but most certainly not perfect.

3 out of 5.

--Nick

Tim Keller, Sex and the Scandal of Religious Doubt

I've already read multiple posts on this topic, so I figure I'll toss my unsorted laundry into the dirty bathwater that is the blogosphere.

For those who don't know, Tim Keller (a pastor I generally enjoy) spoke at the Gospel Coalition Conference and, well, his comment below made the headlines, summarized beneath.

Keller illustrated the point by talking about a tactic, one that he admittedly said was almost too cruel to use, that an old college pastor associate of his used when catching up with college students who were home from school. He’d ask them to grab coffee with him to catch up on life. When he’d come to the state of their spiritual lives, they’d often hem and haw, talking about the difficulties and doubts now that they’d taken a little philosophy, or maybe a science class or two, and how it all started to shake the foundations. At that point, he’d look at them and ask one question, “So who have you been sleeping with?” Shocked, their faces would inevitably fall and say something along the lines of, “How did you know?” or a real conversation would ensue. Keller pointed out that it’s a pretty easy bet that when you have a kid coming home with questions about evolution or philosophy, or some such issue, the prior issue is a troubled conscience. Honestly, as a Millennial and college director myself, I’ve seen it with a number of my friends and students—the Bible unsurprisingly starts to become a lot more “doubtful” for some of them once they’d had sex.

For the source, here it is.

I admire Keller's honesty so I will be equally as honest. I come from a conservative background and didn't really learn much about the "art" of sex until Bill Clinton made his way into the glad rags at the grocery store. From there, it was much ado about something. Sex became a staunch preoccupation and I soon became an agnostic. However, the sequence is far removed from Keller's suggestion in that I was already on my way to deistic agnosticism when I was roughly 13. For doubt preceeded sexual exploration at that time.

The very interesting thing is that I'm still a virgin, having been with Allison for almost four years. To many people I know, this is odd. To others, I deserve a medal from the President. What I find interesting is the idea of doubt playing a key role in how we doubt or how we find difficulties in the text.

Within the past year, I've discovered textual criticism and found numerous discrepancies in the text of the New Testament. I've found that we don't have the original copies and the Gospels are difficult to harmonize. This happened after I'd made a point of staying faithful to Allison and keeping myself as faithful as possible. Though sex itself is on the mind, doubt and difficulties arose from simple and honest exploration of the text of the New Testament.

I didn't doubt traditional gender roles because I was sleeping around I didn't doubt the nature of eternal punishment because I was sleeping around (I wasn't in case that was abundantly clear).

I doubted them because I found them textually and exegetically inadequate. 

The same for the nature of eternal punishment and the same for varying theories of the atonement.

I doubted simply because I was as honest as I could be with the text. There are many of us who simply arrive at the text, shake our heads and change our minds. This allows nuance and perspective and doubt to spur us on.

Tim Keller is a generous individual, and I doubt that he expects this comment to be universally applicable. In fact, I would be surprised if he did. However, I do worry that his comment may spur on other theologians and pastors to exercise the same type of confrontation, and if this could lead to more problems.

Sex could certainly be a factor for some. But in my personal experience, it has little to do with it.

For those interested in a similar but more in-depth perspective, enjoy Micah's post.

--Nick

Relational Rapport and Egalitarian Musings

While I found Eric's post on TGC helpful, I found his follow-up to not only be insightful, but almost a mirror image of my relationship with Allison. I shall explain after showing some of Eric's thoughts.

Reitan:

My wife is strong. She is determined. She is stubborn. She reaches for and accomplishes what most others imagine to be impossible. I am married to this woman, and I am proud of her. Proud to have her as a partner in life. Grateful that she is the person who stands beside me in raising our children...

I'm not sure what they'd say about my marriage to a soon-to-be Ironman triathlete. She is physically stronger than me. She does things I cannot fathom. But I'm not jealous. I'm proud of her. My manhood isn't threatened, because I don't buy into such a stupid, banal, and destructively straight-jacketing vision of gender relationships as the one that the Wilsons endorse. If I did, our marriage would collapse. As it is, our marriage grows.  

The rest of the post is worth your time, but I wanted to personalize some of the data in my own life. Allison has struggled with some issues in her past, and has since become one of the strongest women I've ever known. I count it a blessing to have a partner who has never considered herself greater than me, nor has esteemed me to the point of inflating my ego.

The issue of complementarianism came up early in our relationship, after we had begun our first school semester apart. We met at Biola Allison's final year and decided to pursue one another during her final Summer before her fated trip to Westminster. I was raised complementarian, and had never experienced anything but. My paradigm was narrow and I wasn't prepared for actually experiencing anything outside of my narrow frame of reference.

The worst part about the gender discussion wasn't that it happened. Instead, it happened over the course of thirty or more phones calls, which involved missed communications, frequent silences and difficult to reconcile passages. I actually (for the first time at Biola) tried to formulate a biblical argument to counter-act Allison's. Like Eric's bride, Allison has a stubborn streak grounded not only in independence, but of a desire to learn and grow.

I honestly threw everything I had at her. I spent weeks attempting to show (bully?) her into accepting the plain meaning of I Timothy 2. However, I did realize something. I realized that if I had convinced her to change her mind and return to complementarianism, I wasn't actually interested in leading.

I never was. I never had any desire to lead her or have her submit to me. I had been reacting to a challenge by another to the foundations of my preconceived paradigm. Instead of listening and learning, I was reacting.

This challenged me, and really got me thinking. I had some sun spots in Scripture that I couldn't shade. Deborah was one, as well as Paul's treatise on marriage and relationship in I Corinthians 7 (which was a shock to me, I didn't even know those verses existed). I am the type of person that has a strong disdain for inconsistency, especially for myself. If I cannot have a harmonized (within reason) theology, this bothers me greatly.

So that is a brief summary about how I began to rethink my preconceived paradigm about women and relationship. During this time, I had never once considered the roots of sexism or mistreatment of women due to the fact that I hadn't experienced it. I mean, I had experienced some religious intolerance, but that had nothing to do with my gender.

I found that it is easier to dismiss sexism and the mistreatment of others if one is unwilling to reexamine their paradigm. It is easier to dismiss sexism if one is in the majority, as it is easier to ignore the plights of the minority. I realize that such things require time and the influence of the Holy Spirit, and I hope that both are working together for us. And, of course, I could be wrong.

So, I suppose I am fully grateful to have a woman who can kiss me and kick my ass. I had no anticipation as to submit to my girlfriend, and now that we are together as one, I couldn't imagine anything less. 

For Eric's thoughts, please click here.

--Nick

The Gospel Coalition and Circling the Wagons?

For the entire post and the subsequent response on TGC site, click HERE.

For Eric Reitan's provocative response to Wilson/s, click HERE.

For Scot McKnight's exhortation, click HERE.

For Daniel Kirk's musings, click HERE.

God bless. Still thinking.

--Nick

Kurt Willems, "If Rob Bell is a Universalist, then maybe I am"

I posted some material by Kurt here a while back. His post on Conditional Purgatory was pretty interesting. I love Kurt's love of thinking, even if I don't agree with everything he writes.

Kurt:

For the past couple of months I have been excited about the forthcoming release of Rob Bell’s latest book: Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

This will be a book where Bell takes on some important topics that need to be addressed in the larger evangelical community.  Unfortunately, a pious wing of conservative Christian faith, the neo-Reformers (often represented by folks like – John Piper (who I like theologically on a rare occasion), Kevin DeYoung, Mark Driscoll, and others – are hell-bent on caricaturing evangelicals that do not fit their mold.  Case in point, Rob Bell.

This crowd, for no justified reason, has given Rob a bad rap.  Certainly, he is not immaculate and may have said a thing or two here and there that is not perfect, but who hasn’t?  But, to accuse him of being a universalist without even having read his book (because, well, it isn’t out yet!), is not only over-the-top, but is irresponsible and should be cause for the larger evangelical community to be up in arms.

This is another indication about how narrow neo-reformed views have become and how much they often are not even willing to give the “benefit of the doubt.”  Basically, I am going to accuse Justin Taylor (of the reformed site: Gospel Coalition) of being guilty of the sin of lying.  I am sure Justin is a great guy and obviously passionate about Jesus, but the following quote is a bit frustrating.

For the rest of Kurt's post, click HERE.

I guess for what it's worth,  I think I agree with much he has said. It should be mentioned that this was written several months ago during the height of "Bell Gate" so this is nothing really new. I do think several things are worth mentioning.

1) Rob Bell is, in my eyes, fully within Christian Orthodoxy, but I tend to define Orthodoxy as a pretty broad stream. Meaning, I tend to view Calvinists and Arminians and Universalists as rollicking in the same water, though possibly in different sections of the river. I've always wondered, as many other Christians have, why Calvinists/Arminians will tolerate each other (some more generously than others), but somehow Open Theists and Universalists are excluded from the table.

1a) As a good friend of mine told me, the fate of the unevangelized is and will always be a hot topic withing Christendom. This explains the debate over exclusivism (which I hold to) and inclusivism (which I argue that Bell, and someone like Roger Olson, holds to). It is a rough debate with much grey area and middle ground, and I doubt it will ever be settled, at least within our lifetime.

2) Arminianism is, as I will tentatively define here, as "Conditional Universalism." Meaning, universalism is quite indeed possible under an Arminian system, but it is condition upon faith in Christ. Rob Bell is an Arminian, and thus could be considered a "Conditional Universalist" but I tend to do a few things when people comment about their beliefs:

2a) I pull a Mike Licona and say that, "if Bell says he isn't a Universalist, then we take his word for it." I think this is a valid approach and is the more humble of the options I am presenting.

2b) The other is to argue that, while one may not think Bell is a Universalist, his theology leads there. Now, since Arminianism is conditional and doesn't necessarily lead to Universalism, he cannot be considered a Universalist. I use the example of Karl Barth in a moment.

3) Karl Barth says he wasn't a Universalist. I take his word on that he believes he wasn't. However, his theology, in my research, closely leads to Universalism. So he isn't a Universalist, but he mostly certainly COULD be one. That is where a great debate has gone on.

4) With Arminianism, you have "Conditional Universalism." With scholars like Tom Talbott and Robin Parry, you have "Unlimited Universalism." Lots of U's in there, and I'm still trying to discern between "hopeful" Universalism and "hopeful dogmatic Universalism" as Robin Parry has used the term. Do not consider any of this set in stone, as I am now just putting some random thoughts down.

5) Finally, since I do not think Bell has EVER outed himself as an Unlimited Universalist, this means that the Gospel Coalition, in the spirit of humbleness, should offer a repudiation of their comments, which some of them offered *if* they were wrong. If they have offered such an apology, consider this point moot and forgotten and forgiven. But, I wouldn't hold my breath. If Christians are shown to be wrong, we're often very stubborn.

This includes me, especially when my girlfriend has me by the logical short hairs. :)

God bless.

--Nick

Austin Fischer, "Certainty Not"

This has long been one of my issues with the YRR movement, though to be fair this problem is fairly prominent within Christendom as a whole.

What follows is a guest post by Austin Fischer, Teaching Pastor at Vista Community Church, Belton, Texas. Austin is a seminary graduate with strong interest in theology. As always with guest posts, I have to say that “The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Roger Olson.” However, I wouldn’t put this here if I didn’t agree with its basic message. These are Austin’s words, so I am going to let him respond to comments about this message.

Certainty Not

“Theology is the study of God and his ways. For all we know, dung beetles may study us and our ways and call it humanology. If so, we would probably be more touched and amused than irritated. One hopes that God feels likewise.”[1]

Pretention and Certainty

“And you think your stuff doesn’t stink.” The adage may sound crass, but the problem it highlights is crass: pretention. There are few things more repulsive than pretention. The teenager who knows it all, the sports fan who has never lost an argument, the theology major who has unlocked all the mysteries of the universe. An hour locked in a room with any of the aforementioned persons is enough to make the strongest heart weak.

And lots of things go into pretention: pride and projection, arrogance and insecurities, knowledge and ignorance. But at its very core pretention, especially theological pretension, feeds on certainty. We become pretentious when we get certain, when we become convinced that there is simply no way we could be wrong about this, when we cannot see any truth in alternative positions, when we can no longer feel the weight of dissenting voices and as such seek to squelch them out.

But of course when it comes to theology, certainty is impossible. Finite human beings are trying to make sense of an infinite God. We always know God subjectively, never objectively. Perhaps the most certain thing we can say about God is that we cannot be certain about anything. This is not to say we cannot be confident, that we cannot have good reason to believe what we believe. But it is to say that certainty will always lie just beyond our grasp. Certainty? No. Confidence? Yes.

Bad Tone and Bad Theology

In my estimation, the tone of modern American evangelical theological rhetoric belies a furious, but ultimately impossible and misguided attempt, for certainty. Allow me to speak from my context and experience. The Young, Restless, and Reformed movement and its vast web of associated organizations (The Gospel Coalition, Sovereign Grace Ministries, Acts 29 Network, Passion Conferences, etc.) have experienced amazing growth and gained incredible influence. And yet for many who have ears to hear, it often strikes the shrill chord of pretention.

I used to be young, restless, and Reformed. I understand why people embrace five or four point Calvinism. I see how they look at Scripture and think it teaches unconditional election and irresistible grace. And I see how they find any sort of free will theism problematic. Where do free decisions come from if not from God? How else do you translate Romans 9? I get it. I get how they could think it stinks.

What I don’t get is how they don’t smell, well, their own stink. How is God good, just, or loving in creating people for eternal damnation for sins he ordained they commit? Is Calvinism truly Christocentric? Are the emphases of the Gospels the emphases of Calvinism? How do we make sense of the numerous places in the Bible that implore us to make decisions on the apparent assumption that we actually can? How is human moral responsibility coherent in a determinist framework? I’m not saying there are no answers to these questions. I am saying that to me (and many others) they all stink.

I’m okay with acknowledging that some of my answers to difficult questions stink (or will stink to others). And I’m okay with it because while I hold my beliefs with a great deal of confidence, I know I cannot hold them with absolute certainty. Many in the YRR (and especially its leaders) just don’t seem to be able to smell the scent they’re putting off. They are just…so…certain. And they seem to think this certainty is a sign of knowledge and authority. Perhaps it’s just a sign of bad theology.

Transcending Transcendence

What is perhaps most ironic is that Calvinist theology has traditionally placed a heavy emphasis on the transcendence of God. God is said to be so beyond human comprehension that we have no right to call into question his goodness, justice, or love, even in light of his reprobation of some. God operates on a plane for which there is little or no analogy. But if God is indeed so transcendent, how can they be so certain of the truth of their beliefs? Is TULIP an exception to God’s transcendence? Free will theism is often accused of belittling God’s transcendence, of forgetting how holy and other God is. And yet Neo-Calvinism appears to do far worse: it attempts to transcend God’s transcendence. This lies at the heart of theological pretention and the culture of certainty for where transcendence is honored, certainty and thus pretention are deflated and humility blossoms.

Though I disagree with Calvinism, Calvinism isn’t the real problem. The problem is theological pretention, which has become a dangerous bedfellow of Neo-Calvinism.Theological pretension needs to be challenged but not merely because it is bad manners. It is bad theology. It is theology that attempts to transcend transcendence. And bad theology produces bad disciples.

Theological Reconciliation

In a recent edition of Christianity Today, John Piper was asked about theological reconciliation. Borrowing from Frances Schaeffer, Piper suggests that theological reconciliation might look like throwing love bombs over the walls between us instead of hate bombs. Hmmm. While throwing love bombs over walls is certainly preferable to throwing hate bombs, I would think tearing down the walls (or at least making nice, big doors) would be more helpful for theological reconciliation. And to state the obvious, the throwing of bombs over walls would seem to assume we couldn’t get together in the same room, which is a shame. Messages taped to hurled bombs (podcasts, books, conferences, tweets) don’t exactly scream reconciliation. They scream, “I’m certain about this so you better come over here.” This shouldn’t be a surprise though. Reconciliation isn’t important in a culture of certainty.

This is further fleshed out by Piper’s remarks regarding his infamous “farewell Rob Bell” tweet wherein he explains what he meant:

When I watched the video of Rob Bell that was put up on Justin Taylor’s website, which was, I think, a link to his book on hell, my issue there was not primarily his view of hell. It was his cynicism concerning the Cross of Jesus Christ as a place where the Father atoned for the sins of his children and dealt with his own wrath by punishing me in his son. Rob Bell does not admire that. He doesn’t view the Cross that way, as a penal substitution. I consider that the essence of the Cross and my salvation, and the heart of God for me, and that ticked me off royally…And so, there’s a point for “Thus far, no further, farewell.” There are other points where we ought to be cultivating all those courtesies.

First, Bell doesn’t deny penal substitution in the video. He implicitly criticizes a certain understanding of penal substitution (some would say a caricature) wherein a select few are saved from a bloodthirsty God by the intervention of Jesus. But more to our point, Piper seems to indicate that he is willing to say “farewell” to people who don’t share his particular understanding of penal substitution or view it as the “heart of God”.

Does he realize how many Christians he is saying “farewell” to? Is he aware of just how many orthodox, evangelical Christians don’t consider penal substitution the “very heart of God”? But that’s the thing. He probably does know, he just doesn’t care, and he doesn’t care because he’s so certain he’s right. As noted above, theological reconciliation will never be organic in a culture of certainty. The same could be said for humility, which lies at the root of theological reconciliation. What will be organic in a culture of certainty is pretention, and its seeds are currently blooming for the whole world to see.

And while I am hesitant to pull the Jesus card here, I just can’t help myself. Piper claims throwing love bombs and sending “farewell” tweets is justified because Jesus was “really hard on certain theological differences.” And I suspect at this point Mark Driscoll would chime in and note that when Jesus comes back (taking a breather from his eternal MMA cage match with the Holy Spirit) he will have a sword, a tattoo, and is coming for blood. But to state the obvious, none of us are the resurrected Messiah come back to judge the world; therefore we don’t use swords or throw bombs.

Additionally, I can’t help but notice that Jesus’ anger was almost exclusively stoked by people who were pushing for theologies of exclusion, theologies rooted in pretention (Jesus’ diatribe against the Pharisees in Matthew 23 and the cleansing of the Temple stand out). So if we insist on throwing love bombs, how about we at least throw the bombs Jesus threw?

A Way Forward: More Transcendence

Of course everything I have noted about neo-Calvinism could be turned the opposite way. Neo-Calvinism certainly hasn’t cornered the market on pretention. But the simple fact is that in American evangelicalism, neo-Calvinism now has the microphone and the world is listening. What does it hear? I think it hears some good things, but I’m afraid it also hears pretention.

If I may make a bit of a pretentious suggestion myself, I would encourage the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement (and especially its leaders) to take transcendencemore seriously. Don’t treat TULIP like the one exception to God’s transcendence. Don’t just tolerate dissident voices but understand that you need them (just like they need you!) because you can’t be certain you’re right. Invite “them” to speak at your conferences, request their presence on your boards, and perhaps cease creating private clubs where they’re not allowed.[2]

If you do it, I have no doubt you’ll lose followers and probably lose influence. But you’ll also gain something invaluable, both for yourself and for your followers and for the whole world: humility. You can beat the humility drum all day long but it will never stick in a culture of certainty. So what will it be…power or humility, influence or reconciliation? Jesus could be trusted with both. I’m pretty sure most of us can’t.

---

[1] Fredrich Buechner, Wishful Thinking, 112.

[2] The Gospel Coalition serves a striking case in point. The organization claims to represent the deep and broad evangelical consensus regarding the truth of the gospel (see their Preamble). One can’t help but catch a whiff of pretention here and this whiff is no doubt reinforced by the fact that there is not a single free-will theist of any sort on the Gospel Coalition council or staff. Apparently the deep and broad evangelical consensus of the gospel does not need the voice of free-will theism.


Fischer/Patheos


--NIck