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Norm Miller, opportunists, and a whole lotta chokin goin on

Norm Miller serves as Director of Communications at Truett-McConnell College (TMC) in Cleveland, GA. Before going to TMC, Miller served for a number of years as a denominational journalist. He was writer and editor in the public relations department of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, staff writer for the IMB, and in 1998 was named news and information director for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary under Al Mohler (//link). Words—written words—have been the giftedness God gave to Norm and, as his journey in Southern Baptist life attests, many have seen this gift and desired his gift to be used for God’s glory in their respective fields of harvest. I'm glad to call Norm Miller my friend.

James White and humility

Take a listen at one snippet from White's broadband broadcast critiquing The 2013 John 3:16 Conference speakers (including my booklet on Calvinism in the same broadcast). It's only 40 secs long but a powerful statement concerning how James White views himself compared with other brothers in ministry:

More verbal abuse and implications of "heresy" by Baptist Calvinists

UPDATE: one of James White's supporters, Micah Burke, put up a post in response to my piece below. Entitled "Peter Lumpkins doesn't know who he's responding to," Burke suggests my critical commentary below is misdirected toward James White. Instead he claims my criticism presumably should have been directed toward Al Mohler since "Nearly 99% of the quote [the quote below I transcribed from White's broadband broadcast] is actually Al Mohler's own words" (italics and link original). What a rip-roaring revelation! I'd never thought of that! Of course, Burke (he apparently is a volunteer employee for White's ministry) completely ignored the two references to Pelagius that White employed in the context of speaking about Harwood which contains much of the substance driving my concern below, two references White could not have quoted from Mohler because Mohler didn't mention either Pelagius or Pelagianism in his piece. Hence, White went well beyond Mohler in theologically implicating Harwood by identifying him not with semi-Pelagianism but identifying Harwood with Pelagius himself. These are the kinds of vacuous defenses offered by James White advocates...

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I've already mentioned the verbal assaults some aggressive Southern Baptist Calvinists levelled toward the presenters and participants of the 2013 John 3:16 Conference (here and here). One may now add to their literary hubris the voice of Reformed Baptist, James White. On his latest "Radio Free Geneva" internet broadcast White especially deals with presenters Adam Harwood, Eric Hankins, Emir Caner, and Steve Gaines.¹ 

Baptist Press reports on the 2013 John 3:16 Conference

Baptist Press posted a good summary article on The 2013 John 3:16 Conference held at North Metro First Baptist Church March 21-22. It rightly cast the differences between the earlier conference as a planned response to each of the five-points Calvinism (T.U.L.I.P.) and this year's conference:

The 2013 John 3:16 Conference, Criticism, and the Calvinist Controversy in Louisiana: Part II

In Part I, I recorded the first of two examples indicative of unhelpful criticism--and in some cases, irresponsible and even slanderous criticism--some of the more rigorous Calvinists lobbed toward The 2013 John 3:16 Conference. Montana pastor, J.D. Hall, claimed Truett-McConnell College was "theologically raping" the students, while indicating one of its professors, Adam Harwood, was much to blame. And, while Hall at first defended his words when some of his Twitter followers protested, he nonetheless offered a clear word of regret and publicly apologized for his "harsh" language, conceding Trevin Wax's "rebuke was appropriate. Apologies, to everyone."

The 2013 John 3:16 Conference, Criticism, and the Calvinist Controversy in Louisiana: Part I

UPDATE: Please note our brother J.D. Hall has issued a public apology for his disparaging remarks concerning Truett-McConnell College and Adam Harwood, remarks which I critique in the post below. We thank our brother for his short but very straight-forward amends. May our Lord be pleased in all...

Truett-McConnell professor interviewed by Christian Index

Dr. Adam Harwood, Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at Truett-McConnell in Cleveland, Georgia was interviewed recently by The Christian Index. The interview appears in the latest edition. Below are answers to some of the questions¹:

Born Guilty? A Southern Baptist View of Original Sin by Adam Harwood

 Free Church Press announces a new and exclusive teaching series on biblical, theological, ethical, and ecclesial themes significant for Southern Baptists. The series will target people in the pew rather than those who have a theological background. While we believe all church leaders--including pastors and other staff leaders--will benefit from the series, the goal is to educate the millions of Southern Baptists who neither have theological or biblical degrees nor desire to wade through long, technical works to gain a reasonable grip on the essence of a particular subject. Thus, "lay" leaders¹ and other church members will especially benefit from this series. 

The 2013 John 3:16 Conference is almost here

  In November, 2008, the First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Georgia hosted an insightful conference called The John 3:16 Conference, an event promising a scholarly evaluation of the recent Calvinist Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention   >>>

Adam Harwood and J.W. MacGorman’s “dangerous,” “unorthodox” doctrine inevitably leading to “heresy if not worse”

Recently, a Kentucky Southern Baptist pastor challenged Dr. Adam Harwood’s raising questions toward a particular seminary professor’s exclusive allegiance to imputed sinful guilt and whether the exclusiveness of the professor's view may be inconsistent with the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.¹   

Mullins proleptical words on "imputed guilt" in the 1925 statement of faith

E.Y. Mullins may be the most controversial theologian in Southern Baptist history. He is routinely cited by conservative and liberal, Calvinist and non-Calvinist as both friend and foe to the Baptist cause¹. Nor is Mullins' role as the primary--if not exclusive--literary architect of the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message seriously questioned. Rather it is barely less than universally assumed   >>>

Adam Harwood on the dilemma at young, restless, and reformed's "ground zero"

The book was Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists by Colin Hansen.  In it, the self-identifying "YRR" journalist dubbed Southern Seminary "Ground Zero" for training and equipping the new army of young neo-Calvinist pastors and church planters to spread the doctrines of grace across the Southern Baptist Convention    >>>

Young Truett-McConnell scholar drops a bombshell on Southern Baptist academia

When Karl Barth's classic commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans was first published in 1919, a biblical monograph which effectively delivered Old Liberalism its first mortal blow, one German reviewer described Barth's neo-orthodox innovation revealed in his Romans exposition as falling "like a bombshell on the playground of the theologians"   >>>

What about those who haven't heard the gospel?

The Inspired Apostle concluded, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom 10:17). One of the perplexing questions Christians often discuss revolves around those who never have and/or never will hear the life transforming gospel message   >>>

The Anabaptists—“being puritan before puritanism was cool” by Peter Lumpkins

   "The Anabaptists.—It should be here stated that the first martyrs for religious liberty during the reign of Elizabeth are found, not among the Brownists, but among the hated, maligned, and much-suffering Anabaptist. The history of that remarkable sect has yet to be written, and when justice has been done to them a memorable and heroic chapter will have been added to the history of the world. The Anabaptists were Puritans before Puritanism had sprung into recognized existence, and held substantially all that the Puritans afterwards contended for…"¹

¹Puritanism in the Old World and in the New, from its inception in the reign of Elizabeth to the establishment of the Puritan Theocracy in New England: a Historical Handbook by the Rev. J. Gregory; Introduction by the Rev. Amory H. Bradford, D.D. author of "The Pilgrim in Old England" Fleming H. Revell, 1896, p. 176, embolden added