Founders Journal & Whosoever Will: Observations: Part I by Peter Lumpkins

  Founders Journal represents the theological thinking of the largest network of strict Calvinists within the Southern Baptist Convention, Founders Ministries.* In its most recent edition, Founders offers its critique of Whosoever Will: A Biblical-Theological Critique of Five-Point Calvinism, edited by Drs. Steve Lemke and David Allen. The issue entitled “Theological Debate Within the Family” (FJ 82) unfortunately ran into some technical difficulties and is being presently republished (though the misprinted version had already been sent out). I want to offer a few observations about the critical journal entries and will do so in at least three parts…>>>

The editorial by Founders' executive director, Tom Ascol, is a worthy call for irenic “debate” among “family” members. He acknowledges “unguarded accusations” by “extremists” from “both sides” seemed to have kept the divide as “deep and wide” as possible. However, a new opportunity for open dialog seemed to present itself in 2007 which became the Building Bridges Conference held at Ridgecrest.  Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Founders Ministries sponsored the event hosted by Lifeway Christian Resources. The fruit of the conference was published in a book containing several papers from the conference entitled, Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialog.

Afterwards, The John 3:16 Conference hosted by The Jerry Vines Ministries and sponsored by several seminaries including New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was offered as a biblical-theological response to Five-Point Calvinism. Similar to the product of the Building Bridges Conference, the papers given by several non-Calvinist scholar-theologians were collected into a volume entitled, Whosoever Will: A Biblical-Theological Critique of Five-Point Calvinism. It is this book Ascol’s focus concerns in the present journal issue. He writes:

This issue of Founders Journal provides a selective review of and response to Whosoever Will. The purpose is to provide the kind of serious engagement the book deserves… . Truth matters. And the cause of truth will not be served by glossing over differences that we have in any areas with fellow-believers.

But, as Ascol rightly goes on to conclude, such disagreements must be pursued with “respect for each other and devotion to God’s Word.”

We think Tom Ascol is correct in calling for mutual respect while pursuing one’s convictional basis for disagreeing with fellow-believers over biblical-doctrinal issues.  And we appreciate his appeal to such a worthy end. On the other hand, given some of the content of the journal’s entries, we question whether Ascol’s editorial fulfilled his lofty aspirations.

For example, beginning with Ascol’s editorial, we wonder why he insisted on making the issue into a “Calvinist-Arminian” debate when no editor or author within the collection of essays in Whosoever Will confesses Arminianism.  Indeed from his opening line, the entire issue was cast as a debate between “Calvinism and Arminianism” exceeding four centuries. The "either/or" theological lens for which Founders is notorious is presumed throughout**. Ascol even pulled in self-confessing, Arminian theologian, Roger Olson, as an authority to assure all readers that Whosoever Will authors were genuine Arminians whether or not they wanted to admit it.

For Ascol, while “love requires that we not simply label the contributors to Whosoever Will “Arminian” when they plainly reject that characterization," nonetheless, “historical accuracy” and “theological integrity” insist on identifying many of their positions as nothing other than Arminian. Note that Ascol is completely aware all of the contributors to Whosoever Will "plainly reject" embracing classic Arminianism. Nevertheless, love's requirement to not "label contributors" with positions they "plainly reject" is instantly forfeited for "historical accuracy" and "theological integrity."

One may ask, if “historical accuracy” and “theological integrity” so easily trump love for the brethren when making theological assessment, why Ascol would have so much difficulty in accepting Dr. David Allen’s scholarly opinion that Calvinist James White*** embraces what can only be described as Hyper-Calvinism.  Or, is Allen’s view somehow incapable of being historically accurate or reflecting theological integrity?     

Even so, throughout the issue, it was much more than just suggesting “positions” were Arminian:

“The debate between Calvinists and Arminians continues to rage among Southern Baptists today…”—Matthew Barrett

“Though they have resisted this, the writers should accept the judgment that they defend a classically Arminian, or openness, position”—Tom Nettles

As both Barrett and Nettles illustrate, the tenor of the issue is more than just identifying some of Whosoever Will’s authors as holding certain Arminian tendencies. Rather Nettles, beyond all sober reason, actually connects Whosoever Will authors with Open Theology, one of the few theological errors specifically identified and condemned in the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message. Is this the “historical accuracy” and “theological integrity” Ascol suggests should trump love for the brethren? Is this showing respect for fellow-believers while debating biblical-theological issues “within the family”?

Or, is it inaccurate to suggest Founders is doing nothing more in this volume than they have largely done since 1982--scorning all theological views but rigid, strict Five-Point Calvinism?

With that, I am…

Peter  

 *Since the early 1980s, Founders Ministries has made it its business to promote “the Doctrines of Grace and their experiential application to the local church” with a definitive “recovery of the gospel.”  Indicative of gospel recovery is the said “promotion of the Doctrines of Grace” (i.e., Five-Point Calvinism). Initially, Founders accomplished their mission through conferences, publication, education, and pastoral training.  More recently, however, Founders launched a strategic church planting network which is “confessionlly reformed” and looks like it’s headed for funding from our North American Mission Board (let’s just wait and see). SBC leaders including Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary president, Danny Akin, offer strong support to the network. Representing a virtual “who’s who” within or supporters of the young, restless, and “Reformed” syndicate in the SBC, other supporters include  Greg Thornbury, Donald Whitney, Owen Strachan, Micah Fries, Bruce Ashford, Alvin Reid, and Nathan Finn. Of course, all who support Founders support this new venue of promoting the doctrines of grace including Southern seminary professor and Founders board member, Tom Nettles

**By "either/or" lens I mean that for Founders, one is either a five-point Calvinist or one is not a Calvinist. In their understanding, one might be Calvinistic if one holds to say, four-point Calvinism, but only those who truly hold to all five-points are Calvinists (here, here)

***If Allen (along with other theologians) is correct in his theological assessment of James White and Hyper-Calvinism, it should deeply concern Southern Baptists that Founders Ministries now hosts James White at their conferences (see also, here, here) 

Comments

[Chris Gilliam]

Were you predetermined to write this or not? :^)

[William Birch]

Peter,

Out of curiosity, did Founders critique Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialogue? After all, "The purpose is to provide the kind of serious engagement the book deserves. . . . Truth matters." Did Dialogue receive the same careful scrutiny as Whosoever Will "deserves"?

[J. K.]

'Name-calling' does not help us to resolve our theological issues. I am afraid I have engaged in such in the past. I will refrain from doing so in the future.

[peter]

Chris,

Allow me to ponder whether either fits my mood, bor. ;^)

William,

So far as I know, they did not. With as much respect as deserved, neither did Founders actually critique Whosoever Will in any formidable way. Only one WW essay received any real engagement--Lemke's chapter on Irresistible Grace. Though Ascol mentioned that one of the Founder's essays was to take on David Allen's chapter critiquing Limited Atonement from a decidedly Calvinistic standpoint (all Allen's references were from Calvinists who definitively reject Limited Atonement!), the essay did not even deal with Allen's material. Instead he mentioned Allen a single time at the "critique's" beginning and then merrily rode off into the sunset.

In addition, Ascol touted Ken Keathley's 1000k word "reply" to Tom Nettles' essay review of his book, Salvation 7 Sovereignty, as a viable contribution to Founders desire for genuine fairness and dialog among family members. What a West Georgia hoot! Keathley was limited to 1,000 words in "replying" to Nettles' 14,000 word essay review of his book!

JK

Thanks JK. I hope we can all be Christianly cautious and reserved as we attempt to offer our own perspectives on matters especially controversial.

Grace.
With that, I am...
Peter

[Tony Byrne]

I may eventually respond to Nettles' critique of Allen's chapter on my blog. His response is full of basic fallacies. For example, he tries to deal with Allen's statement that no passage in the NT ever uses "world" as meaning only the elect. He only proves from some passages that "world" does not mean absolutely everybody (such as in 1 John 5:19) and acts as if he's proved his case. It should be obvious to anyone that proving "world" does not mean 1) absolutely everybody does not establish that it means 2) the elect only. Incidentally, any interpreter of the NT can acknowledge that "whole world" in 1 John 5:19 doesn't mean everybody, except by application. "Whole world" in that context refers to all unbelievers (whether elect or non-elect) under the sway of the wicked one as over against the believing community which are not. However, by application, all of us once were a part of the "whole world" under the sway of the wicked one, but God brought some of us out of that world when we believed by the grace of God. That should be basic stuff, especially for an historian who should be familiar with various historical interpretations.

Here's another thing: Nettles caricatures Allen's argument as if his chapter is arguing that God *EQUALLY* wills the salvation of all men, and then argues that the Calvinistic men Allen cites did not believe that. That is not Allen's argument in the chapter. He makes it very, very clear in the chapter that he's dealing with the *extent* of the atonement, or for whose sins Christ was punished (limited imputation/substitution vs. unlimited imputation/substitution). The Calvinistic men that Allen cites, such as R. L. Dabney, affirm an "unlimited expiation," or that Christ "expiated for every man" (Dabney's own words), but none of these men think that God *equally* wills the salvation of all men. Nettles' also didn't pay attention to the Calvinistic historians that Allen references (such as Richard Muller) that speak of a non-Amyraldian variety of Calvinistic universal substition, yet Nettles says Dabney rejected Amyraldism so it must follow that Allen is wrong. That's a basic non sequitur and one acquainted with the history of Calvinism should know that. So, while those associated with the Founders frequently complain that their opponents caricature their position and arguments, Nettles has engaged in the very thing he complains that his opponents are doing.

That's just a very small and brief example of the kind of thing I am talking about. I could go on, but I will save the rest for a potential response on my own blog. The Founders response is incompetent, even from a Calvinistic point of view. The sad thing is, the young and unstudied Calvinists on the Internet are going to appeal to these articles as if they are a decisive response to Allen. They aren't. It really appears that the high Calvinists responding are not bothering to check the sources in the footnotes. Simply put, **they don't read** or **check the primary sources**, even when you link to them on the Internet. They won't even bother reading the Dabney material I linked to above, unfortunately.