Someone Gets It!

Lane Keister, who was the lead witness in the most important and decisive case against the Federal Vision, has written a stinging rebuke of the Standing Judicial Commission’s failure to correctly adjudicate the most notorious Federal Visionists in the PCA, Peter Leithart. You can read his piece here, but I just want to highlight a couple of points.

First, Keister takes aim at what has become known as the Coffin rule (you can read about the Coffin rule here):

…the great deference normally shown to a lower court does not equally apply in matters concerning the interpretation of the Constitution of the Church. Does the Leithart case involve matters relating to the interpretation of the Constitution of the Church? It certainly does. The relationship of Leithart’s views with the Westminster Standards is most certainly a matter involving the interpretation, not only of Leithart’s views, but also of the Standards. So, in this case, the great deference normally shown to a lower court does not apply. There is clear error on the part of PNW Presbytery, and the case involves the interpretation of the Constitution, both very good reasons why the court should not defer to PNW Presbytery.

Next, Keister blasts the SJC for not holding Pacific Northwest Presbytery accountable for their failure to condemn the erroneous opinions of Peter Leithart:

One procedural error that is not mentioned in this decision, but which should have been addressed is the failure of PNW Presbytery to condemn erroneous opinion (BCO 13-9f). This is a procedural matter. Even though the wording is that it has power to condemn, in context all the actions noted are actions that Presbytery is responsible for doing. So it is not just that it has the authority to do so, but also that it has the responsibility to do so, especially when it involves views that endanger the peace and purity of the denomination, and there are few opinions more dangerous to the peace and purity of the denomination than the Federal Vision. I have never seen anything so divisive.

Finally, Keister reflects on his own study of Leithart’s errant and heretical theology and concludes:

But I do believe that my testimony alone is sufficient to prove the case. There were no holes in my research. Their conclusion is that there are no proofs anywhere that Leithart teaches anything contrary to the Standards, since my research, included in the ROC, brought together ALL the problematic quotations of Leithart. That constitutes no proof, according to this judgment.

Notice, you can study every nuance and doctrine of the Federal Vision from the writings of its chief proponents and if you find their doctrines wanting, even heretical, it can never be enough according to the SJC.  This is exactly what Federal Visonists have been saying all along and that their opponents, no matter how carefully they study their written words and no matter how many discussions and debates they have in order to clarify and understand the Federal Vision, they are forever unable to understand them correctly.  That’s because to understand the Federal Vision requires you accept the Federal Vision’s scheme of justification by faith plus works as an acceptable expression of the Reformed Christian faith.

Peter Leithart and the Federal Vision have won.

However, in the discussion following Keister’s excellent critique of the SJC’s complete failure to adjudicate this case correctly, Pastor Jim Cassidy made the following observation:

The judgment of charity here, I think, is that the SJC has been duped by Leithart’s distinctly dialectical methodology by which he can say the same thing in two contrary ways. Asking him to be more clear and precise, along with providing clarity and nuance, is to ask a leopard to lose his spots. Its nice of them to think Leithart can do better, and the only problem is that he was not as clear as he could be. But he’s a big boy who’s pretty smart – he knows what he’s doing. And this is precisely why the PCA remains wide open to the infiltration of Barthianism. It will succumb to the influence of modern theology, unless God intervenes in his grace. The SJC meant well – that is the charity. But, unfortunately, it was duped.

If we’re going to charitable at all to the men on the SJC, and I don’t know why anyone would be, Cassidy nailed it. Of course, this is something I have been saying to mostly deaf ears for nearly 20 years and is what John Robbins and Gordon Clark were both saying long before me.  Cassidy’s observation is why the answer to my little book Can The PCA Be Saved? has now been officially answered. The only difference I see is that the infiltration of Barthianism was not at all under the radar; it was wide open and being taught by one of the most revered and influential dialectical thinker in the history of modern Reformed thought; Cornelius Van Til.

The Verdict Is In

The false gospel of the Federal Vision is now an acceptable and protected expression of faith in the PCA.

No longer does one have to be an Evangelical in order to be a preacher and a teacher in the PCA.   As Lane Keister put it on his blog:

To say that I am disappointed in the decision would be a gross understatement. Aghast is more appropriate here. We are not talking about narrow Reformed versus broad Reformed. We are talking about evangelicalism versus what amounts to Roman Catholic teaching. At this point, it will not matter if the SJC decides to try to distance itself from Leithart’s theology. They will have allowed his theology to exist.

I’m sure there will be plenty more to say on this matter, but for now I think Lane has said it all.

Doug Wilson: Heretic

Lectures by Brian Schwertly from last April. The real good stuff is in part 2.

Doug Wilson: Heretic (Pt 1)

Doug Wilson: Heretic (Pt 2)

Fading Lines in the Sand

Dr. Paul Elliot of Teaching the Word Ministries, and author of Christianity and Neo-Liberalism, has some harsh but timely words for  those in the PCA who consider themselves among the “Truly Reformed.”

Will they listen?

Here’s a sample:

The Federal Vision controversy is but the latest in a series of issues on which PCA “conservatives” have, for more than a decade, kept drawing lines in the sand and saying, “If the liberalizers are permitted to cross this line, it will be the last straw.” But always, when the liberalizers cross the line or simply obliterate it, the “conservatives” quietly step back and draw a new one….

The SJC to the Rescue?

Many professed conservatives insist that the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission will come to their rescue and, in time, restore orthodoxy. But among its membership one finds men who are a long-standing part of the problem. Dr. Brian Chappell, president of the PCA’s heresy factory at Covenant Seminary, is a member of the SJC. Ruling Elder and SJC member Howard Donahoe has advocated permitting women to preach [10] and was a defense counsel for Peter Leithart at his heresy trial. Ruling Elder Terry L. Jones is a member of the Missouri Presbytery which virtually unanimously acquitted the heretic Jeffrey Meyers. Ruling Elder Bruce Terrell is a member of the session of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, where theistic evolutionist Timothy Keller is the pastor.

We could go on. Many other present and former members of the SJC have been men of the same ilk. They can hardly be called staunch guardians of orthodoxy. They would more appropriately be called foxes guarding the hen house. The bitter irony is that self-described conservatives, who claim to be guardians of Biblical truth, serve collegially with such men on the SJC.

You can read all of Dr. Elliot’s comments here, although I suspect many PCA conservatives will simply cover their ears (Acts 7:57).

When Book Endorsements Backfire

By Brandon Adams

I recently received an email update from Monergism Books announcing new titles they have available. One of them is Isaac Watts’ “Logic: The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth”

Description: Isaac Watts is well known as the author of more than 750 beloved hymns. What most people don’t realize is that his work on logic was a standard textbook for nearly 200 years.

The Puritans were convinced that the ability to think clearly was of the utmost importance for interpreting the Bible correctly, and especially for those entering the ministry. In their minds, if a man could not think clearly, he could not interpret the Bible correctly.

In our day, common sense is not very common and clear thinking is not very clear. This book will help discipline the mind and train the reader to discern proper thinking and argumentation in seeking truth.

They nearly had me sold, until I read the only endorsement:

“Fuzzy thinking is one of the great sins of our age. Christians who seek to return to the clear-mindedness which characterized the church of previous generations will certainly welcome the reurn of this great text on logic by Isaac Watts. The clear devotion of Watts’ hymns came from a clear mind–and that was no accident.”
–Doug Wilson, National Board of the Association of Classical and Christian Schools

Talk about irony. Robbins once commented: “Indeed, one could use Wilson’s whole book as a source of examples of logical fallacies when teaching logic.” (NRAT p. 78). Wilson himself noted: “For various reasons, many of them very sad, my mind does not work the way a logic teacher’s mind ought to work” (“The Great Logic Fraud”, from The Paideia of God, p. 78)

As Robbins and Gerety note in Not Reformed At All (p. 29):

The point is not whether Wilson holds to this or that point of the “historic Reformed faith as represented by the Westminster Standards” (even while artfully misrepresenting those Standards), but whether or not his opinions contradict or undermine the system of truth summarized in those Standards and taught in the Scriptures. Christianity is a logical, propositional system, not an aggregate of disjointed thoughts and metaphors; and Wilson’s dislike of logical systems, propositions, and of logic itself, is well known. Wilson is opposed to all systems, especially theological systems. He is even opposed to arithmetic.*

*In 1999 Wilson published an essay titled “The Great Logic Fraud” in his book The Paideia of God. It expresses his revolt against excellence, precision, and logic. That essay belies any claim Wilson might make to believe the system of truth in the Westminster Confession. In the essay, Wilson even denies that 2 + 2 = 4 is true. His exact words are, for those who might find my accusation incredible, “Because of our realist assumptions in mathematics, we have come to believe that 15 + 20 = 35 is true. But it is evidently not true” (85).

Robbins provided further explanation on the Trinity Foundation website:

“Because of our realist assumptions in mathematics, we have come to believe that 15 + 20 = 35 is true. But it is evidently not true. 15 unicorns plus 20 unicorns will not get you 35 unicorns, try as you may. Of course, on the other hand, 15 turnips plus 20 turnips will result in 35 turnips, and it will do so every time. The structure of the addition table is sound, and the ‘argument’ is valid. And if unicorns existed, we would wind up with 35 of them. But this means the argument is valid, not true.” –– Douglas Wilson, “The Great Logic Fraud,” The Paideia of God, 85.

Comment: Wilson did not write this revealing essay to make the trivial point that arguments are valid (or invalid) and propositions are true (or false). He wrote it to deny that the proposition, “Fifteen plus twenty equals thirty-five” is true. Arithmetic, like logic, Wilson says, is a “great fraud.”

And Anthony C0letti added the following comment to Doug Wilson’s blog entry response:

There was a question on a e-mail list I subscribe to about whether you support a “classical education”. I’ve come to the conclusion you support a classical education while rejecting classical logic.

I posted on the list: “Wilson appears to support a classical education while rejecting classical logic by making a claim on existential import as a requirement for defining truth. 2+2=4 is not true according to Wilson because it is not linked to “real” objects. He would say 2 unicorns and 2 unicorns does not equal 4 unicorns. It seems to me that existential import is irrelevant to truth – otherwise there could be no abstract truth regarding concepts like freedom and loyalty. One could not say it is true that ‘one should love his neighbor’ because love is an abstract concept – like unicorns.”

The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

This comment in Not Reformed At All directly precedes the section discussing Wilson’s obsession with “objective” “photographability”.

See also: Doug Wilson and the Problem of Propositionalism

The Gift of Discernment

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.  Clairvoyant Charismatic and Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll pictured above, recently accepted an invitation to speak at a  Doug Wilson conference in Moscow, ID, proving, without doubt, that Driscoll has no discernment.  While he does claim to have visions of people having sex, which he says come from the Lord and is a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit and is something he claims is the result of having the “gift of discernment,” he evidently can’t see that the man he is speaking to above is a false teacher, schismatic, and an antichrist.

Now, maybe it’s not Mark’s fault.   He says that we are to “test the spirits” and that test consists in bringing any new revelation to the elders.  If the elders say it’s from God, then it is.  Call it a charismatic magisterium (interestingly, not at all different from the one in Rome).  Consequently, I have to think he cleared his participation in Wilson’s conference with his fellow elders which means that not one of these men has the biblical gift of discernment, otherwise they wouldn’t open the sheep under their care to a charlatan like Wilson.  Frankly, at this late date even the charismatic followers of Driscoll cannot all be oblivious to the false gospel of the Federal Vision tearing up the P&R world and the role Doug Wilson continues to play as the FV’s chief spokesman and pitchman.  Although, I suspect now that Driscoll has lent his celebrity to Wilson, it’s a-ok for Driscoll’s followers to get into the FV pool.  Call it one more step on the road to Rome.

Lane Keister: Doug Wilson Denies Justification by Faith Alone!

There have not been many praiseworthy moments in the battle to identify and rid the church of Federal Visionists.    Frankly, all in all, I’d say it is a losing battle, and despite recent movements that seem to be more or less in the right direction, I am of the opinion that it is all a case of too little too late.  However, I am extremely happy to report, and praise be to God, the public retraction Lane Keister has just posted on his blog declaring that Doug Wilson does indeed deny justification by faith alone.   As readers of this blog may recall back in March 2008, and after a year of reviewing and publicly debating Wilson’s defense of the Federal Vision in, Reformed is Not Enough, Lane publicly exonerated Wilson on the central doctrines of the Gospel: justification by faith alone and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.  At that time Lane declared:

Personally, I am willing to believe that Wilson holds to justification by faith alone, although he is too ambiguous on the aliveness of faith and its place in justification. He does hold to imputation.

Well, it looks like on at least one of those doctrines Keister has made an about-face and now declares:

…I feel that I need to retract an earlier statement I made about Douglas Wilson’s theology. I have come to the conclusion that the law/gospel distinction is essential to preserving sola fide. Here’s how this worked in my own mind. If there is no distinction in the text of Scripture between law and gospel (that is, if the difference between law and gospel is only in the application, and not in the text), then all the discussion of faith in the New Testament is both law and gospel, which we’ll call Golawspel. This means that, even in the apostle Paul’s most rigorous separation of faith and works, which occurs in his discussions of justification, Paul is not really claiming that law observance is separate from faith within the structure of justification. For the definition of faith itself must fall prey to the Golawspel muddlement. If faith, therefore, is not opposed to works in justification, then justification is no longer sola fide.

Put more positively, the definition of sola fide has always been dependent on the prior distinction between law and gospel, such that when God calls people to faith, this has nothing to do with law observance of any kind. It is pure gospel. Paul does not speak of faith-faithfulness in justification, but of faith as utterly opposed to works in justification. Who are we to turn around and call faith Golawspel?

This means that every proponent of the Joint Federal Vision Statement denies sola fide. They will, of course, claim the opposite. And they will also claim that denying the distinction of law and gospel in the text of Scripture does not mean that they deny sola fide in justification. This will have to be a difference between them and me. For if there is no difference between law and gospel in the text of Scripture, then faith is no longer what the Reformers said it was: which is opposed to works in justification.

And, in case some are wondering who the signers of the Joint Federal Vision Statement are and who it is openly denying sola fide, they include:

John Barach (false teacher, CREC)

Rich Lusk (false teacher, CREC)

Randy Booth (false teacher, CREC)

Jeff Meyers (false teacher, PCA)

Tim Gallant (false teacher, CREC)

Ralph Smith (false teacher, CREC)

Mark Horne (false teacher, PCA)

Steve Wilkins (false teacher and coward, CREC)

Jim Jordan (lunatic at large)

Peter Leithart (false teacher and phony “godly scholar,” PCA)

Douglas Wilson (pope, CREC)

Needless to say, Lane’s  retraction was perhaps not as strong as I would like to see, and there is certainly the question of imputation (although I fail to see how someone can deny sola fide while simultaneously affirming the imputation of Christ’s righteousness which is also by faith alone, but I never try to assume anything when dealing with one of Van Til’s children),  it did take a considerable amount of courage and conviction for Lane to publicly reverse himself on Wilson.  I also have to think this seismic reversal in Lane’s thinking has come about through his discussions with Scott Clark as he’s been a recent and repeated guest on Scott’s  Heidelcast.   Of course, any change in mind and recognition of the truth is ultimately the gracious work of the Holy Spirit.  Yet, regardless of how it occurred,  thank you Lane.

Fiducial Jokesters

It is gratifying when on occasion others have drawn the same conclusion that you have even when so many others seem perpetually oblivious to the painfully obvious.  For a number of years I have been saying, or rather yelling, that there is no such thing as justification by faith alone in the Federal Vision.  For that reason I have called men like Doug Wilson, Steve Wilkins, Steve Schlissel, Peter Leithart, Mark Horne, Jeffery Meyers, Norman Shepherd, John Kinnaird, and a host of others heretics.  Feel free to include N.T. Wright and the followers of the so-called New Perspectives on Paul in that list, but for my purposes here I just want to pick on Federal Visionists and not the other dogs that travel in their pack.  Identifying such men as heretics  would seem to be a biblical imperative like the one found in Romans 16:17, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.”  Some like R. S. Clark are uneasy about calling these notable false teachers heretics, and even refuses to do it, even though he admits, “The FV is a profound corruption of the gospel masquerading as the Reformed faith.” You’d think if Clark really believed that he’d be right there following the Apostle Paul’s lead sounding the alarm that these men are indeed accursed to hell (Galatians 1:8).  And, it’s for this reason men like Clark refuse to identify these FV teachers as heretics, because, he says, he’s “not anxious to see folk in hell.”  Well, neither am I, but I am quite confident that neither R. S. Clark or I  have that kind of juice.  I would rather that all of the above mentioned self-styled Christian teachers would repent of their identified and deadly doctrines.  Yet, even with all the official statements and studies condemning their doctrines, these men remain entrenched, solidly committed to their corrupt gospel “masquerading as the Reformed faith.”

What seems to leave more than a few TEs and REs (teaching and ruling elders) bewildered, and hesitant to mark these men as they should and instead call them “brothers,”  is that some of the FV’s leading advocates and defenders will from time to time claim to believe in justification by faith alone.  The question is, why does anyone believe them?  Even the current Antichrist in Rome recently told a general audience that “Luther’s phrase: ‘faith alone’ is true if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.” Should we just assume that Razinger (aka Benedict XVI) has abandoned Romanism and is now a Protestant; a Christian?  Why is it “charitable” to believe the profession of ersatz-Reformed pastor with a Roman soteriology and not when the same is said by Roman bishop with a funny hat?  Shouldn’t we assume because the pope said “faith alone is true” that the divide that has separated Protestants and Catholics for centuries is nothing more than an ancient artifact from a time when everyone wore funny hates?   Of course, what may seem to be an issue of semantics to some is a matter of life and death to others.  For example, concerning the above mentioned papal affirmation of Luther’s phrase, “faith alone” R. S. Clark points out,  that the whole question comes down to that little conditional “if”:

John Piper and his Heretical Friends (Revised)

It has just brought to my attention that John Piper has invited Federal Vision pitchman and apologist Doug Wilson to speak at his Desiring God Conference in September.  Not only has Piper previously stated that the heretical and deadly doctrines of Wilson’s Federal Vision IS NOT another Gospel, now he has given FV spokesman Wilson a platform to further advance his FV heresy on unwitting Baptists.  The Judaizers never had it so good.

While as sinful as it is shameful, it is not surprising.  To anyone who has suffered through Piper’s Future Grace (you can read a review of the book here), Piper agrees with the central tenants of the Federal Vision including a denial of the Covenant of Works and a conditional view of grace and the gospel.

World Magazine editor Marvin Olasky (the same magazine that refused to publish Trinity Foundation’s Reformation Statement signed by R.C. Sproul and others)  will be sharing the stage with Wilson and Piper. I should point out that Olasky is (or at least was) an elder in the PCA.  If that’s the case, it is more evidence that the PCA’s committee report on the Federal Vision should be shredded for toilet paper.

For Piper and DG fans, here is a quick recap of Wilson’s theology taken from his book, Reformed is Not Enough, which he wrote to answer the “call to repentance” and heresy charges leveled against him by the  Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States (RPCUS).

First, for Wilson one doesn’t become a Christian by believing the Gospel,

Greenbaggins – Stuck in the Mud

It is sad when you see someone stuck knee deep in mud. It’s ever sadder when they reject the hand they’ve been given as their boots are sucked from their feet and they’re now standing thigh high in the muck. That’s the picture I get watching PCA pastor, Lane Keister, as he continues to play pat-a-cake with Federal Vision’s apologist and salesman, Doug Wilson. For close to a year now, Lane has been going around and around with Wilson on the question of what constitutes the “aliveness” of faith in relation to justification. No matter what angle he attacks this same question he ends up sinking deeper in the mire. Consider this from Lane’s most recent blog in response to Wilson:

I will try one last time to make the point about the living nature of faith and its relation to justification. We both agree that justifying faith is alive. The WCF says this: “is no dead faith” (WCF 11.2). Contrary to the criticisms of FV proponents (especially in the horrible caricatures in the book A Faith That Is Never Alone), I know of NO Reformed scholar who says that we are justified by a dead faith. I know of no Reformed scholar who even hints at this. I know of dozens of Reformed scholars who say the aliveness of faith is not what justifies us.

Needless to say, this is confusing right from the outset. According to Lane, and the unnamed Reformed scholars he elicits for support, we are justified by an alive faith (since no Reformed scholar says we justified by a dead faith), yet it’s not the “aliveness of faith” that justifies us. It would seem we are justified and not justified by an alive faith. In an attempt to make this confused and seemingly contradictory view of faith even more unclear, Lane continues:

The best way I can put this is to say that the aliveness of faith is a sine qua non, but is not part of the inherent structure of justification. Of course the person who stretches out his arm to catch a ball has to be alive to do that. But his being alive is not an action inherent in stretching out his arm. Maybe I can put it this way: states of being are distinct from actions, just like verbs of being are distinct from verbs of action. We must distinguish then between the state of being alive and the verb of action of what faith does in laying hold of Christ’s righteousness. To put it another way, our aliveness can have no object. It is inherently reflexive. But faith’s action in justification takes a direct object: the righteousness of Christ. I really think this is as clear as I can be.

Lane attempts to explain the figurative language of the Confession concerning dead faith with an even more vague and confusing figure of a disremembered arm catching a ball and the distinction of “verbs of being”as opposed to “verbs of action.”  Maybe it’s just me, but how is any of this either helpful or clear? Lane adds; “ I don’t see any reason why Doug should disagree with this, either.” Let’s hope so, because I have no idea what Lane is talking about.  Frankly, I suspect Lane doesn’t either, which is why he has resorts to vagaries and word pictures.

Quite some time ago while discussing Gordon Clark’s definition of faith, Lane agreed that to believe someone and to trust them mean the same thing; that belief and trust are synonymous. Therefore, it follows that the third and so-called essential element that makes ordinary faith saving, sometimes called “fiducia” or simply trust (for those not particularly impressed by the Latin), adds precisely nothing to the definition of faith. It is the linguistic equivalent of saying that what makes belief saving is belief. And, let’s face it, the emptiness of defining a word with itself is something all the word pictures and vagaries can never change.

This is why every pastor who tries to explain the difference between faith and saving faith as the difference between, say, believing a chair will support your weight and actually sitting on it, or believing a bank is a safe place to keep your money and only trusting it when you actually deposit your cash, is blowing just so much pious sounding wind. That’s because there is nothing comparable to sitting on a chair or depositing one’s money in a bank with believing the Gospel. Either one believes the Gospel or he doesn’t. Faith is a purely intellectual act, which explains why sensate and natural men like Wilson cannot grasp it. One either understands and assents to the Gospel message or they do not. Those who do, and to whatever degree, are saved persons and those who don’t are not. As Gordon Clark put it: “There is nothing in the spiritual situation analogous to depositing the currency [or placing one’s bottom on a chair]. There is believing only: nothing but the internal mental act itself. To suppose that there is, is both a materialistic confusion and an inadmissible alteration of the Scriptural requirement (The Johannine Logos,117).”

Perhaps if Lane paid closer attention to Clark, not to mention the Scriptural requirement, he wouldn’t be sitting for nearly a year covered in mud as he continues to embrace Wilson as his slightly confused brother in Christ.

Interestingly, when asked about John Robbins view of faith in his combox, which was unfailingly consistent with Clark’s own view and one that would have saved Lane from falling thigh high in the muck, Lane wrote:

Hmm. Robbins and his crowd seem to me to be in danger of denying that justifying faith is alive, which is what the confession says. Now, they may say that assent is alive.

Both Robbins and I reject human works as being any part of justifying faith. I think Robbins would unnecessarily exclude many other Reformed authors from being orthodox, because I think he drew the line in the wrong place. He himself was Reformed. I don’t doubt that credential one bit. But he called a lot of people un-Reformed who were in fact Reformed, and he blamed a lot of people for problems that they didn’t cause (Van Til being the obvious one). Furthermore, Robbins didn’t seem to know how to love people very well. Even my father, who is a Gordon Clark fan (was his best friend when they both taught together at Covenant Collete), had run-ins with Robbins.

It is striking how Lane has no problem showing his own personal animus toward Dr. Robbins on his blog and elsewhere on the Internet. However, considering Robbins view of faith was consistent with Clark’s, is Lane saying that Dr. Clark was also in “danger of denying that justifying faith is alive”? At least by extension, it would seem so, but where is the argument? On a side note, I have to wonder what Dr. Robbins did to Lane to deserve such an unprovoked, personal and public attack?

Further, where is the evidence that John “called a lot of people un-Reformed who were in fact Reformed”? I’ve read virtually everything John had ever published, including his long out of print book on Pat Robertson along with a couple of articles that John cringed when I mentioned them, but I have never read anything where he called someone “un-Reformed” when they were in fact Reformed. He did call Doug Wilson positively un-Reformed, but I hardly think even Lane can take issue with that.  Then again, maybe he does? Needless to say Lane is notably more accommodating to Doug Wilson and his crowd than he’s ever been to Robbins and his.

Also, where is the evidence that “Robbins didn’t seem to know how to love people very well”? What a bizarre thing to say and how could Lane possibly know this?  Has Lane been hanging around Charismatics or is now one himself and can somehow peer into a man’s soul?  As for me, when I read John’s work I see a man who loved the Lord and who had an uncompromising love for the Gospel and who was deeply concerned with the false gospel of the Federal Vision that continues to spread throughout the Church, oddly enough with Lane’s help, and who devoted the last decade of his life trying to expose and stop it.

Lane even accuses John of bearing false witness and for blaming “a lot of people for problems they didn’t cause (Van Til being the obvious one).” Again, perhaps obvious to Lane, but where is the evidence? As for Van Til, John is not the only person to see a direct link between Van Til’s epistemic and theological distinctives with the Federal Vision. In his concluding remarks in The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal Vision, E. Calvin Beisner clearly identifies the root cause of the Federal Vision:

I suspect that this objection to logical systematization-and to its use as a critical tool to test for falsehood by uncovering logical inconsistency-rests, for at least some of them, on their embrace of Cornelius Van Til’s epistemology and apologetic, an important element of which is reticence as to (or perhaps even hostility to) the use of logic in theology. But antipathy to logic is contrary both to Scripture (Isaiah 5:29: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”) and to the overwhelming practice of Reformed theologians. (320-321)

Will Lane now accuse Beisner of blaming Van Til for a problem he didn’t cause or was Beisner just unloving?

Moreover, I’ve noticed that whenever Clark is discussed, or whenever anyone remotely considered in Clark’s “crowd” is even mentioned, Lane always brings up what great pals his Dad and Clark were as if this were somehow relevant or proof of something unsaid.  In this case, Lane uses his Dad’s long ago friendship with Clark to insinuate that Robbins was somehow out of control, even having “run-ins” with Clark’s close friends.  Again, where is the evidence? Further, what constitutes a “run-in”? Is it merely disagreeing on some point or something more akin to vehicular homicide?  I’ve had my share of run-ins with Lane, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him.  Further, why should anyone care and how is it relevant? Yet, in contrast to Lane’s vented spleen, Dr. Clark had enormous respect for John, even entrusting all of his manuscripts to his care, publication and preservation.

Finally, I would encourage my readers to keep a close watch on Lauren Kuo’s involvement on Lane’s blog. My guess is she’s about to get Lane’s famous left-foot of fellowship out the back door as she came perilously close to revealing her own experience in one of the PCA’s Federal Vision churches – a church that happens to be the sister church of Lane’s brother and PCA church elder, Arne Keister. You can read about Lauren Kuo’s experience here and Arne Keister’s sister church here.