Wednesday November 17, 2021; 9:06 PM EST
- This article, No Longer Together 4 the Gospel, is a few weeks old. The problem is even older than that.#
- I've traveled with a dozen or so men from our church to a couple T4G conferences. We always had a great time together. It is also true that the Reformed-ish, conservative theological perspective is often very narrow, and I'd agree that it applies to the T4G gist. #
- I don't agree with Mr. Sandlin that worldview is more important than theology, but that could be just an apparent disagreement. I'm sure he believes that God's revelation is the source, and the authority, for shaping weltanschauung. But I would say that the problem is a theology problem. The problem is a misunderstanding of God proper, and especially of God's interests.#
- The problem is at least implicitly denying that the Creator-Theos cares about time and space, and behaving as if God changed His mind about all the goods in Genesis 1. It ignores the first great commission to man for relationships (be fruitful and multiply) and responsibilities (fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion) on the earth, here and now (Genesis 1:28). That's at bottom a Bible-reading issue, a doctrinal issue, not a philosophical one, as if worldview came apart from God's revelation.#
- While such a limited worldview could be connected to one's eschatology, I believe that the theological error leading to the dilution in T4G circles is a form of dualism. All of the headlining T4G speakers act and teach as if what God cares about the most and, therefore, what all of us should care about the most, are "spiritual" things. But, ironically, spiritual fruit is earthy. Spiritual people are husbands and fathers (Ephesians 5:18 then look at the family responsibilities that flow out of the Spirit's filling), not just pastors and missionaries. Spiritual men serve and lead. They redeem the time (5:15), they don't only work on their sentences about eternity.#
- It is the Christian confession that Jesus is Lord. It is the Calvinist who (most consistently) acknowledges that God is sovereign. It is a Kuyperian who grasps that the lordship of Christ applies to the rest of the day after our "quiet time" in the Word, and that the sovereignty of God in science and history and families and businesses and education is more than just a token pointing to heaven's throne.#
- T4G does exalt Jesus and does preach the Word. And also they do so with a limited expectation of where the incarnate Word and inspired Word apply. Seek the things that are above with the things of earth. #
- Anyway, read the original article and let's work to believe bigger than just defending a "privat(ized) theology limited to soteriology."#