Understanding Federal Vision

My good friend Wes White has provided some articles to better understand the thinking and actions of the Federal Vision.

1. FV view of the visible church
2. WCF on saving benefits of Christ
3. FV contrary to the WCF

Meyers, FV and the Missouri Presbytery

The latest decision concerning the complaint against the exoneration of Jeffrey Meyers is posted at Wes White's blog, here.

Replay: Peter Leithart Nails It

The debate about Federal Vision is a debate about theology, not a debate primarily about persons, movements, or labels.When it comes to what the theological issues are, I think Peter Leithart has absolutely nailed it in his book The Baptized Body, which you can read online here. While he nails the issue, he comes down totally on the wrong side, and I also do think that he has wrongly caricatured the other side at points....[continued here].

FV Friday: FV Attack Dogs

Answering Wilson's Attack Dogs

"My post "Conversation with an FV Minister" must have struck a chord because TE Lawrence's Session has attempted to bring me up on charges for it. I've written on the Federal Vision for a couple of months now, and I've actually been surprised that I've gotten so little response from Federal Visionists. Then, I publish supporting quotes for my conversation with an FV minister, and, all of a sudden, I have a bunch of Wilson's attack dogs yapping at my feet. I must have struck a chord.

"Here's why I think I struck a chord. I make the FV sound Roman Catholic. I think there's one reason why I'm able to do that. It's because the FV sounds Roman Catholic. It is a sacramentalist system very akin to that of Rome. That's why quite a few Federal Visionists have ended up in Rome or an Anglo-Catholic Church. Taylor Marshall, a Roman Catholic, has admitted the affinity between FV and Rome. I have also demonstrated the affinities here. I have heard story after story of those who have gone from FV to Episcopal/Anglican to Rome."

[continued here]

FV Friday: Reply to the Joint FV Profession, Part 8

Reply to the Joint FV Profession, Part 8 - The FV Denies the Law/Gospel Distinction

 
The Joint Federal Vision Profession, written by Douglas Wilson and signed by PCA Pastor Jeff Meyers, denies the historic Protestant distinction of law and Gospel. It says:

We deny that law and gospel should be considered as hermeneutics, or treated as such. We believe that any passage, whether indicative or imperative, can be heard by the faithful as good news, and that any passage, whether containing gospel promises or not, will be heard by the rebellious as intolerable demand. The fundamental division is not in the text, but rather in the human heart.

This is a blatant denial of the law/Gospel distinction. They do not believe it is in the text itself.

This denial of the Biblical distinction between law and Gospel is basic to the whole Federal Vision system. They believe that the law and Gospel are fundamentally the same. As Steve Schlissel said, "The law as God gave it is the Gospel" ("The Monroe Four Speak Out," pp. 1-2). This has also been confirmed by Doug Wilson:

When we say that all of God's word is perfect, converting the soul. When we don't divide it up into law and gospel, when we don't say law over here, gospel over there, when we say it's all gospel, it's all law, it's all good ("Visible and Invisible Church Revisited", p. 21).

Thus, there is no law/Gospel distinction except in the way that people may take the passages. It is not in Scripture itself, though they admit there's a difference between the Old and New Testaments.


The Reformed View [continued here]

FV Friday: The Federal Vision Gospel

The Federal Vision Gospel

"The law as God gave it is the Gospel." Steve Schlissel

Read my critique of the Federal Vision's denial of the classic Protestant distinction of law and Gospel here.

FV Friday: Doug Wilson Denies Sola Fide?

Here is a post of a man who has reversed his view on Wilson.

FV Friday: Lies & the FV

Lies and the Federal Vision

This post is going to seem extremely over the top for many. We want to give people in the Church the judgment of charity and rightfully so.

However, we must be careful not to ignore evidence that there are significant problems. This is true in every case. It is especially true in regard to Federal Visionists.

Why is this the case? Because, in the view of at least one FV advocate, lying is a tool that you can use to defeat tyrants. This is what the Federal Visionista patriarch James Jordan teaches in his book Primeval Saints.

He writes on p. 86 of this book: [continued here]

The Catholic Prespective on the Federal Vision

Here is a fascinating post:

"I was a young Calvinist who set to reading the post-Theonomy authors (James Jordan, Jeffrey Meyers, Peter Leithart, Ray Sutton, et al.) They were on the edge of things – robes, weekly communion, Old Covenant typology, realized eschatology, high ecclesiology, etc. This is the same pond that produced the covenantal Catholic theologian Scott Hahn, which nearly all American Catholics have celebrated."

[more here]

Federal Vision Friday: Outside Perspective on the Siouxlands FV Controversy

For the next few months Fridays will include writings from my fellow pastor, Wes White. These articles are mostly informative and sometimes provocative. I cannot speak of some of the issue first hand, but I implicitly trust his research (since I researched the FV issues a few years back first hand).

This article in particular is the place to start to know the happenings out West:

"The article below was published in The Standard Bearer, Vol. 86, Issue 11, 3/1/2010, the denominational magazine of the Protestant Reformed Church. Rev. Spronk provides such an excellent critique of the issues in Siouxlands that I asked their permission to republish it on my blog. They agreed. Here it is.

Update: Federal Vision on Trial in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA)


[continued here].

FV Friday: Discerning Federal Vision's Roman Catholic Tendencies

My friend and fellow minster, Wes White, has had providential opportunity to investigate Federal Vision first hand. And he has given me permission to reprint his postings.

Here is the first post--a personal post:

Discerning Federal Vision's Roman Catholic Tendencies When They Hit You in the Face like a 2X4

Back in the 1990's, I went down to Monroe, Louisiana because I was "courting" a girl there. I really enjoyed my time down there. I stayed at the Wilkins' home, and they were very gracious hosts. I was thinking of doing seminary at the Dabney Center there in Louisiana. I got to know some of the people. I also visited Auburn Avenue's sister Church, Knox PCA in Ruston, Louisiana (about a half an hour away). I remember sitting in the Church talking to their Pastor, Jeffrey Steel. These Churches were closely aligned. It seemed to me that Steel was the right hand man of Steve Wilkins in the Louisiana Presbytery.

Well, things didn't work out with the girl down there. So, I didn't end up moving down there. The next year, though, I met a wonderful woman in Grand Rapids where I lived, and we got married. I decided to go to one of the closest Reformed seminaries, Mid-America Reformed Seminary. I was firmly in the FV camp when I went to Mid-America. I was even on the Biblical Horizons list, per the suggestion of John Barach. I began to realize that the Reformed Church was not the place for me. I started seriously considering the Reformed Episcopal Church. At some point, I actually called Jeffrey Steel to ask him about the Episcoapl Church because he had some connection to it, which I cannot remember.

Well, I found out today the sad news that Jeffrey Steel has joined the Roman Catholic Church. I found the report on a site by Kevin Branson. Branson was a former member of Auburn Avenue who became Roman Catholic. He linked to Steel's page where Steel gives some information. I'm reproducing Branson's report here because it is so telling: [continued here]