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Christianity Today, October, 2007 |

Tethered to the Center

The Gospel Coalition is committed to core evangelical beliefs and wide-ranging cultural engagement.

Collin Hansen | posted 10/17/2007 02:30PM

The Gospel Coalition kicked off in late May with little fanfare, just how organizers wanted it. Any conference headlined by D. A. Carson, Tim Keller, and John Piper would likely attract more than 500 ...

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Alison

Posted: October 22, 2007 12:07 PM


I'm absolutely thrilled.

Mrs. Donna L. Carlaw

Posted: October 22, 2007 12:02 PM

P: As long as the confessional statement is tied to the outdated idea that women cannot serve as leaders in churches and are not equal to their husbands in providing leadership, ...> I would be interested to know why you say "outdated idea" rather than "unbiblical idea." Is male-only leadership in the church and in the home unbiblical or just outdated? If oudated, it will go the way of the Dodo bird. OTOH, if male-led homes and churches are the biblical norm, then you have a problem. I did not know that truth was a kind of popularity contest as you seem to be saying. J: The Apostle's and the Nicene Creeds are foundational in the confession of the Christian Faith. I think Protestants, particulary Evangelicals and Pentecostals need to get reacquainted with these creeds. > I'm wondering how many women were present when these Creeds were hammered out. Why these creeds especially? In what ways are you saying we have forgotten who the real Christ is?

Darren King

Posted: October 18, 2007 8:36 PM

Postmodern developments have helped evangelicals to realize that what many once considered "a biblical view" was really just a systematic reading of scripture based on one particular view. This is the reason why Carson and gang's perspective on evangelicalism is waning. They are simply defending their one, subjective reading of the scriptures and calling this "Evangelical Christianity". Others, realizing this subjective underpinning, have chosen to see the text more as a living narrative; a narrative that needs to be contextualized (read: "tethered") within 2000 years of Christian history, not merely the last few centuries of the modern era.

Arrogance

Posted: October 18, 2007 12:30 PM

Carson's comment "There are lots of people today who call themselves evangelicals, who no evangelical would have recognized as such 50 years ago," and "And partly because of the drift toward postmodern epistemology, there is less and less sense of the need for a center." have to be the most arrogant statements I have heard coming out of the mouth of a so called evangelical. Who does Carson think he is? This is the problem with movements like Gospel Coalition, and why most people who call themselves evangelicals will NEVER affiliate with it. Do you really want some arrogant person like Carson telling you that because you believe X, Y or Z or because you don't believe A, B or C you should not consider yourself an evangelical?? Well, I for one do not, nor do I care in the least what Carson or the Gospel Coalition have to say about anything. I am accountable to God, and God alone, not some self appoint group of power grabbers, who want to control the agenda and what people believe.

Patrick

Posted: October 18, 2007 8:33 AM

"But because the confession betrays a broadly Reformed perspective and expects that men lead churches and homes..." As long as the confessional statement is tied to the outdated idea that women cannot serve as leaders in churches and are not equal to their husbands in providing leadership, I can't see it having much appeal to large numbers of evangelicals. And as long as some churches insist on propounding that idea, they are going to be increasingly irrelevant. And funny, many Reformed denominations themselves have shed that artifact.

Irene Voysey

Posted: October 18, 2007 3:10 AM

`Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ,' said the apostle Paul (1 Cor.11:1) In the Gospels, Christ set radical examples in lifting up the oppressed - including women. In the Gospels, God in His wisdom, permitted/ordained every major Gospel proclamation to be made by a woman. How sad then to see the faces of the Gospel Coalition leadership - every one of them male. And in the thousands of carefully written words, where is even the smallest hint of the GRACE shown by Jesus to the sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50? Where is even a fraction of the mindblowing MERCY shown to a lying, sinful Samaritan woman when He revealed Himself as Messiah - the only time He did so before his crucifixion? Where is the compassionate LOVE that led Him, after the disciples had left the empty tomb, to appear first to Mary Magdalene, weeping for the passing of the only religious leader to see her for who she was, without the demons, made in His image? A `Gospel' Coalition? Which Gospel?

John	Posted: October 17, 2007 5:55 PM


The Gospel Coalition seems to be another regrouping of earlier Reformed Confessional groups, such as the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. However, just its position on the Lord's Supper and baptism will alienate many Baptists and others who have, since the Reformation, viewed the ordinances as only symbolic, so I don't know how centrist the Coalition should claim to be.

Jason Oliver Evans

Posted: October 17, 2007 4:13 PM

I agree, Janika. The Apostle's and the Nicene Creeds are foundational in the confession of the Christian Faith. I think Protestants, particulary Evangelicals and Pentecostals need to get reacquainted with these creeds. Or better yet go to the foundational Creed of the Christian Faith, "Jesus is LORD." Like I said in another blogs, Evangelicalism is not Christianity. Nor is Pentecostalism for that matter and I identify myself as both. However, Christ is not limitted to these to modern traditions. The American evangelical movement needs to go back to Christ testified in the Scriptures. It is not a enough to be Bible-believing if we won't honor Christ with our whole being and actions. That's false worship, something that a few of the Pharisees and the scribes were doing in the days of Jesus.

Beth	Posted: October 17, 2007 11:26 AM


This is a very poweful truth-filled statement: "If we seek service rather than power, we may have significant cultural impact," the statement says. "But if we seek power and social control, we will, ironically, be assimilated into the very idolatries of wealth, status, and power we seek to change." I look forward to hearing more from this group which seeks to do God's will on earth.

Robert

Posted: October 17, 2007 10:23 AM

The problem with Gospel Coalition is its desire to control the agenda. The only reason to establish a core set of doctrinal beliefs is to exclude those who do not hold them!! For instance, if you look at what Carson has been up to in recent years, criticizing anyone who "strays" from the path of historical tradition, from Zane Hodges, Open Theism, Emergent Church to N.T. Wright and New Perspectives on Paul, its easy to see where something like the Gospel Coalition is likely to lead. The last thing we need is for a group of self appointed leaders, based completely on their celebrity, be it academic or otherwise, who are accountable to no one, to decide what is orthodox and what is not. American Evangelicalism has grown up into an organized institution, embracing modern business organizational and marketing techniques, treating Jesus as a product, church members as customers and pastors and professors as CEOs and consultants. I for one am not interest in what the Kabbalah has to say.

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