Editor’s Note: This is a substantially longer version of the article by Thomas Oden that appears in the May/June issue of Books & Culture under the same title. Next week we will post a selection of responses from readers to the exchange between Oden and Robert Gundry.
Some who, having read my exchange with Robert Gundry in the March/April issue, may still be wondering what the fuss and fidget is all about. I would like to try simply to describe the conflicting interests flowing into the controversy over the “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration,” the leadership for which was provided by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christianity Today.
It is pertinent to begin by pointing out the unprecedented coalition of worldwide evangelical leaders who joined in this sensitive effort to state an evangelical consensus. In order to show the inclusive and irenic purpose of the document, it is first useful to specify the remarkable breadth of this consensus. Headlined by Billy Graham, this consensus includes such leading exegetes as D.A. Carson and Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.; distinguished evangelical educators such as Richard J. Mouw, Luder Whitlock, George Brushaber, and Duane Litfin; prominent evangelical women such as Roberta Hestenes, Kay Arthur, Beverly LaHaye, and Joni Eareckson Tada; key European evangelical theologians such as Henri Blocher and John Stott; leading evangelical apologists such as Ravi Zacharias and R. C. Sproul; heads of worldwide parachurch ministries such as Bill Bright and Chuck Colson; major voices of international broadcast ministries such as Charles Swindoll, John MacArthur, Marlin Maddoux, John Ankerberg, David Jeremiah, and Pat Robertson. Then compare the transdenominational varieties of voices: major Baptist leaders such as Charles F. Stanley, Adrian Rogers, Richard Land, and Jerry Falwell; varied representatives of Wesleyans and Arminian traditions such as Maxie Dunnam, Jay Kesler, and Robert Coleman; such different Presbyterian as D. James Kennedy, D. James Kennedy, and Ben Hayden; and Reformed teachers as Roger Nicole, Edmund Clowney, and John F. Walvoord; major Pentecostal voices such as those of Russell Spittler and Brian Stiller; Lutherans such as Oswald Hoffman and Myron Augsburger; free church evangelicals as different as Kenneth Kantzer and David F. Wells; Anglican evangelicals such as J.I. Packer and Bishop C. Fitzsimmons Allison; respected teachers from the charismatic tradition such as Jack Hayford and Wayne Grudem; executives of massive cooperative evangelical organizations such as Brandt Gustavson, Don Argue, James J. Stamoolis; and international evangelical leaders such as Hee Min Park, Luis Palau, Augustin B. Vencer, Jr., In Ho Koh, and David Cerullo; along with church growth leaders such as Bill Hybels, black evangelicals such as Tony Evans, vast movement leaders such as Bill McCartney, evangelical publishers such as Stan N. Gundry, social evangelicals such as Ronald J. Sider, and eminent historians such as Timothy George, John Woodbridge, and Gerald Bray.
Why recite such a long list? Because only by this means can the broad range of evangelical consensus be grasped. “People have been stunned by the broad acceptance of this statement,” wrote David Neff, editor of CT, in the introduction to “Celebration.” How was such a wide evangelical consensus attained? It required patient, painstaking, irenic efforts in redrafting and consulting. One wonders whether any document of the evangelical tradition since the Lausanne Convenant of 1974 has received such wide consent. Can our distinguished critics produce anything approaching an equivalent list that would consent to their views? If they disagree with particulars, they have a duty to recognize the irenic and limited purpose of this document. Yet the document continues to be criticized because of its supposed narrowness and lack of representation. I am tempted to conclude that there are some evangelicals who appear so to love dissent, exegetical conflict, and the delicious feeling of moral indignation, that it seems almost a mark of purity to show how they differ from any effort at consensus. This at times takes on the ironic and amusing posture of appearing to desire to fail, to hold to such an untarnished position that only a few could possibly agree with it.
It should be pointed out that although there are few who have openly opposed the document, these few dissenters are in fact distinguished academics with many interests decisively shaped by their social location within the academy. Our critics are largely disassociated with mainstream evangelical academic societies such as the Evangelical Theological Society and the Wesleyan Theological Society, where one will find the most representative arena of opinion of evangelical theologians of our time. Some of our critics have had already a rocky history with the evangelical mainstream, and carry these wounds into their perecptions of this new attempt at irenicism. Academic critics who feel no responsibility for seeking consensuality have the legitimate freedom to criticize, but they often cannot easily claim legitimation of their views on a wider public scale.
The Holy Spirit is moving worldwide evangelicals toward a clearer articulation of our unity in the truth, the unity for which Christ prayed. We believe that it is backward, dated, reactionary, and obsolete for academic evangelicals to remain in this defensive, competitive, contesting, and individualist posture that has so damaged the cause of unity among evangelicals. It is uncritical for them not to recognize their own social location as affecting their entry into debates on consensuality. Christians are called to be of one mind wherever possible (John 17:20-21; Phil. 2:2; Rom. 14:1-15:13). Divisions among Christians hinder our witness in the world. This does not imply embracing any form of “doctrinal indifferentism, or relativism, or pluralism by which God’s truth is sacrificed for a false peace.”
Here is a short list of our various critics’ objections: 1) some felt that the document appeared to cut off debate or exclude many evangelicals from the table; 2) the document seemed too Reformed, too Calvinist, not sufficiently welcoming to Wesleyan-Arminian-Holiness-Pentecostal voices; 3) some have protested the confession’s high doctrine of scriptural authority; 4) the document seemed to overstress the imputation and substitionary themes in atonement teaching; and 5) some have argued that only the death of Jesus and not his sinless life is pertinent to our salvation.
The drafters of “Celebration” (of whom I was one, playing but a minor role) concede readily some of these imperfections and inadequacies, partly because they go beyond the specific purpose of this document, but in other charges we think an answer is needed. To leave unanswered some of these charges would leave the impression that we have no answer.
1. Cutting Off Debate?
Does “Celebration” intend to cut off debate or exclude dissenting exegetes from all legitimacy? The text of “Celebration” makes it clear that its signers have no desire to foreclose further exegetical debate over important and still reasonably contested points, but rather only to state points of proximate consensus where possible. It says: “Doctrinal disagreements call for debate. Dialogue for mutual understanding and, if possible, narrowing of the differences is valuable, doubly so when the avowed goal is unity in primary things, with liberty in secondary things, and charity in all things.” In introducing the document, David Neff writes: “We pray that this document is not the last word on the gospel.” But some of our critics did not grasp the basic motivation of “Celebration,” which was not to settle all controverted points, but to articulate only points of wide substantive agreement. Not understanding this motivation, they went to work straightaway on the document, with their considerable analytical and exegetical skills, to pick away at vulnerabilities and points of exegesis upon which there is still much room under the evangelical tent for honest disagreement and further debate.
Hence some of my friends and esteemed colleagues, Robert Gundry, Nick Wolterstorff, John Wilson, Alan Padgett, et al.—all persons of unquestioned integrity and superb credentials for entering into evangelical debate—have focused on various points of disagreement mostly beyond the range of what is possible for consensus formation. They have incisively criticized “Celebration” either for its omissions or imperfections. Even though their critiques are worthy of full debate, they fail, I think, to grasp the consensus-forming purpose of the statement. This purpose does not exempt any one from critical debate, but it needs better to be understood. So my present concern is to provide a sociological analysis of two genres of discourse that talk past each other due to their different audiences.
The deliberate intent to omit nonconsensual points was essential to the very purpose of “Celebration.” The purpose was not to engender once again a new round of heated debates over points over which evangelicals have had longstanding disagreements (mode of baptism, predestination, church order, active and passive obedience of Christ, etc.) but rather to focus intently on points of broad consensus upon which most but not all evangelicals can agree. Yet the document continues to be criticized because of its supposed narrowness and lack of representation. It seems that our critics have combed the document looking failures of adequate representation of their point of view or others’ views they imagine to be either thoughtlessly omitted or not consulted. There is no fantasy of complete agreement on all these points. But proximate consensus is different from total agreement. “Celebration” hopes modestly to set forth what is most widely affirmed by contemporary evangelicals of all, or nearly all, branches, historical memories and polities. It could do this successfully only by avoiding particular points of disagreement, while holding fast to what the most widely different evangelicals truly believe and affirm together. The signers cared enough about the work of the Spirit in bringing believers to greater proximate unity in the truth that they voluntarily decided to constrain those points of special advocacy that would divide them, but all these points remain open.
Even though they may have agreed with nine-tenths of the statement, we have not yet heard from our critics clear affirmations on the nine-tenths or whatever, which would be welcome, but only displeasure on the one-tenth or so about which they strongly disagree. This, I think, is because their social location in the academic community places strong constraints on their freedom to join publically with consensus evangelicals. Affiliating in a public way with mainstream evangelicals would cost them dearly in some academic circles.
The purpose of “Celebration” is doctrinal definition, but considered from a sociological point of view, it is consensus formation and legitimation. This purpose necessarily resists non-consensual diversions, such as challenges to classic Christology. Books & Culture is rightly committed to public debate on controverted questions, but we would hope that our irenic purpose would be taken into account and not discounted as if unimportant. The academic community is powerfully shaped by the ethos of the free market of ideas in which precise dissent, charitably offered, is highly valued. But academic evangelicals are attempting to bridge two communities of discourse, evangelical and academic. The working criteria and outcomes of consensus form the background of both communities, but the academic trumps the evangelical in some colleagues, whereas the call to seek evangelical consensus is more central to the signers of this document. The methods of both are valuable, and require patient, empathic dialogue. As an academic evangelical I pray for other colleagues who are trying to build this bridge. The dangers are to increase divisiveness, neglect consensus, or to appear to limit debate.
As I have entered further into a public defense of “Celebration,” I have felt serious doubts as to whether it is fruitful even to continue, especially if it tempts all parties toward a more polemical or defensive tone. John Wilson has assured me that a continuing conversation will proceed on the B&C website, if there is sustained interest, especially on points of exegesis that remain fully open to debate. The signers have never had the intent of limiting this debate, nor do they want the document to be like flypaper that sticks to anything that comes near. I do not wish unnecessarily to perpetuate a public controversy that I would much like to lay to rest, on behalf of the greater need to seek unity in evangelical teaching. I want to play some part in bringing evangelicals together rather than setting them against each other. Here lies the pathos of irenic efforts.
2. Are Wesleyans and Arminians Excluded?
Some critics are dissatisfied that “Celebration” sounds too Reformed, and thereby seems neglectful of a constellation of voices they describe as Wesleyan-Arminian-charismatic-Pentecostal, including some non-Reformed Baptists. One reason I have been asked to enter this debate is that I am a member of both the Wesleyan Theological Society and the Evangelical Theological Society. There are only a few of us. I have sought to build bridges between Reformed and Wesleyan traditions in my book on The Transforming Power of Grace, where I show how the issues of grace and free will can be held consistently together so as to bring Calvinists and Arminians closer together without a sacrificium intellectus.
There is a knee-jerk reaction among hyper-Arminians, long intimidated by nimble Reformed advocates, to assume that anything that comes out of the mouth of a Calvinist is almost predestined to be tilted toward a neglect of grace-enabled freedom. There is similarly a knee-jerk reaction among hyper-Calvinists that Arminianism is of the devil, horns to tail. Anyone who has fairly examined the literature of the Remonstrance and Counter-Remonstrance cannot justly consent to such polarizing judgments. John Wesley remarked that he was “only a hairsbreadth” from Calvin, and that hairsbreadth was, of course “the horrible decrees” of double predestination that in his view undermined the mission of proclamation of the gospel. In my view “Celebration” did not exclude either Wesleyans, Arminians, charismatics, or Pentecostal, and this is why they signed, not because they had not considered it carefully enough. Hence many of us found no burden of conscience in signing a document initiated by Reformed and free church Christians but which contained many signs of irenic inclusion friendly to variable arguments on the relation of grace and freedom.
There is no mention of predestination, for example, in “Celebration.” It should be remembered that Wesley himself argued for what he regarded as a biblical understanding of predestination, and not against all potential definitions of predestination and election. Wesley wrote: “I never preached against the Seventeenth Article [of the Thirty Nine Articles, Of Predestination and Election], nor had the least thought of doing it.” Wesley’s own predestination teaching is grounded textually in Romans 8:29,30: “For God knew his own before ever they were, and also ordained that they should be shaped to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the eldest among a large family of brothers; and it is these, so fore-ordained, whom he has also called. And those whom he called he has justified, and to those whom he justified he has also given his splendor” (Rom. 8:29-30 NEB; see his sermon 58, On Predestination, Bicentennial Edition, 2:416).
While some thought “Celebration” to be too inclusivist, other academic evangelical voices thought it too exclusivist, or not sufficiently open to questions such as whether God has a hidden plan for the salvation of those who have not yet heard of Jesus Christ. Some of our critics have thought it to be too judgmental when “Celebration” states: “We deny that anyone is saved in any other way than by Jesus Christ and his Gospel. The Bible offers no hope that sincere worshipers of other religions will be saved without personal faith in Jesus Christ.” In my view, these questions can remain open exegetically as to whether the Bible indeed does offer some such hope, but at present such arguments have not been convincing to most evangelicals.
3. Whether Scripture Can Err
Note that the word “inerrancy” does not occur at all in “An Evangelical Celebration”. In this respect it has already taken into consideration the sensitivities of some moderate evangelicals uncomfortable with such language. Only once is the term “infallible Scriptures” used, and in that one instance it is put in the context of The Gospel. “This Gospel of Jesus Christ which God sets forth in the infallible Scriptures combines Jesus’ own declaration of the present reality of the kingdom of God with the apostles’ account of the person, place, and work of Christ, and how sinful humans benefit from it.” For insiders in evangelical debates, this language shows the irenic quality of the drafter’s intent. But this has resulted in criticism both from those who wished to have a more explicit statement of inerrancy, and those who dislike inerrancy language altogether.
It is unthinkable that anyone who would ignore a high doctrine of the authority of Scripture could form a consensual statement among Evangelicals. For those who wish to reform evangelical teaching by softening its high doctrine of Scripture, they are free to attempt it, but they will be about as welcome at consensus formation as a dog in a game of croquet.
We do well to consider “Celebration” in relation to the previous history of evangelical debate, the traditional evangelical emphasis on the Spirit’s guidance in the interpretation of Scripture, linked with a strong tradition of individualism and a high value placed on private conscience in the tradition of dissent, especially in the English tradition. In this context this document is no small achievement. Great irenic minds of evangelicalism like Kenneth Kantzer and James Packer and Timothy George have faithfully and accurately sought this objective, and in many ways substantially achieved it.
4. Justification and Imputation
One of the main reasons for attempting this consensual statement was that many evangelicals have been perplexed by recent tense discussions over how to define the doctrine of justification, a key element of the gospel. “They saw the need for a reference document for those engaged in interchurch dialog, for theological students, for pastors, for parachurch ministries, for itinerant evangelists, and for the rest of us,” wrote David Neff in his introduction to the statement. “Celebration” makes such an attempt.
Despite irenic efforts, some critics have objected to this sentence: “We deny that any view of the Atonement that rejects the substitutionary satisfaction of divine justice, accomplished vicariously for believers, is compatible with the teaching of the Gospel.” But please note that other views of atonement are not here ruled out, but only those that exclude the substitutionary view: “we deny any view that rejects . …” Further exegetical discussions are welcome that relate the substitution theme to others such as the Christus Victor, the exemplary, the governance, the temple sacrifice, and other arguably complementary atonement motifs.
Some critics have argued that the imputation motif seems to be the dominant theme of the whole document, yet it occurs only these four times:
• “God ‘justifies the wicked’ (ungodly: Rom. 4:5) by imputing (reckoning, crediting, counting, accounting) righteousness to them and ceasing to count their sins against them (Rom. 4:1—8).”
• “We affirm that the doctrine of the imputation (reckoning or counting) both of our sins to Christ and of his righteousness to us, whereby our sins are fully forgiven and we are fully accepted, is essential to the biblical Gospel (2 Cor. 5:19—21).”
• “This righteousness is counted, reckoned, or imputed to us by the forensic (that is, legal) declaration of God, as the sole ground of our justification.”
• “As our sins were reckoned to Christ, so Christ’s righteousness is reckoned to us. This is justification by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. All we bring to the transaction is our need of it.”
There can be little doubt that all these statements have biblical warrant. It can remain open to exegetical debate as to the adequacy of the crediting or accounting metaphor to convey the full weight of God’s reconciling activity, but there can be little doubt that any biblical doctrine of atonement must take into consideration this language.
5. The Key Issue: The Salvific Significance of Jesus’ Sinless Life
It was very clarifying to hear Robert Gundry in the last issue of B&C acknowledge that his appeal was consonant with and indeed based upon a traditional hermeneutic espoused by what he describes as “non-Reformed evangelicals on the question whether an imputed righteousness of Christ includes more than his submission to the cross,” a position which he interprets as having “no need to have Christ fulfill Israel’s law on their behalf.” This debate is found in the seventeenth-century scholastic Reformed debates on the active and passive obedience of Christ, but there can be no doubt that Calvin, Owen, Baxter, and Wesley all affirmed the complementary of Jesus’ active and passive obedience. This historical debate, however, illumines the landscape of our differences. In Gundry’s view such mainstream evangelical voices “deny an inclusion of more than his submission to death” in Christ’s justifying action. Such a position deserves a hearing within evangelical exegetical debates. But it has great difficulty, in my view, in claiming evangelical consensuality, which was the limited purpose of “Celebration.” It is stretching plausibility to argue that “Celebration” had as its purpose (or even as an ancillary interest) any pretensions to rule out others from evangelical citizenship or not make any room at the evangelical table for those who may wish to argue this point exegetically. “Celebration”‘s purpose rather was to serve, preserve, and clarify the unity of evangelical belief by stating that consensus which is most generally shared by evangelicals inclusive of Reformed, Wesleyan, charismatic, and Pentecostal traditions.
Gundry appears to insist, despite ambiguous disclaimers, that the active obedience of Christ prior to death has no relation whatever to any accrediting of righteousness by faith, which seems to me effectively to deny the complementary of Christ’s active and passive obedience. Gundry’s points of dissent are precise: He argues that no New Testament author ever speaks of any “righteousness of Christ,” and that no such righteousness of Christ is imputed to sinners. He argues that the “one act of righteousness does not include Jesus’ previous life” prior to the cross. Yet a primary Pauline text for “Celebration”‘s view is: “Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:18-19). The “one act” referred to in Romans 5:18-19 includes, according to most evangelicals statements of faith, Jesus’ life and his perfect obedience manifested in and through his life which makes necessary his death. Gundry argues that any talk of Christ’s righteousness must refer only to his death and not in any sense to his life. He says: “The one act of righteousness does not include Jesus previous life.” Yet Paul’s analogy shows that by Adam’s freely chosen behavioral transgression, by Adam’s disobedience, many were made sinners. Adam’s trespass led to condemnation for all. His behavioral actions, freely chosen, were accredited to others’ condemnation. Similarly Christ’s life of obedience, freely chosen, by which his righteousness his embodied in his obedience, is accredited, by Paul’s analogy, to penitent believers as “justification and life.” There is nothing in Romans 5:18-19 to rule out Christ’s life as relevant to his death. This “making righteous” does not occur simply by one man’s death as if separable from his life, but by his entire life as “one act” of obedience which entailed his death. This is precisely what is stated in the classic Protestant confessions and echoed in the voices of recent evangelical confessions, including “Celebration.”
This brings us to the specific statement most objected to in “Celebration”: “Yet God in grace took the initiative to reconcile us to himself through the sinless life and vicarious death of his beloved Son (Eph. 2:4—10; Rom. 3:21—24).” Sounds agreeable? Not to those intent on strictly separating the active obedience of Jesus’ life from the passive obedience of Jesus’ death. Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and Wesley all intimately conjoined the active and passive obedience of the Savior. This view is echoed in the statement of faith of the Billy Graham Association: “He led a sinless life, took on Himself all our sins, died and rose again, and is seated at the right hand of the Father as our mediator and advocate.” So also the National Association of Evangelicals statement of faith, which says: “We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood,” and that of the World Evangelical Fellowship, that evangelicals believe in “Our Lord Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, His virgin birth, His sinless human life, His divine miracles, His vicarious and atoning death, His bodily resurrection, His ascension, His mediatorial work, and His Personal return in power and glory.” Many consensual evangelical statements of faith make the point that to effect salvation, Jesus lived a sinless life, died on the cross as the sinner’s substitute, and rose again, so as to point to his sinless life as included in that which “effects salvation” in a way that cannot be separated from his death. There no tendency in consensual evangelical statements of faith to bifurcate what Jesus did in his life over against what he did through his death.
Gundry’s attempt to separate Christ’s life from his death so as to make only his death pertinent to salvation, as if entirely separable from his righteous life of obedience, runs against the central stream of magisterial Protestant and evangelical teaching. Yet there remains generous room, I believe, within evangelical debate for further exegetical inquiry as to the limits and extent of biblical teaching on “the righteousness of Christ.” But to the extent that such exegesis appears to inveigh against the doctrine of Christ’s righteousness as manifested through his life prior to his death, it has little chance of gaining general evangelical agreement as consensus fidelium. Gundry’s central argument hinges on “whether that righteousness [of God in Jesus Christ] includes his fulfillment of God’s law prior to the crucifixion.” Triune teaching prevents us from saying that the New Testament speaks exclusively of “God’s righteousness, not his Son’s.”
Critics of “Celebration” are free to assert these arguments, but I doubt that a widely based forum of evangelical exegetes seeking consensuality would be able to convince most worldwide evangelicals of the irrelevance of Christ’s life to his death. The Amsterdam 2000 Declaration states: “He was, and is, the second person of the triune Godhead, now and forever incarnate. He was virgin-born, lived a life of perfect godliness, died on the cross as the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, was raised bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, reigns now over the universe and will personally return for judgment and the renewal of all things.” According to the National Association of Evangelicals: “We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.” According to the Gordon Conwell statement of faith: “To effect salvation, He lived a sinless life and died on the cross as the sinner’s substitute, shedding His blood for the remission of sins.” According to The Billy Graham Evangelistic Assocation: “Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. He led a sinless life, took on Himself all our sins, died and rose again, and is seated at the right hand of the Father as our mediator and advocate.” The Fuller Theological Seminary statement of faith confesses its faith in “The only Mediator between God and humankind is Christ Jesus our Lord, God’s eternal Son, who being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, fully shared and fulfilled our humanity in a life of perfect obedience.”
All these standard confessions Gundry seems to be willing to set aside in order to reject the salvific import of the righteousness of Christ’s life as relevant to salvation. If he has, as he claims, some modern evangelical exegetes on his side, there are many more who would prefer the classic Protestant doctrinal consensus. We can happily agree that “contemporary exegesis may correct an aspect of classical Protestant teaching,” but such a correction does well not to attempt to do so without listening to the history of exegesis, nor may it arbitrarily seek to overturn the boundary stones of classic Christian teaching on the sole basis of contemporary exegesis. These classic consensual sources, I believe, consistently affirm the commensurability of Christ’s active and passive obedience, a point shared classically by Lutherans, Calvinists, Wesleyans, and Pentecostals, and dutifully reflected in “Celebration.”
My main point is that the purposes and methods of consensus formation differ from the evaluation criteria prevailing within critical academic circles. Both are legitimate genres of discourse, but we count on the academic critics to be aware of the difference and not fail to recognize the complementary but different purposes of these two forms of discourse. All the above issues hinge on the notable differences between the methods and criteria of these two arenas.
Thomas C. Oden is Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology at the Theological School of Drew University.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine. Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
