That’s good to know. I am glad they were very clear about what they were doing and their reasons for it. They did a much better job than The Gospel Coalition on this one.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Ed,

No one at BJU has said anything like Dave Doran has said concerning fundamentalism. No one at BJU has joined in a conference with a well-known evangelical. The leaders of BJU are still in fellowship with groups like the FBF. That is not to say there are no concerns about BJU. I am concerned about what young men coming out of BJU are saying. But to this point the leaders of the organization have not attempted to distance themselves from other fundamentalists. There is a big difference.

I don’t particularly want DBTS to move out of the fundamentalist orbit. I do differ with them on soteriology, but I appreciate a lot of what they have done in the past. However, I am concerned about their influence which seems to be at least uttering an uncertain sound with respect to their former fundamentalist positions.

They aren’t accountable to me, but I don’t think it is illegitimate for me to raise questions either.

And… I’m not going to answer your question about bjunumbers. It isn’t relevant to what I am doing here, in my opinion.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I don’t have a great desire to go back and forth on this either. I would much rather you actually deal with the issue. The reason I brought it up again is b/c you’ve basically punted on the concerns thus far. Did you know the BJU connection when you posted? No, but that’s not an excuse. It’s an indictment. It shows you didn’t look into the issue enough to really know if there was any basis to your conjectures.

Further, once it was brought to your attention that they were all BJU grads, you basically ignored it and continued to focus on the DBTS connection.

Finally: you didn’t answer my question. How is what you are doing different from what groups like bjunumbers (and other bju survivor type groups) are doing. (i.e., pulling random issues and then making sweeping indictments). Doran answered some pretty direct questions earlier (e.g., DBTS doesn’t endorse MacDonald…these guys are not necessarily reflective of the seminary, etc.) It would be nice if you would show the same courtesy. How is your action different from the other groups I mentioned?

Ed

PS Unless I’m misreading you, the closest thing to an answer to these concerns was “I think it’s worthwhile to pursue the concerns of DBTS.” So, the difference would be that you consider it worthwhile to pursue concerns of DBTS, but not to pursue concerns of BJU?

Ed, first, we have been over this ground before. Not all of these men mentioned BJU in their bios – the common public thread of connection in them is DBTS. The direction they appear to be heading is consistent with concerns that a lot of us have concerning DBTS. I think it is worthwhile to pursue them.

In addition, some were linking to the post in question as if it were an evangelical finally taking a fundamentalist-like stand against MacDonald. This was not the case. I think it is worth pointing that out as well.

I think that I have answered my reasons for posting sufficiently. If you want to continue pursuing this tack, you’ll have to do so by yourself. I’ll not be going back and forth on it further.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Here’s the real issue: If you truly had concerns, you could have contacted either someone at DBTS or the graduate(s) in question with your concerns. Instead, you posted an unsubstantiated musing on your blog (unsubstantiated b/c you didn’t take time to look into the facts), then assume it’s the responsibility of DBTS to publicly allay your concerns. So, how is what you are doing here different from groups like bjunumbers (or the many other BJU survivor type sites)? I fail to see any significant difference, so would appreciate your sharing why your post is different.

Ed

Ed, a lot of us have concerns about the direction DBTS appears to be heading. I am asking questions because I wonder if this particular graduate is symptomatic of that problem. If my concerns are incorrect, they can be easily corrected. I don’t think my questions are unanswerable. I don’t think they have been completely and candidly answered to this point, however.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Don, I’m curious, what do you think you gained by questioning DBTS in this post? How was it not denigrating brothers (and if it was wrong to make the connection between DBTS and these guys associations, maybe worse than “insulting” a brother)?

Ed