{"id":1011,"date":"2008-12-03T19:56:51","date_gmt":"2008-12-04T03:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2008\/12\/03\/more-musings-on-the-ets\/"},"modified":"2008-12-03T19:56:51","modified_gmt":"2008-12-04T03:56:51","slug":"more-musings-on-the-ets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2008\/12\/03\/more-musings-on-the-ets\/","title":{"rendered":"more musings on the ETS"},"content":{"rendered":"
Is there a more defining evangelical organization than the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS)? Some might say that the quintessential Evangelical organization would be the National Association of Evangelicals, but would that really be true? One key area of comparison is the doctrinal standards of each organization. The NAE requires members to affirm their statement of faith<\/a>. The ETS requires members to hold to their doctrinal basis<\/a>. (Of course, the ETS requires a level of scholarly attainment for membership as well, due to its differing nature. We are not comparing that aspect of these organizations.) <\/p>\n Now, which organization requires the more exclusive standard of doctrinal agreement as its foundational basis?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It should be pretty obvious that the more rigorous and exclusive organization is the NAE, as far as doctrinal foundation goes. In my recent posts on the Kevin Bauder lectures, my post NE is dead, long live NE<\/a> highlights Dr. Bauder’s contention that the mainstream of evangelicalism has adopted the Indifferentist philosophy of the New Evangelicalism (which he says is dead). I think we have to agree with Dr. Bauder that Evangelicalism is Indifferentist in the main. I would go further and suggest that Indifferentism permeates the entirety of Evangelicalism, to one degree or another. (To understand Indifferentism, see indifferentists defined<\/a>.) In any case, I would submit that Indifferentism is pretty well evident in the foundational doctrinal philosophy of the NAE and the ETS, but more so in the ETS with its minimal doctrinal standard. <\/p>\n In recent years, the ETS has been embroiled in doctrinal controversy over Open Theism. An unsuccessful attempt was made to expel some proponents of OT. These controversies prompted others to push for a more detailed doctrinal foundation<\/a>. For more links and more details of the arguments for the amendment, you can check out this post<\/a> by one of the proponents. <\/p>\n The arguments about the ETS and it’s doctrinal statements are of little interest to me, as far as having an interest in the ultimate outcome is concerned. I am interested, however, in some the arguments that individuals are making against tightening up the doctrinal basis of the ETS. Notice, for example, this statement, found at this site<\/a>: <\/p>\n If ETS starts going down this road, it risks becoming the Fundamentalist Evangelical Society, being closed off to the ideas of the world that may perhaps threaten what status quo of doctrinal beliefs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The same poster also made this comment: <\/p>\n Each society can make up its own rules, but when people start retreating into the fundamentalist notion of shutting out others who may not have the same or do not have as conservative of views as they do, I get nervous about Christian scholarship’s future.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Other arguments are made against imposing a more severe doctrinal statement on the Society, including an argument that the ETS is not a church and therefore has no power to establish any kind of church court system in order to expel those who might come to deny the doctrinal statement. <\/p>\n\n
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