But I do have some questions:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dave says that one of the evidences there is no more fundamentalist movement is that we have no \u201cFundamentalist Council\u201d and no leaders. Two questions from this:<\/p>\n
- \n
- No leaders? You don\u2019t consider yourself to be one? Bauder, Vaughn, Jones III, et al are not leaders of Fundamentalism?<\/li>\n
- When did we ever have a \u201cFundamentalist Council\u201d? From my reading of history, Ketcham, Riley, the Joneses, Rice and others took positions and some followed them. That was the movement in days gone by, no? Where was the Council?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Dave wants to use the term \u2018Gospel-driven\u2019 separation. Why this term specifically? I find it ambiguous and confusing. Dave himself has to spend the bulk of his first lecture explaining what it is. Here are some reasons I find it ambiguous:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Some people use the term \u2018Gospel\u2019 as a code word for Calvinism. I don\u2019t think Dave is doing this, but to hear some talk about \u2018Gospel-centered\u2019 and \u2018Gospel-focused\u2019, etc., they mean
Calvinism. Why use a term that has that connotation?<\/li>\n - The more Dave describes his term, the more I hear the term \u201cthe Fundamentals\u201d, as in \u201cthose things essential to salvation\u201d. Is Dave trying to avoid the term \u2018Fundamentals\u2019 because so many want to limit it to a five item list? Or some other list?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
In explaining \u2018gospel-driven\u2019 separation, Dave mentions that the virgin birth isn\u2019t essential to salvation in that when he came to Christ as an 8 yr old, he wouldn\u2019t have understood the concept, but certainly believes he was born again at that point. But\u2026 we aren\u2019t really talking about 8yr olds when it comes to separation, are we? Aren\u2019t we talking about orthodoxy here? That is, essential to orthodox Christian doctrine? Wouldn\u2019t we consider the virgin birth essential to orthodoxy? Would we accept the testimony of a trained theologian who denies the virgin birth? Or anyone who, having been taught what it means, denies it?<\/p>\n
What about the doctrine of inerrancy? Would that be essential to orthodoxy? Would we be willing to accept the Christian testimony of someone who denies inerrancy? Would we make \u2018errancy\u2019 a separation issue? Would an \u2018errantist\u2019 who is basically orthodox with respect to salvation be an apostate?<\/p>\n
When it comes to the doctrine of secondary separation, i.e., separation from true Christian brothers, Dave posits the idea of someone who is in a denomination along with an apostate. He says that if an orthodox person in such a denomination is actively trying to oust the apostates, he would accept that person as a separatist.<\/p>\n
So ok\u2026 would, say, an Open Theist be an apostate? Would it be tolerable to remain in a denomination that allowed an Open Theist to continue in membership? What if an attempt had been made to oust the Open Theist, it failed, and now the orthodox was just co-existing? Would that be acceptable? [This is all hypothetical, eh?]<\/p>\n
Or how about a large Baptist group in the South. It has recently enjoyed a \u2018conservative resurgence\u2019. Were there at one time apostates in that group? Were the conservatives in that group pushing for ouster or control? Having gained control, are there still apostates lurking? Is anyone pushing for their ouster? Is this state of affairs acceptable from a Fundamentalist perspective?<\/p>\n
What if we have a guy who is ostensibly orthodox in theology but uses gutter language and seems obsessed with the \u2018shock value\u2019 of certain subjects in his preaching and teaching? Would that kind of practice be acceptable? Is it acceptable for others who are orthodox to maintain close ties with such a person or his organizations?<\/p>\n
Near the end of the second session, Dave sums up four positions.<\/p>\n
- \n
- A = Apostasy<\/li>\n
- B = Ecumenical Evangelical (formerly \u2018New Evangelical\u2019? \u2013 those who grant Christian fellowship to apostates)<\/li>\n
- C = Inconsistent Separatist (Bauder\u2019s \u2018Indifferentist\u2019? Those who claim separation but won\u2019t separate from \u2018B\u2019?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
He says here, \u201cI do not believe that we should extend fellowship to any of those.\u201d<\/p>\n
- \n
- D = Those who will fellowship with C \u2013 we won\u2019t break fellowship with D for this reason, he is personally a separatist but is willing to be more open than Dave on C.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I hope I am understanding this right and am willing to be corrected. But if I have that right, I agree with this position.<\/p>\n
I would but, say, Dever in the C position, basically. I don\u2019t think that he grants Christian fellowship to apostates, but he is willing (I think) to have some fellowship with some in the B crowd. Actually, for me, it seems that Dave and some other friends of mine are the Ds \u2013 they\u2019ll fellowship to some extent with Dever. This makes me nervous. But I\u2019m not prepared to break fellowship at this point. That might be a future call, if some D brethren start looking more and more like C brethren, but if things stay as they are, I would be nervous but open to fellowship.<\/p>\n
Does that make sense? Am I getting those views right?<\/p>\n
One more thing: following this discussion, he takes the discussion to the area of King James Only advocates.<\/p>\n
Dave says, \u201cLet\u2019s say there is someone who claims to be a fundamentalist but also attributes to an English translation what can only be attributed to the originals and therefore is undercutting the inspiration of the Scriptures.\u201d Dave says, \u201cno fellowship with that person.\u201d<\/p>\n
This brings up more questions in my mind. What is the basis for this \u2018no fellowship\u2019 position? Is Dave saying that the Ruckmanite is an apostate? That is to say, if we are applying the separation grid as Dave has described it, is that where the Ruckmanite would fall? ((Please note, Dave doesn\u2019t use the term \u201cRuckmanite\u201d in this discussion \u2013 I am using it for shorthand, because I think that this is who he is talking about.))<\/p>\n
So then Dave goes on to describe the fundamentalist who thinks Ruckmanism is wrong to the point of heresy but doesn\u2019t completely break fellowship with them. Dave wouldn\u2019t have fellowship with this person either. So would these \u2018professing fundamentalists\u2019 be like position \u2018B\u2019 on the chart above? They aren\u2019t ecumenical, but they are extending some sort of Christian recognition to a heretic, an apostate?<\/p>\n
Next, we talk about guys who would now be in position \u2018C\u2019 with respect to Ruckmanism\u2026 they won\u2019t break fellowship with \u2018B\u2019 (Ruckman fellowshippers) because they are giving them some slack because they are optimistic about them. Are these guys \u201cInconsistent separatists\u201d?<\/p>\n
According to Dave\u2019s chart above, he says he won\u2019t fellowship with \u2018A\u2019, \u2018B\u2019, or \u2018C\u2019 (although I guess I accused him of fellowshipping with C, didn\u2019t I!).<\/p>\n
Dave says the \u2018C\u2019 men on the version issue are willing to fellowship with the \u2018B\u2019 men on the version issue, but not the \u2018C\u2019 men on the ecumenism issue because the \u2018B\u2019 men have the right \u201cmembership card\u201d, not because they are consistently following Biblical principle.<\/p>\n
Is that right? Have I got all my alphabet soup in the right order?<\/p>\n
On this point, there are some key questions: Is Ruckmanism actually <\/p>\n
an apostasy such that gospel essentials are being denied or sufficiently undermined so as to destroy the gospel? Can a man be a Ruckmanite and be a Christian? Are we saying NO to that question?<\/p>\n
I am perfectly willing to cut Ruckmanites completely off. I have done so. (It actually created a little dicey situation in church yesterday.) I have urged KJO friends to do the same. But\u2026 are we saying that Ruckmanism is the same thing, spiritually speaking, as modernism? That Ruckmanites are not Christians?<\/p>\n
~~~<\/p>\n
Well, as you can see, I have a lot of questions. I agree with the basic grid as explained, but I still have a lot of questions.<\/p>\n
![\"don_sig2\"](\"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/don_sig210.png\" "\\"don_sig2\\"")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since Dave Doran\u2019s blog has no comments and he sometimes comments here, I thought I\u2019d ask some questions. I have listened to the audio of his first two presentations at the recent Mid-America Conference on Preaching. I have to say that in general I am in agreement with what he is teaching about ecclesiastical separation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[91,37,71,68],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-ol","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- D = Those who will fellowship with C \u2013 we won\u2019t break fellowship with D for this reason, he is personally a separatist but is willing to be more open than Dave on C.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Some people use the term \u2018Gospel\u2019 as a code word for Calvinism. I don\u2019t think Dave is doing this, but to hear some talk about \u2018Gospel-centered\u2019 and \u2018Gospel-focused\u2019, etc., they mean