Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Piper: Divide for the Sake of Unity

Piper's recent sermon from Romans 16 sounds rather like what fundamentalists advocate:
[F]or the sake of unity—that is, truth-based unity—Paul calls for truth-based division.
Read, watch, or hear the whole thing here.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds much more like what Francis Schaeffer advocated in reaction to the excesses of fundamentalism.

Schaeffer, who had been a card carrying fundamentalist, left that movement after becoming disgusted with its devaluation of unity, its misunderstanding of the relationship of "form and freedom", and its failure to demonstrate what Piper here calls "enemy love".

Ben said...

Keith,

I haven't read much of Schaeffer from that era. My guess is it would have been in or around the 70s, which may well have been the low point for fundamentalism in many ways.

But in any case, you'll notice that I said, "what fundamentalists advocate," not "what fundamentalists practice."

Anonymous said...

Joel,

Great -- it having any type of "fundamentalist" in one's label is a good thing.

Of course, then just about every conservative evangelical would be a "type C" as well.

What I want to know is why not just call the fundamentalists who agree with Piper "type A evangelicals"?

Ben,

You gotta read Schaeffer. You'll see that this whole "conservative evangelical" thing isn't new.

Anonymous said...

Sorry one more thing Ben,

Reading Schaeffer will also help you see Kuyper and the cultural mandate in a more favorable light than Lloyd-Jones. AND Schaeffer was just as anti-Graham type crusades as Lloyd-Jones.

Ben said...

Keith,

I'm sure I would have much to learn from Schaeffer, but rest assured, I will never be a covenant theologian.

In the words of a non-dispensational, non-CT professor, "Covenant theology is an amazing system of theology. Covenant theologians defend their system better than any other theologians. The only problem is that their system has nothing whatsoever to do with the Bible."

Just giving ya' a hard time. I'm in a weird mood today.

Ben said...

Joel,

I don't think we're s'posed to say stuff like that.

Anonymous said...

Ben,

I heard a similar saying once except it went like this: "Dispensationalism is an amazing system of theology. Dispensationalists care about nothing more than defending that system. Too bad no one was able to know the truth until after the the time of Darby, the publication of the Scofield's notes, and the invention of big white sheets and cartoon graphics."

Just playin too. But seriously, you ought to read Schaeffer -- he was a premillenialist (this is not a plus in my book but it probably is in yours) and writes very little about "covenant" distinctives.

Ben said...

Touché.

But then I don't know if dispensationalist is a good description for me either. I just call myself a biblicist. That seems to work pretty well. ;-)