Monday, November 27, 2006

Douglas Wilson and the Federal Vision

Mike,

What are Doug Wilson's succinct positions on baptismal regeneration, justification by faith alone, and Christ's active versus passive obedience? Given the furor over the Federal Vision, maybe there is an FAQ that you can point me to read first! :)

Thanks again for the initial response.

Marcus


Hi Marcus,

It’s always nice to get a short easy question. Thanks for writing. I'm just kidding. We get questions like yours all the time.

Instead of trying to answer your questions myself, I'm going to give you a bunch of links so that you can read what Doug thinks in his own words.

With regard to the New Perspective on Paul the best place to go is to a special edition of Credenda/Agenda that addressed that very question. You can find it here: http://www.credenda.org/issues/15-5.php.

The Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches (the denomination we belong to) examined Doug and his Reformed orthodoxy regarding the issue of “The Federal Vision” here: http://www.crechurches.org/html/downloads.html.

Doug has a whole section on his blog dedicated to NT Wright you can find it here: http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=ArchivesByTopic&TopicID=33. These are comments on many of NT Wrights books so you might have to dig a little to find exactly what you are looking for.

With regard to your other questions Doug has written a book called Reformed is Not Enough published by Canon Press. He's addressed most of your other questions in that book. If you'd rather read some things on the web he has a section on his blog called Auburn Avenue Stuff. You can find it here: http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=ArchivesByTopic&TopicID=14.

There are a couple of web sites that have things that Doug has written. This first one doesn't like Doug much, but at least they have a number of links to things he's said that are actually things he's said. You can find it here: http://www.paulperspective.com/page2.html.

Here is a link to a fellow who does not espouse Federal Vision theology, but who did a very good job of representing us. He was careful to make sure that he checked with us all along the way as he was writing and he did a very good job: http://www.biblelighthouse.com/covenants/within_the_bounds_of_orthodoxy.htm.

Normally the folks who don't like the Federal Vision can't actually describe what we believe. They get it all wrong and shoot down what they've misunderstood or simply missed. Usually, we would be just as strong in our objections as they are, if we actually believed what they say we believe.

A good example of this is the link above that is page 2, is a page where the folks are trying to be even handed. But if you read page 2 before you read page 1 you will easily see that the folks in page 1 are not reading page 2 before they are making up their minds. At least they aren't actually reading what's being said on page 2.

I hope this helps,

Pastor Lawyer

1 comment:

Unknown said...

These are great links. If I had to narrow it down to 2 things, I'd say read "Reformed is Not Enough", then read the last article linked above.