On March 7th of this year, David Wilkerson, a seasoned “prophet” from New York City, issued a warning that is particularly eerie in view of today's date: “An earth-shattering calamity is about to happen…. It will engulf the whole [New York City] megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires.” Most of those who were aware of his “prophecy” reacted to it with more amusement than alarm, a decision that in the passing of time proves to have been an apt one.
A few bloggers, though, responded to Wilkerson’s doomsaying remarks in an effort to calm the panicked naïve among their readership. It seems that the previously simple task of answering this kind of alarmism, however, has been rendered increasingly complex by a recent uptick in sympathy for prophecy and tongues in conservative evangelicalism today. Simple denunciation of such prophetic foolishness is apparently no longer acceptable in today’s “open but cautious” evangelical milieu. Instead it would seem that one is now obliged to give Wilkerson a studied hearing and remain cautiously open to the possibility that his prophecy just might be accurate.
John Piper, for instance, denounced Wilkerson's comments, but in a strikingly anemic way: “Wilkerson’s prophecy,” he reassures us, “does not resonate with my spirit…. God might have said this. But it doesn’t smell authentic to me.” All I can say after reading this is that I’m glad I live in Michigan.
Piper goes on to speak of the governing authority of Scripture, so I don’t want to be more critical than is due, but the comment arrested me. If, in fact, God is bombarding the church today with authoritative prophecies and coded messages (i.e., tongues), this cannot help but mute or at best distill one's claim to two critical fundamentals of the faith, namely, biblical sufficiency and biblical authority (sola scriptura). It seems to me to go without saying that if the church needs additional revelations, then the Bible does not give everything we need for life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3) and does not thoroughly equip us for every good work (2 Tim 3:17). Further, if the theological landscape becomes littered with an endless corpus of private and normative revelatory material, it becomes increasingly difficult to see how sola scriptura can be successfully maintained (for a detailed unfolding of this idea see Sam Waldron’s excellent book To Be Continued? Are the Miraculous Gifts for Today? which I recommend highly).
I am not suggesting here that Piper (or Grudem or Carson or Mahaney or anybody in particular) has explicitly denied these cardinal doctrines. Such would be an unfair assessment. But I would say that this accommodation and embrace of continuationism by such prominent evangelical figures, coupled with an increasing suppression of differences on “non-essential” doctrines in the interest of standing “together for the gospel,” represents a troubling and potentially disastrous fissure in conservative evangelicalism that needs to be exposed as ultimately destructive to the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
MAS
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About Me
- Mark Snoeberger
- After growing up in the great state of Pennsylvania, I settled down in 1994 with my new bride, Heather, in Allen Park, Michigan, and have been here at Detroit Baptist Seminary ever since (with a bit of time away for doctoral work). Since 2007 I have been privileged to be a part of the systematic theology faculty here. I love teaching, researching and writing, hunting with my two boys, and enjoying any little bit of God's unadulterated creation I can find (which means I occasionally have to get out of Detroit). But all these things matter to me only because theology matters. For it is God himself who gives all men life and breath and everything else (Acts 17:25).
6 comments:
Mark,
Good post.
The question I have is what is the continuationist response to your charge re: sola scriptura? I would think that careful theologions like some of these guys (e.g., Grudem) would have thought through this very issue. I would be interested in their explanation.
Kent,
Grudem has responded to this charge, but in my mind his response raises more problems than it solves. In his Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today, for instance, Grudem argues that the allowance of miraculous gifts in the church today need not conflict with “a strong affirmation of the closing of the New Testament canon (so that no new words of equal authority are given today), of the sufficiency of Scripture, and of the supremacy and unique authority of the Bible in guidance” (p. 18).
He claims that this "strong affirmation" may be maintained if we recognize that, unlike OT prophecies, “prophecy in ordinary New Testament churches was not equal to Scripture in authority but was simply a very human--and sometimes partially mistaken--report of something the Holy Spirit brought to someone’s mind.”
I think I actually prefer prophecies that are equally as authoritative as Scripture to "partially mistaken" revelations that may or may not be authoritative. If I remember correctly Moses prescribed death by stoning for people who gave "partially mistaken" prophecies. :)
MAS
Good point about Moses.
What is Grudem's scriptural/exegetical basis for this watered down definition of NT church prophecy? It just sounds like what we Ford guys call "weasel words"... :-)
Mark:
I do appreciate your indentifying not just the problem, but the names of the prime instigators of continuationism (noncessationism). My understanding is that John Piper is one of the prime advocates for continuationism among the conservative evangelicals. Isn’t that right? Please advise.
You wrote, “But I would say that this accommodation and embrace of continuationism by such prominent evangelical figures, coupled with an increasing suppression of differences on ‘non-essential’ doctrines in the interest of standing ‘together for the gospel,’ represents a troubling and potentially disastrous fissure in conservative evangelicalism that needs to be exposed as ultimately destructive to the fundamentals of the Christian faith.”
Wouldn’t this then signal the time for IFB leaders to publicly, biblically admonish (2 Thess. 3:15) these conservative evangelical men?
Furthermore, shouldn’t all IFB leaders issue a clear caution to all IFB people in regard to these ce men including their, “increasing suppression of differences on ‘non-essential’ doctrines,” and in that caution expose how the trend of these men is, “…ultimately destructive to the fundamentals of the Christian faith?”
LM
Lou,
This is a good question, and one, perhaps, that calls for a clarification on my part. I'm not trying to say that cessationism is itself a "fundamental"; instead, I'm saying that biblical authority is a "fundamental" and continuationism threatens it.
As such, I don't denounce the accommodation of tongues and prophecies with the same vigor I denounce, say, the denial of the resurrection. But I think there are implications here that are far-reaching--implications of such severity that uninhibited fellowship on every level just won't work.
I must be fair to my conservative evangelical brothers--as I say often in class, you can't hang a man for the implications of his ideas, but for his ideas. Men like Piper, et al., have not apostatized, but I do think that the problem of continuationism is one over which more red flags need to be raised.
MAS
Mark:
Thanks for the thoughtful, balanced reply. I appreciate it.
Lou
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