Time for a shout out. The Jolly Blogger reviews Pearcy's epic work, Total Truth. Pearcy's book is listed in my Best In Class series because of its focus on the hottest battleground in the war for truth. Namely, what counts as knowledge. The battle for truth is all for naught if you can't know truth. The gatekeepers of secularism push non-empirical knowledge into the upper story to co-habitate with squishy things like feelings, values and opinions. Pearcy exposes this brilliantly. We need more books like .
Now, something in Jolly's write-up got my hackles up.
What raised my ire was not Jolly's opinion, but someone he referenced in his post. Here is the context:
"The book encourages Christians to go public with their faith, in a sense. With that, it is worth pointing out that one of the main criticisms that has been leveled against Pearcey's prior work with Chuck Colson in the book "" is that this was simply a call to ecumenical political activism. Phil Johnson says:
"Engaging the culture" is Colson's pet euphemism for ecumenical political activism.
Granted, this criticism has been leveled most strongly at Colson because of his involvement in ECT and other ecumenical activities. I share some of Phil's concerns about ecumenism and also want to point out that Nancy Pearcey has not been the brunt of this criticism. But I bring it up because I know there is a segment of evangelicalism that hears calls likes Pearcey's to present the Christian faith as "public truth" or to "engage the culture" simply as calls to political activism."
The Phil Johnson (someone I am not familiar with) quote demands a response. Will I do it in this post? Well ... no. Too busy at the moment. But I wanted to put this post out as a place marker for myself to come back to. More later...
Jeff - Phil Johnson is kind of John MacArthur's right hand man - he is on staff at Grace Community Church and is somehow involved in Grace To You - MacArthur's radio ministry. That quote was from an article he wrote for the Shepherd's Fellowship which is an online ministry of Grace, but you have to be a member to access it. But Steve Camp posted it on his blog - so the source is kind of circuitous, but it's Phil's quote being posted on Steve Camp's blog.
Phil is blogging at Pyromaniac now - phillipjohnson.blogspot.com
So, if you want to respond you can check out his blog. Check out his August 13th post called "Some Reading Material for the Weekend," where you can see a rough outline of a debate he has been involved in.
Phil is an outstanding young theologian and I am really glad he is blogging and almost everything he writes is terrific. I actually share many of his views on political activism - I think we evangelicals place too much faith in political activism and I think Nancy did a good job in her book of putting political activism in its proper place as being downstream from culture.
But on this one Phil has his blinders on and doesn't seem to see or acknowledge that when folks like Colson are calling for "cultural engagement" they are talking about so much more than political activism.
Posted by: David Wayne | August 18, 2005 at 09:39
Jeff -- just curious -- do you think "ecumenical" is a dirty word, as MacArthur and his ilk do? IMHO, Evangelicals and Catholics Together is one of the more important developments in recent Christian history. I have little patience for most of its detractors, particularly MacArthur, whom I think generally is off-base about many things.
Posted by: dopderbeck | August 18, 2005 at 13:39
Thanks David Wayne. BTW, you never responded to my invitation to meet at the Nov 3. C.S. Lewis lecture in Camp Hill, PA. Maybe David Opderbeck would join us -- he is a Pennsylvania man.
David O.
I don't have any baggage with the word ecumenical. Nor, I have not tuned into MacArthur's contentions with ECT.
I know Colson has taken heat for ECT, but I honestly have not paid close attention.
Much to the dismay and chagrin of some of my reformed brethren, I continue to be more of a gospel cowboy than a doctrine cop. I focus more on the majors than the minors.
I want to pour my energy into engaging culture -- which is not a euphemism for political activism -- and to seeking out the last, the least and the lost with the gospel. I am more of a common grace Kuyperian than I am an antithesis Kuyperian. If that last statement did not make sense, stay tuned to further posts on "Natural Law / Common Grace / Antithesis".
Posted by: Dawn Treader | August 19, 2005 at 06:38
What's the Lewis lecture? Might be doable for me (I'm actually in NJ) -- especially if we can squeeze in a late-season round of golf with it.
Posted by: dopderbeck | August 19, 2005 at 22:09
David,
Check out :
http://www.narniaontour.com/tourdates.htm
There is a lecture in Philly as well -- which I think would be closer for you. The Camp Hill is about as close as it gets for me coming from Roanoke.
I thought it might be fun to catch a Lewis lecture with a few bloggers.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | August 21, 2005 at 22:39
I have read much of Pearcy's Total Truth and find it a great follow up from the works of Schaeffer and Colson. Lately I've been trying to get through No Place for Sovereignty by Wright and am not real clear about his point on why Schaeffer did not answer him about some of his students who defended the Arminianist view that follows up with Shedd's view that leaves the Arminian indeterminists view fortified. At a certain time he believed that Dr. Schaeffer did not want to challenge the free will Calvinists by challenging their inconsistent view about free will. This Bondage of the will topic must be resolved according to Wright because the freewillism mentality of the Armeninst undermines Gods omniscience. On p.58 in Wrights book the topic is Theological inconherencies and it points out how very weak the freewill Armenians position is. Using the presuppositional apologetics of Van Til and Schaeffer man's autonomy is a position that is not valid but Wright says we hand him back the whole case by allowing in this weak position of the Arminian on freedom of the will. G.DeArment
Posted by: Gary DeArment | April 18, 2008 at 19:31