» Feature: Friday Blogosphere Roundup - Saturday Edition

The Reformed blogosphere this week continues with many of the same themes discussed last week.

Federal Vision: Discussions of the PCA's proposed report dominated the early part of the week; Green Baggins continues a point by point series on the reply written by Jeff Meyers (87 post long discussion at Meyers's blog as well). As noted yesterday here on RN, the revised edition of the report contained a change concerning which the committee members declined to comment. BarlowFarms contained a lengthy post attempting to substantiate the claim that the committee's composition was biased. The post contains much of the same information compiled by Joel Hunter at the blog "Boar's Head Tavern" back in August of 2006. Barlow's post contained links to essays by committee member and Covenant Seminary professor Sean Lucas that he wrote in critique of Wilson and Leithart. Lucas released an apology for the tone of his reviews, and Leithart and Wilson issued responses to the content of his reviews while accepting the apologies for their tone (Leithart, Wilson 1, Wilson 2). The post at BarlowFarms also contained a link to a timeline claiming to track the history of the creation of the Mississippi Vally Presbytery report concerning the Federal Vision and NPP controveries. We are researching the claims made in the timeline and hope to report more on this issue next week. Later in the week, Mid-America Reformed Seminary released its own faculty and board report (PDF) on the Federal Vision (and NPP), and discussion of that report is now being carried out at Blog and Mablog with the seminary's position being defended by Mid-America professor, Alan Strange. New York presbytery member Matthew Buccheri has also weighed in on the controversy with his "Brief Open Letter to Moderate TEs and REs in the PCA" in which he advocates voting against adopting the study committee's recommendations.

Race: Some blogs this week contained rumblings about a racial situation in a church in Memphis, TN. We at RN are researching the situation and are loathe to pour gas on the flames by prematurely reporting or even linking to the blog discussions. Hopefully we will be able to put together a story on this that reflects the proper balance. The story involves a pastoral transition, and it is notoriously difficult to sort out the various interpretations of why a pastor has decided to resign.

Gender: BaylyBlog continues to discuss the issue of gender roles in the church, and has added a link to the full text (PDF) of Downing's report referenced last Friday.

Reformed Catholicity: Sean Lucas has posted a series of articles on the concept of reformed catholicism and has seen interaction with, among others, PCA pastors Greg Thompson and Tim Keller (Post 1, Post 2, Post 3)

Jerry Falwell: The death of Jerry Falwell provoked various reactions in the Reformed blogging community. Some samples: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

Blogging Proper: Tim Challies has wrapped up a series of posts discussing blogging itself (Post 1, 2, 3, 4)

Misc: Heidelblog takes on Garrison Keillor's criticism of Calvinism.