» Feature: Weekend News Roundup
Calvin College gets some good press in Christianity Today for its focus on the Environment.
Peter Lillback continues as president of Westminster Theological Seminary, Pastor Andrew Webb (PCA) asks about a schism in the faculty. We have no hard information on this situation, but there have been several board meetings lately, and the new volume Justified in Christ contains all faculty authors, but no authors from the biblical studies faculty. We continue to monitor the situation.
The Mid-America Seminary faculty testimony on the issues related to justification has received heavy discussion this week here. Professor Alan Strange (OPC) of Mid-America participated in defending the faculty report against allegations of "violating the 9th commandment" by Douglas Wilson (CREC). The debate contains some interesting information about the history of the seminary and Norman Shepherd's part in that history.
We continue to monitor the Gospel Coalition website for updates - this conference appears to have been an interesting exercise in pan-Reformed relations and we look forward to reading the consensus confessional document as well as hear the seminars. Christianity Today provides report on the conference from a participant.
The Against Heresies blog has been serializing interviews with Carl Trueman (OPC), R. Scott Clark (URC), and others. This is an interesting blog because we've found so far in our attempts to cover the Reformed world that people tend to only grant interviews to friendly organizations, and it is helpful for all of us to be able to "listen in" on such conversations. RN attempts to be unbiased and so far commands no "clout" in getting responses to our questions. But we will press on, and try to prove our good intentions by our coverage.
Covenant Radio will also be interviewing many people from the Reformed world in the coming months. June 7, they will interview a roundtable of PCA ministers about the upcoming Federal Vision report and Pastor Jeffrey J. Meyers's response to the same. See their website for interviews scheduled into July. These interviews are audio podcasts.
5th Installment of Hitchens / Wilson debate posted at Christianity Today site. There will be one more exchange in the series.
PCA: The PCA's By Faith Online weekly newsletter contained many good items of interest: rebuilding in the MS Gulf Coast, pre-General Assembly WCF Conference, VBS materials based upon the Children's Catechism, November Mission to the World Conference. You can subscribe to By Faith's beautiful print publication here and the By Faith website contains a signup form for their informative weekly email newsletter.
Acts 29: Announces a new church planting boot camp in September.
ARP: (News Site) Mission church in Alabama finds meeting place for June 3 kickoff, Adams Farm Community Church ( Jamestown, N.C.) conducts AIDS benefit on June 9th to benefit Kenyan AIDS relief. Erskine College has created a prayer garden - the site promises instructions for how to create this devotional tool in its print news publication.
CREC: 4th Annual Conference on the Family, June 19, Lynchburg, VA. Great photograph, at that link, of a pastor and his extended family.
EPC: General Assembly Information - GA to be held June 20-23 in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Pittsburgh EPC church buys out local "nuissance bar" and turns it into ice cream parlor and coffee shop (full story PDF).
PCUSA: Prof. Daniel Kirk (Biblical Seminary) transfers membership from PCA to PCUSA, Confessing Church Movement now reports 1,317 congregations with 435,954 members, though their website looks to not have been updated in some time. PCUSA estimates per-capita budget will decline by 5% this year. Montreat (NC) congregation splits into two, by a vote of 189 to 69. A portion of the congregation will remain in the PCUSA while the rest will join the EPC.
RCA: General Synod meets June 7-12 in Pella, Iowa
As always, send us any news tips or links that need reporting; this roundup's length and content is limited each week only by the time of the editors (who have day jobs), and we can magnify our reach by enlisting your help in finding all the news that's fit to blog.
7 Comments:
Here is an important clarification with regards to the Montreat Presbyterian Church:
The vote to "split them into two" was BY THE PRESBYTERY. The Congregation itself voted 311-27 to leave the PCUSA for the EPC--an overwhelming vote of unity (check the archives of layman.org).
And, lest the "message" of the 27 "nay" votes be misunderstood: I talked with two of their elders, and, according to them, of the 27 who voted to stay in the PCUSA, NONE OF THEM WANT TO LEAVE MONTREAT PRESBYTERIAN, OR WILL BE LEAVING, as far as they know. These two elders expressed their respect for these 27 members who voted "nay," NOT because they are upset with the direction of the church, but because they did not yet want to "give up the fight" with regard to holding their beloved denomination responsible. But it is my understanding that they have every intention of continuing to participate in the worship and work of Montreat to the best of their ability.
Anyway, the point is, the PCUSA Presbytery has every right in the world to start a church wherever and whenever they want, and call it whatever they want. But whatever new church they start in Montreat won't be attended by any of the current Montreat Presbyterian Church folks, as far as I know. The church will NOT be splitting in any way, shape, or form, because these brothers and sisters have remarkable gospel unity. The PCUSA Presbytery is free to spin it however they want--there is property and a building involved, after all.
Thanks so much for the correction!
"This is an interesting blog because we've found so far in our attempts to cover the Reformed world that people tend to only grant interviews to friendly organizations, and it is helpful for all of us to be able to "listen in" on such conversations."
At Covenant Radio we have found this to be a very true statment no matter how hard we have tried to state that we are a talk radio program designed to examine ALL the issues from ALL the sides. We have yet, to date, be able to secure ONE single anti-FV person to come on the program. Why? Not really sure but I think it has something to do with the fact that we have had pro-FV guys on. Well, of course we have -- we are interested in hearing both sides of the issue in this kind of format.
We have been accused of being biased. Well, again, we have our own personal bias on issues but that does not stop us from investigating various issues in the Church regardless of our bias. Hey! Even me and my co-host disagree about various issues! Oh well, we press on nonetheless hoping that someday a brave soul from the anti-FV side will actually join us in conversation.
For a site that wishes to be a reputable and "unbiased" (where's Van Til when you need him? how about "biases in-check" or "balanced"?) publisher of news in the Reformed world, I would expect you not to report on rumors such as the above "schism" in the WTS faculty without any "hard information." Absent any evidence, this is not news but rumor mongering.
We didn't report that there is a schism, we reported that Pastor Andrew Webb is alleging a schism and that we had no way to substantiate his claims. We appreciate that there will be a difference of opinion on what constitutes a rumor, but the News Roundup (formerly the Blogosphere Roundup) reports on what is being discussed in public in the Reformed world of blogs and public discussion lists. Perhaps you'd like to volunteer to investigate Pastor Webb's claims? We have limited resources.
I appreciate your efforts here. I'm just suggesting that if you want to be respected as journalists, you should confine your limited resources to pursuing stories that you can substantiate with more than circumstantial evidence, rather than questions asked (but not answered!) on a discussion forum.
Thanks so much for the feedback; we'll take your suggestions seriously.
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