» News: News Roundup Continued

CRC: The Christian Reformed Church celebrated its 150th anniversary with a worship service attended by about 14,000 worshippers. The CRC annual synod meets this week at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. The delegates elected Rev. Joel Boot as its president; Rev. Cecil Van Niejenhuis as its vice president, elder Henry Baron as first clerk, and Rev. Jake Kuipers as second clerk.

ARP: The 203rd annual synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian church met last week; details will be published as RN is able to collect further information. ARP is also planning to plant a mission church in Appalachia.

OPC: The Seventy-fourth General Assembly meets this week at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa, beginning at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, June 13.

RCA: Wes Granberg-Michaelson, the general secretary of the RCA's Synod told the gathered commissioners that the RCA should become a "missional" church. Says Granberg-Michaelson, "How do we take good, old wine--the core of our Reformed tradition--and pour it into new wineskins--missional styles and structures that engage the culture with the power of the gospel? We need models of ministry--new churches and revitalized congregations--that combine the best strengths of Reformed identity with the most courageous expressions of missional engagement."

URCNA: General Synod planned for July 9-14, 2007.

PCA: Former Moderator Sam Duncan, ruling elder at First Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg, MS writes a summary of this week's PCA General Assembly. Speaking of the Federal Vision controversy, he summarizes, "For the layman, who is not familiar with this topic, the Federal Vision basically teaches that membership in a local church makes one elect; once one is elect, his salvation may be lost; baptism results in regeneration; and justification is achieved through both faith and good works."

» New: Friday News Roundup, Part 1

PCA: General Assembly meets next week, online webcast will be available, and RN will post a link when it becomes available. Currently, there are two websites - pcaga.com and pcaga.org - and the content appears to be spread across the two at this moment. As previously reported, a group of PCA ministers supportive of the GA FV committee published an open letter with an accompanying website. The website now has more content, including responses to specific objections to the report made by the earlier Open Letter by another group of ministers in opposition to the report. The writers of the "humble answers" document have solicited signatures to the letter, and we will link to the signature list once it is made available. RN has learned that the "30 Reasons" paper written by Jeffrey Meyers in response to the committee's report was mailed to every PCA session in the United States. Joel Garver has published a multi-part review and critique of the FV Study Committee Report: (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). Covenant Radio has posted a podcast that consists of a roundtable discussion with PCA Pastors Mark Horne, Jeffrey Meyers, and Mark Duncan about the Study Committee Report (MP3). Attorney and PCA member Jordan Mark Siverd has released a legal analysis (PDF) of the FV study committee report. Siverd also has created an online petition asking the 35th General Assembly to recommit the report.

» News: Friday News Roundup

Here's all the buzz that buzzed near us this week:

PCUSA: Dennis L. Cobb, 50, pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree indecent exposure. The denomination has fired Cobb from his position as manager of assembly programming citing a "no tolerance" policy.

PCA: As mentioned previously, a group of 10 ministers has written an "open letter" urging fellow presbyters to vote against the denominational Federal Vision / NPP study committee report at the upcoming General Assembly in June. Discussion of the open letter occurred here at RN and here. A joint statement has been published by the Retirement and Benefits and Mission to the World corporations about some upcoming changes.

OPC: The June issue of New Horizons was published this week and it concerns the topic of worship in light of OPC discussions concerning whether or not to adopt a drafted directory for public worship. George R. Cottenden discusses the upcoming issue of the vote on the directory in a feature article and the issue includes articles by Hart, Muether, Larry Wilson, Peter Wallace, and William Shishko on various aspects of worship and sacraments. The June / July issue of Ordained Servant also was published this week and contains discussions of the church and science / technology. Reviews include D.G. Hart on Sean Lucas's book "On Being Presbyterian" (P&R, 2006).

CREC: Nate Wilson publishes a book with Random House ("Leepike Ridge") and gets some kind words from Books and Culture, and Nate Wilson is also responsible for the text of a few new children's books published by Canon Press. The Augustine Presbytery of the CREC will have its meeting October 11-12, and the Anselm Presbytery will meet October 22-23.

CRC: Interesting press release- "What to Watch for a Synod 2007" including some interesting sacramental discussions about infant baptism and paedocommunion. Meeter Center purchases 1562 edition of a book by John Calvin about the doctrine of election. Korean CRC church plays role in Virginia Tech shooting healing.

EPC: General Assembly takes place June 20-23 in Colorado - new issue of the EPC's newsletter contains GA information.

Acts 29: Main session audio lectures of 2007 Seattle church-planting Boot Camp have been posted.

CPC: "Covenant Presbyterian Church" - this is not a denomination with which RN has familiarity, but they have sent us a press release (PDF) and we will attempt to cover them as well.

Reformed Parachurch: Reformation21's June issue is now out, including further reflections on Roman Catholicism by Carl Trueman, an article about blues music by Stephen J. Nichols, and Phillip Ryken reflects on the new atheism movement. Ligonier Ministries is offering a free gift subscription to Tabletalk with a regular subscription just in time for Father's day. Yes, that sound like a commercial, but we have received no funds from Ligonier, just thought readers would like the information. Still no word on the Gospel Coalition materials, but we continue to monitor the website and will alert you when these are available.

Interesting Discussions: Discussion of the Gospel Coalition at Daniel Kirk's blog, Against Heresies conducts a three-part interview with Michael Scott Horton, Lane Keister wraps up an eleven part review/critique of Jeff Meyers's 30 Reasons, Meyers releases a shorter version of his 30 reasons. Paul Helm takes on the issue of the relationship between Biblical and Systematic theology.

Note 1: Thanks for reading our site, and thanks for the letters. Please keep the news tips coming in and pay close attention to our sponsored advertising; we survive by God's grace via that advertising. Also consider getting involved in our discussion forums; it would be great if the Reformed world had a central place to discuss issues together.

Note 2: We've decided that our corrections policy will be to note the erroneous content in the comments for the post that contains the error. This keeps the correction with the material to be corrected. For example, see the comments for last week's news roundup for a correction made by a reader.

» 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.

» 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.

» News: Friday Blogosphere Roundup

In this weekly column, we will be reviewing the week in Reformed blogging, giving you, the reader, a sense of the general subject matter that has been of interest to Reformed bloggers.

Gender Roles: The issue of gender roles in the Reformed church is getting a lot of discussion this week. Long known for being concerned about the issue of the roles of men and women in the PCA, pastor Tim Bayly discusses his wish that the PCA would leave aside the Federal Vision controversy and focus on what he sees to be a growing movement of pastors who are bending the rules. He writes, "Over the long haul, the prevalence within PCA churches and presbyteries of egalitarian views is as great a danger as FV theology to our spiritual well-being." In a more recent post, Bayly specifically targets City Presbyterian Church (PCA) of Denver, Colorado and its Pastor's argument in favor of referring to an unordained, female member of the staff as a "minister of congregational life". If you have time, by the way, check out the work that City Pres is doing in Denver, as well as the outreach ministry to prostitutes that the Pastor Downing's wife, Leanne, established - Street's Hope. The discussion group "bbwarfield" discussed the motions concerning the use of the title "minister" brought up by Bayly's critique. In the background of this discussion over gender is the now year-ago movement out of the PCA into the RCA of the City Church in San Francisco. In other gender discussions, Mark Traphagen, a Westminster Seminary student, discusses a recent article by Carl Trueman that discusses some of the more cultural expectations that are imposed upon women in the conservative Reformed church.

Federal Vision (FV): This controversy appears to be at its peak in the PCA; the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) issued its report on the matter last year, and the PCA is now looking to consider its committee report at the General Assembly in June. This week's main blogosphere event was the publication by PCA Pastor Jeffrey Meyers of a document providing 30 reasons to oppose the committee report's adoption. Some of the blogosphere commentary relates to the fact that both the committee report and Meyers's response are long and technical - hard to imagine that every presbyter will have the time or inclination to work through them both. It is not incorrect to generalize that the more FV-friendly blogs seem to regard Meyers's response as "devastating" while the places less friendly to the FV perspective tend to view Meyers's response as unsuccessful. Doug Wilson, for instance, writes "In my view, you could summarily throw any fifteen of his reasons out the window before you start reading, and his response is still devastating." Most of the discussion of Meyers's response is occuring in the following places, if you care to listen in: Green Baggins (post 1, post2), Meyers's own blog, The Puritan Board, and there has been limited interaction on the BBWarfield list. As for private lists, we rely on news tips, but we understand that the OPC discussion group has been having a lively discussion of the report and the response from Meyers. In other denominations, an Australian minister reports his disappointment at the failure of a motion to condemn the FV in the Presbyterian Church of Victoria.

Emerging Church: On this front, the Acts 29 church planting network has received some discussion. The Acts 29 network tends to be conservative and reformed, and one of its distinctives - male ordination only - has been generating negative responses from other parts of the emerging movement (for convenience, we are thinking of the Acts 29 network as part of the emerging movement, but it is arguably a sui generis enterprise). Traphagen's blog discussed a new video titled "With Weeping for my Sisters" that contrasts quotes from various reformed authorities (including from Mark Driscoll of the Acts 29 network) with photographs of the church life of intelligent and reformed women known by the director of the video. The director writes in "the point in making this video was that I wanted a way for my friends to understand the grief I was experiencing as I have been taking a class on the history of Christianity. I wanted to share my emotional experience with them of what its like to realize how all these quotes (and soooo many others I left out!) affect me today." The video may be viewed at YouTube. Driscoll's controversial church planting video ran into distribution problems, and he discusses the matter on his own blog.

Roman Catholicism: Because of the conversion of the president of the Evangelical Theological Society to the Roman Catholic Church, the blogosphere contained many discussions of what Berkouwer called "the Riddle of Roman Catholicism" - what is the ongoing reason for the split between protestants and Catholics? R. Scott Clark, minister in the URC and professor at Westminster California asks Why Can't Evangelicals See the Canyon? and Carl Trueman of Westminster Seminary reflects on the Beckwith departure in a very irenic way. Trueman's article generated discussion at the blog Barlow Farms that included interaction with Trueman from Philosopher Bryan Cross, himself a convert from PCA membership to Roman Catholicism. Cross's own blog advocates church unity.

Other Reviews and Miscellaneous Items of Note: Paul Helm, no not this one, the professor of philosophy critiques John Franke's approach to systematic theology. Books and Culture reviews Wilson's new response to Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation." The Work Research Foundation (neo-Calvinist) published a new edition of their Comment magazine that covered the business world, calling, etc. We at RN are impressed by the design and layout of their print version of the same and look forward to reading it each month. Covenant Seminary's magazine "In Covenant" for Summer (Download PDF) featured a fascinating interview with PCA minister Marcus Toole who currently ministers among First Nations people in Alberta. The interview is a fascinating portrait of someone who is pouring himself out for his people. Blogger Jonathan Barlow proclaims that The Kinists are Back in a lengthy post that offers a critique of the Kinist philosophy. By "back" Barlow seems to mean back online after an absence. (Background: Kinism is a kind of racial separatist sociology combined with a reformed Christianity; a throwback to the non-egalitarian consensus of Southern Presbyterian culture in the style of Dabney or Thornwell).

Bloggers and discussion list participants discussed many other things this week - politics, the abortion stance of various politicians, whether Christians should vote for a Mormon candidate, gas prices, the situation that remains in New Orleans, the tragedies in Kansas, etc. But our journey must end somewhere. RN