These are not talking points. These are just remember points. You don’t have to say anything, or “talk” to anybody about them. All you have to do is remember these things as you watch the unfolding saga continue. For ease of remembrance, I have just listed ten of them.
1. To keep things simple, the Federal Vision in its essential FVness should be defined by the Joint Federal Vision Statement. This is a doctrinal statement on the controverted points that all the leading figures on the FV side of things agreed to. Related to this, the FV should not be defined in terms of a position that is not in that statement.
2. This does not mean that there cannot be questions about other doctrinal positions not listed there. Rather it means that such questions should be directed to the individuals who hold to them, or who are thought to hold to them, and not attributed to the “Federal Vision” generally. For example, by this standard, denial of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ cannot be described as a tenet of the Federal Vision.
3. Beware of formulations that beg the question, that assume what still needs to be shown. For example, it has been recently pointed out that my degrees are in philosophy, not theology, and that therefore I ought not to be messing around with the Reformed confessions. I agree with this sentiment entirely, which is why I don’t go around messing with the confessions. But unfortunately, while it is possible for a man like me to avoid messing with the confessions, it is not possible to keep some people’s children from asserting that I have been messing with the confessions. This means that the thing which still remains to be shown (that I have abandoned the Reformed standards) is quietly assumed, and my “departure” is explained as the result of my lack of theological chops. But precisely because I was trained in philosophy I can recognize petitio principii when I see it.
4. The substance of the doctrinal controversy is one thing, the methods by which the controversy is carried forward is something else quite distinct. Given the two variables — right or wrong in substance, and clean or dirty in the clinch — there are four possible ways this could go. 1. The TRs could be right, and fight clean. 2. The TRs could be right and fight dirty. 3. The FVs could be right, and fight clean. 4. The FVs could be right, and fight dirty. There will be no “well done, good and faithful servant” for either 2 or 4. So both sides need to keep in mind that there is a deeper right than being right. This applies to all levels — to questions of justice in process and to questions of apologies and forgiveness on a personal level.
5. Anonymous attacks, and those who give them the time of day, are demonstrating that they don’t know the first thing about handling Scripture, evidence, other people’s reputations, or Reformed theology. And the fact that they are on “your side” should be cause for alarm and embarrassment, not a cause for cutting them additional slack. This is a point that all biblical Christians, regardless of their doctrinal convictions in this mess, can agree on. And so I list this one as a Christian, not as an FV guy.
6. But, as it turns out, I am also an FV guy, and to the extent that my exhortation in #5 is ignored (as thus far it has been), it is not giving me any tactical headaches. If someone is going to do it, far better to have the left tackle on the opposing team mooning the ref than to have your guy doing it, if you know what I mean.
7. Barn brush strokes make controversy simple at the beginning, but those who indulge themselves this way will come to regret it. Those who live by the barn brush strokes will die by the barn brush strokes, so to speak. For one glaring example, Federal Vision is not the New Perspective on Paul. John Piper has a new book out critiquing N.T. Wright (a book I appreciate), but Piper likes Daniel Fuller, and we all know how bad that is, and Richard Gaffin blurbed Norman Shepherd’s book, and Peter Lillback wrote The Binding of God, and a lot of the TRs in the States really like what the FV-friendlies in the UK are doing, for some strange reason, and I do too, and where is John Frame in this?, and it is getting that you can’t tell the players anymore without a scorecard. At some point, somebody is going to have to stop and say, “Heh, heh. It seemed a lot simpler in 2002.”
8. If Steve Wilkins is forced to leave the PCA without ever being given a fair trial, then we should all know by that point that we are in a boo and hiss melodrama.
9. To borrow a phrase that a friend recently sent me, much of this morass is so personal and subjective that you could drive a couple Idaho snow plows side-by-side through the gray areas.
10. Real reformations burst wineskins, even the ones with the official Reformation® tags stitched on to them.