In this space I have often referred to the various controversies that blew up over the last three or four years. The controversies, in alpabetical order, were: baptism, boarders, elder qualifications, federal vision, new perspective on Paul, perjury allegations, plagiarism allegations, postmodernism, satiric bite, slavery, tax apportionment and assessment, and of course last, zoning.
I have mentioned before that these fraci (is that the plural?) are really only one controversy. The many are actually one, and the one is the many. My reason for saying this is not that they all have the common denominator of me being in them, but rather because I think they are really all about the same thing. That “one thing” is the full authority and sufficiency of Scripture.
Different people want the Scripture to stay away from different things, and for the sake of those different things they will frequently band together, cheek by jowl, in order to resist a comprehensive scriptural vision of the good life. Some of them think that the increased influence of Reformed theonomic imams here in Moscow bodes ill for a lesbian foreign policy. The reason this distresses them is that we are not really imams — if we were, they would be appeasing us like crazy, trying to dialogue with us, and building bridges instead of walls. But really, they don’t like imams, unless they are imams.
Others don’t want the Scripture messing with their scholastic definitions of certain doctrinal items. As somebody back in the eighties put it, “can’t touch this.” And because of their insistence on sticking with an “under a glass case orthodoxy” they are willing to make common cause with the anti-non-imams-imams, if you can follow me here. Related to this, this means that they are willing to adopt a pragmatic and machiavellian use of church courts, than which there is no greater form of theological liberalism. What the liberals did to Machen, their liberal heirs are doing to numerous godly Christians around the country. Presbyterians like to point out (and I actually agree with them on this, being a presbyterian), that the first century Jewish system of polity and governance was a representative and presbyterian one. That makes Jesus a presbyterian. But after the warm glow has worn off, we then realize that this means that the Lord was condemned by the General Assembly — moved, seconded, and spanged right into the minutes.
Then there are the folks who don’t know what is going on, but they know how to boo and hiss based on the kind of music that is being played by the pianist in this federal vision melodrama we have going here. This is the kind of movie you throw popcorn in.
Slavery? What does the Bible say? Satire? What does the Bible say? Covenant faithfulness and obedience? What does the Bible say? Baptism? What does the Bible say? Sexual ethics? What does the Bible say? Elder qualifications? What does the Bible say? And consistently, the answer comes back that — with regard to the “precious,” whatever it is — they don’t care what the Bible says. It is easy for doctrinal conservatives to talk about the sufficiency of Scriptures. But from what I have seen, it is just as hard for them to apply as it is for anyone else.