Things are not working out so well for my seminary diploma, however.
Bad sign #1: The seminary "faculty" publishes a book whose background is grave concern over the "New Perspective" (p. xiii) and none of the Biblical Studies faculty is invited to contribute. This is a Biblical studies issue! I can't decide which is worse--having unqualified people assess something that is outside their field; the clear indication that the tradition should control all exegesis (thus abandoning the Reformation principle of sola scriptura); having a book that puts the divisions of the faculty on public display; or sending this book to recent alum as though it's the best of what WTS has to offer. "Look," the book seems to shout, "the Roman Catholic church in the 16th century was right about the relationship between tradition and exegesis!" That's what you will learn from the theology faculty if you attend WTS.
Bad sign #2: The forum and content of an address made by the seminary president. The forum: the Vision Forum's celebration of the quadricentennial of the founding of Jamestown. If you can stomach it, you can google them and find out what that "Forum" is all about. For the content, we have this lovely excerpt from Peter Lillback's speech. How is it that America came to be called America?
Amerigo Vespucci came along and said this isn’t the Indies. This is a new world. These are unknown continents, and so the credit was given to him and the name has stuck forever. But what I want you to think about is that the name America is a derivative of Amerigo from a French named Emeric, which is a derivative from a German word that is Haimirich. Now if any of you have studied German know that Haimirich means “The kingdom of Heaven.” Now think about that for just a moment. Do you realize that America’s name literally means the “Kingdom of Heaven?”...That’s a good description of America isn’t?Three comments: (1) NO--KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS NOT A GOOD DESCRIPTION OF AMERICA. And (2) For those of you who don't know German--no worries, Peter doesn't either. As far as I can tell, Haimirich is not a standard variant of Himmelreich. The word "Haimirich" does not exist. (3) For those of you learning to make arguments, this is called "etymologizing," a fallacious way of making a point that is rightly mocked by D. A. Carson in Exegetical Fallacies.
Can anything be done to stop the bleeding that has been draining the life out of the parchment hanging on my wall? Help me Obi Wan Kenobi--you're my only hope.
16 comments:
Great, clear, helpful, short statement.
Did Lillback contribute to the book?
Also, you might try to take advantage of what you can and point to the fact that he is referring to Mexico, Canada, and all of Central and South America, just as much as the US....
Mark--good point about "America" not being the U.S.
Re. the book, Lillback's chapter is entitled, "Calvin’s Development of The Doctrine of Forensic Justification: Calvin and the Early Lutherans on the Relationship of Justification and Renewal." I haven't read the essay. The title doesn't sound like something poised to engage the New Perspective (on its own terms), but maybe I'd be surprised.
I must say that our founding fathers would be horrified at the notion of us being a "kingdom" of anything. ;-)
Ah yes--the "Democracy of Heaven"! "The Republic of God"! Let's elect Jesus president! (Or Calvin!) And let's elect the Westminster Assembly to act as his Congress! And Peter to be his vicar!.. no... wait... :^)
Yikes! Theonomists abound at WTS these days, don't they? Crazy...
I gotta ask: is Doug Green Obi Wan? I met him at SBL last year, he's got a beard, seems like a guy with the skills, maybe a brown cloak stashed away somewhere...but is he willing to die and vanish into thin air?
The force is strong with that one, but, alas no--he's not one who would be willing to die and vanish into thin air (though such a death would, IMHO, result in the most glorious resurrection [but there, I've switched to x-y from Star Wars]).
Luke, I mean, Daniel:
I suppose I should be thankful you didn't compare me to Darth Vader!
Doug, from the shark side of the farce.
Ditto on the Yikes!! Maybe I should be glad I'm half a world away. Thanks for the heads up.
You know, I've been saying for years how Evangelicalism™ keeps confusing America (read, "USA") with the Kingdom of Heaven, and Evangelicals™ have consistently told me, "No, we don't do that, that would be silly." Oops...
you've saved me the trouble of having to report on my less-than-stellar confront and response from Lillback re: vision forum. but after emailing him, i visited the VF website and realized that i had no business thinking, since i am a woman anyway. wish i had known that BEFORE i spent six years of my life at WTS. oops.
mel
Is there a Yoda in the house? RTS-O just lost theirs (Pratt)...
Holy....crap!
Daniel,
Is it fair to lump all the WTS faculty together as such?
When I read the book recently -- admittedly a quick read over parts! -- I found it quite mixed.
I sense that your "tradition and exegesis" comment would be directed towards the chapters by Trueman (on Owen) and Jue (on the Westminster Standards and the AOoC)....but wouldn't it be better to say you will learn this from the *HT faculty* if you attend WTS?
When I read the chapters from the "theology faculty" (namely Gaffin and Tipton), I didn't find them grounding exegesis in tradition at all. Strictly-'traditional' arguments don't typically distinguish the Reformed and Lutheran conceptions of Union and imputation (Tipton), nor do they bring in eschatology when discussing justification (Gaffin).
Perhaps you could clarify what you mean. Thanks.
If anything, the book is a great example of how 'divided' things are in the ranks at WTS...by virtue of who doesn't contribute.
I fully agree with you assessment of Lillback's speech. That's just plain woeful. As I was reading it, I had this strange image of Noll and Marsden shaking their head in disbelief.
On Lillback - even Homer nodded :-)
The Vision Forum and Doug Phillips make me throw up in my mouth a little.
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