The new website for The Gospel Coalition just went live a few days ago. Some of the 'Stakeholders' of this new coalition are among my favorite authors, professors, pastors out there, including: DA Carson (my academic adviser at Trinity), Colin Smith (the senior pastor at the first church I ever worked at), John Piper (a mentor, even though I've never met him), Mark Driscoll, Mark Dever, Philip Ryken, Ligon Duncan, Erwin Lutzer, Bryan Chapell, CJ Mahaney, and more. Check out the articles and the media sections for great stuff.
3 comments:
I looked at the Stakeholders section...
Looks like a bunch of old white men to me, Dan...
:-)
Sara M.
Whether or not Sara's comment is fully in jest, I, speaking as an old white man, think she has a point. In fact, I was a little surprised when I looked at the page with all those homogeneous-looking fellows, though I'm sure I'd be happy to meet and pray with any of them. My concern is not that they are nearly all white or are all male. I'm more concerned that they appear to be all North American professionals.
As a layperson (which, translated, means "person person"), I sometimes feel a bit smothered by and condescended to by all these professionals. I guess that's just the Plymouth Brethren in me. Perhaps Doug's current Bible study will give us a truer set of credentials to consider.
I did like about 98% of what they have articulated, and the two percent I'm less sure about I've fussed about here before, so I'll let it lie for now. However, there is something about the whole enterprise that seems, well, antique. And I'm speaking as an antique, who still uses a fountain pen, and prefers old books to new.
I feel the dangers they are concerned about, but my reaction is not to form a coalition, or even start a blog, since it's much more fun to poach on other people's. :)
Maybe some semblance of my concern is captured in...an old book, by an old Anglican missionary, Roland Allen. In one of his wonderful books, he has a chapter called "Fear for the doctrine." (Scroll down to chapter IV.) I recommend it, even though it was written 80 years ago. He was ahead of his time.
But I wish them well--may God bless their work to his glory.
Ok, so the 'old' comment is fair - except for Mark Driscoll who's only in his 30's.
However, I'm not sure the 'white' is quite as on mark. First, 20% of the stakeholders are non-whites, including 3 African Americans and 5 Asians. I know that's not overwhelming, but traditionally, African Americans churches and denominations have steered clear of all things evangelical. Even denominations that hold identical statement of faiths to evangelical churches askew the label. There's many historic reasons for that, none worth getting into here. Secondly, the group convened to because "We have become deeply concerned about some movements within traditional evangelicalism that seem to be diminishing the church’s life and leading us away from our historic beliefs and practices". These troubling movements are from within the white, North American churches; hence, the make up of the stakeholders seems to makes sense.
I do hope that this isn't all that comes of the conference/coalition. I do hope to see publications and more practical help for those of us who are slugging it out in the trenches. On the other hand, I know most of these guys have/are working it out in the local church as well, and not just in academia.
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