33 forum messages posted by
David Palmer

I think it is time for me to depart.

I am a bit like a fish out of water on this forum – some of you have described me as a conservative or conservative evangelical. I would prefer words like “an evangelical in the reformed tradition” or more bluntly “a Calvinist”. Additionally, I’m not even an Anglican though my formative years as a Christian were in Sydney in Anglican circles.

I happened on your website as a result of Ben White’s adverse and I would say ill informed reviewed of Patrick Soohkdeo recent book, Global Jihad. Thank you for paying me the courtesy of listening and your kindness and gentleness in responding to me and if sometimes was rude or judgmental I apologise. However I’m not really in sympathy with what I think Fulcrum is on about. I think I would be a part of the “Gafcon/FCA crowd” if I were Anglican and lived in the UK.

For your interest, my job is Convener of the Church & Nation Committee of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria which means I’m heavily involved in representation of a Christian voice into the public domain – the website for my Committee is http://candn.pcvic.org.au/. I enjoy working with people across the Catholic Protestant Orthodox divide – we are all from the traditionalist, orthodox end of the church (which is the great bulk of the church at least in Australia) – and are able to work cooperatively across a broad range of public issues, despite some significant theological differences. Mind you, as a Calvinist I have far more in common with a traditionalist Catholic than I have with a Protestant who denies the virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Christ, or indeed the sacrificial death of Christ on behalf of sinners thereby  averting the wrath of God, or for that matter those who may argue that there are circumstances under which homosexual activity can not only be excused but celebrated.

But as my Scottish forebears would say, aux pax aut bellum!

Clare,

I wonder if you understand that the certainty that you ascribe to very hard line conservatives is matched equally by your own certainties. To be more precise, as one who retains tolerance for herself you are remarkably intolerant of the other, in this case, Carl in your most recent post.

I find this statement

The kind of people, by contrast, who absolutely 'know' that they are completely right about God are people suffering psychotically induced religious delusions. 

extraordinarily intolerant, judgmental and almost certain to be complete balderdash and you know perfectly well that Carl, bless him, would never claim to be "completely right about God".

Hi Clare,

My challenge to you is to ask whether describing the church as “a de facto expression of the tentative nature of all our convictions’ is compatible with the NT expression of what the church is and further whether all this tentativeness is compatible with the teaching of our Lord who does not appear to have been a tentative person, nor for that matter the Apostles Paul, Peter and John.

To me when you say, however “tentatively”, predestination is wrong, you are up against it if you belong to a Church with reformational roots. Article XVII of the 39 Articles of Faith speaks very clearly and encouragingly to the matter of predestination and election. It is part of your heritage as a member of the C of E.

Actually, and I said this a week or two ago, reading your post and that of others (including your recent exchange with Carl as to whether the opposite of faith is certainty or unbelief), I think there is a case for separation. Holding people with such disparate understandings must be a nightmare and very hurtful all round. In 1977 the more liberal and larger portion of the Presbyterian Church of Australia went into the Uniting Church leaving a significantly smaller continuing church, with both sides sharing the property and financial assets on a negotiated and generally very fair basis. Gradually over time the continuing church has found unity (=peace) and a sense of purpose by returning to its confessional heritage. Interestingly, the Uniting Church now resembles the picture you paint of the C of E.

There is a lot to be said for disengagement when the tension increases to the high level your post (and others) suggests. I guess that is what Gafcon and FCA is on about? I know this seems to go against Jesus prayer for unity, but it needs to be remembered it was a prayer for unity “in the truth”.

I really can’t see much point continuing on this thread as it is just going around in circles.

Clare,

No, I don’t think I need to “get out more”.  The apostle tells us to avoid those who do not engage in sound teaching. Whilst I am no longer in Parish ministry, there is no way that I would have invited someone into my pulpit who denied such a basic doctrine as the substitutionary atonement of Christ, if for no other reason that so much is denied in that denial, so much dishonouring of the work of Christ on our behalf.

Roger quotes Tom Wright as saying, ‘people present over-simple stories with an angry God and a loving Jesus, with a God who demands blood and doesn't much mind whose it is as long as it's innocent.’ This looks to me very much like an Aunt Sally. My question is, just who amongst your Anglican clergy colleagues who adhere to the penal substitutionary atonement would say such a thing? Name names! It is a typical straw man caricature that is nothing more than mere disingenuous puffery.

Hi Clare happy to engage you any time on the merits or otherwise of Calvinism.

I find this statement troubling:

The only people who need to think about whether the c of e is really the right place for them are those who are unwilling to submit to the discipline of living is a church that is a de facto expression of the tentative nature of all our convictions. the c of e isn't and never will be a gathering of the 'pure' - those who wish to belong to such a church would be happier  and less prone to disappointment elsewhere.

Leaving aside your description of the church as a de facto expression of the tentative nature of all our convictions – which seems to imply the clergy sign on without any commitments to anything in particular...

I question your desire that those who wish the church to be something specific (pure) should get out. I know you say it more kindly, but “get out” is what you mean!

The earlier statement that the church is “a de facto expression of the tentative nature of all our convictions” (and I would think even in the C of E that was a highly questionable statement) is a tolerant, pluralist kind of statement and yet I find myself contrasting that with a intolerant, non pluralist statement, “get out” addressed to a particular party in the church (the ‘pure’)

I only make this point because the church in the part of the world in which I live is under strong, intolerant non pluralist secularist aggression from Government and the academy who wish to remove those exception clauses to the various equal opportunity acts that allow churches and their institutions to employ people according to their religious beliefs, something incidentally enshrined in the UN Human Rights framework – I commend to Clare and others the UDHR Articles 1 & 18 and ICCPR Articles 18, 25 and 27.

What I’m driving at is that it is striking that those (and here I’m probably being totally unfair to Clare for which I apologise – but I am going on what she wrote) who are in favour of religious and cultural diversity are in fact extremely intolerant of anything other than their own way of thinking. They will not tolerate another’s intolerance but are themselves every bit intolerant of the other, and what’s more they will say, “get out”!

Interesting that we are having this discussion on a thread dealing with Bishop Nazir Ali.

Hi Tony,

I suspect Dame Julian et al not my cup of tea. I appreciate different parts of the Church draw from different traditions. The tradition I draw from passes from the pages of the Bible through Augustine, Athanasius,  Nicaea, Chalcedon, Luther and Calvin, John Knox, Covenanters, to wit reformed theology of which you Anglicans seem to have quite a lot of in your 39 Articles, I notice.

Pax et bonum indeed, though I must tell you on my mother’s side I am a Gunn - their motto was aux pax aut bellum. However to Jody I hasten to repeat Tony’s pax et bonum!

Roger,

In general, I don’t disagree with what you say, God demonstrates his own love in this...... Roms 5:8.

What won’t do is any attempt to minimise or smother God’s wrath with His Love. I am deeply conscious on the basis of Biblical testimony that the unregenerate will suffer the full measure of God’s wrath in the world to come, which gives such urgency to our prayers and witness. The point is that God chose out of His love for us to deal with the sin that caused His wrath to come upon us. Taking that wrath upon Himself in the person of His Son who paid the penalty for our sin through the shedding of His blood is the mystery of the Cross and the source of our justification, redemption, sonship, adoption, reconciliation, sanctification and hope of life in the new heavens and new earth to come, our home of righteousness.

However I wouldn’t jump in too quickly with this statement:

As you say the language of the Letter to the Hebrews is that of sacrifice and covenant rather than legal systems.

I think you link this to wggrace’s

Thus those who appeal to Hebrews for a clear exposition of penal substitutionary atonement are pushing their luck as it is blatant that the language is not the language of the law court but of the temple.

In response, I say, not pushing their luck at all – who says penal does not apply to what was going on in the Temple. For goodness sakes just what were they doing with all those sacrifices – no notion of justice and penalty?

I probably should leave the matter. I was converted 50 years ago last month as a young teenager. I don’t think ever in my life have I sat under a preacher who denied the (penal) substitutionary atonement of Christ, nor have I as a preacher done so - rather my delight has been to preach the doctrine. I know none of my 100 ministerial colleagues in Victoria who would deny the (penal) substitutionary atonement of Christ. I have always understood the (penal) substitutionary atonement of Christ to be at the heart of evangelical preaching and the basis for assurance of salvation.

(Having read all this I have just gone back read Phil Almond’s post in which he makes similar points - I agree about his comment re Gal 3:13, great stuff)

L Roberts, keep those scissors in the drawer!

I take it you are referencing Is 45:7 to which you could have added many other texts like all of the book of Job, starting with Job 1:21,or Jeremiah affirming that every cruelty the Chaldeans exercised against Judah was God’s work (Jer 1:15, 7:14, 50:25) and many other texts we can cite as well, not least of all the mystery of the penal substitution of our Lord according the plan, purpose (and sustenance) of God.

I don’t know about

Julian of Norwich, CG Jung &thr Holy Saturday liturgy(O felix culpa...)

but I do know that whilst God is never the source of evil he is able to use evil to serve his own proposes for the good of His children and the glory of His name.

I always find great refreshment in Roms 8:28f when considering the presence of evil and how it impacts upon God’s creation including ourselves, that God ultimately lies behind all things, good and evil, and through them all is working His good purposes out.

PS A dose of Calvinism helps.

Hi, L Roberts,

You didn’t offend me in the slightest, you only confused me, which is what I said – big difference.

Hi Jody, you say this,

the reason that i didn't want to answer it was because it is worded in such a way that it seems to want to put me on the defensive (or attack)

yes I can see that.

However, what you posted raised the concern that you were denying the link between our sin and God’s wrath.

In your response, all you have done is basically repeat the words that gave rise to my concern in the first place.

To repeat I find what you have written very confusing and you still haven’t answered my question re (penal) substitutionary atonement. I understand you may chose not to do so and if so we move to another topic.

Your statement, “in which his wrath will remove all in me that is anti-gospel or anti-Christ” I find to be very strange as I do not detect any Biblical cast to it whatsoever. It is not God’s wrath that removes that which is anti gospel or anti Christ in us, it is God in Christ who according to His very great love for us and by his Son’s sacrificial atonement upon the cross who deals with His own wrath. The pertinent texts dealing with this are Roms 3:21f, 5:1-11, Eph 2:1-5. However I too, am now repeating myself (and I believe the understanding common amongst evangelicals, certainly the ones I know).

I am very supportive of wggrace’s post re Calvinism. Abraham Kuyper and what he did for the revival of Calvinistic thought for the whole of life in Holland in the latter half of the 19^th C, early 20^th C was astonishing. I read his Stone lectures, Lectures on Calvinism delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1898, 35 years ago and they got me into the Christian schooling movement and affected my thinking and interests ever since in so many positive ways. The lectures can be downloaded here: http://www.kuyper.org/main/publish/books_essays/printer_17.shtml and an excellent summary of his thought is to be found in Peter Heslam’s volume, “Creating a Christian Worldview” (Eerdmans).

If people spent less time fault finding and caricaturing Calvin and Calvinism and instead spent the time in actually reading Calvin and studying the positive impacts of Calvinism for church and national life we would all be the better off. Another good read on some of these positive benefits of Calvinism is the James Bratt (Ed) collection of essays, “Abraham Kuyper – a centennial reader” (Eerdmans).

Hi L Roberts,

You have me confused - earlier you passed on a statement because none of the words could be found in the Bible, yet you wish to deny the matter of God's wrath which I find in many places in the Bible.

I notice I have received no response on my two earlier questions addressed to Jody and others, including this one:

A question: are you offended by the notion of God’s wrath, that there might be aspects of justice (dikaiosunh) and therefore punishment lying somewhere in the matter of God's relationship with us?

To what extent are we all agreed that

‘Regardless of age, health, disability, culture, intelligence, wealth or poverty, suffering or oppression, race, whether or not they have heard the gospel, all human beings apart from Jesus Christ are by nature guilty sinners in the sight of God and faced with his wrath and condemnation, preserved alive, while they remain alive, by his common grace’?

Looks good to me, any other takers?

If you don't mind me saying so, you all seem a rather sleepy lot, or else there aren't too many of you around.

Clare,

A little reading on the history of the English reformation may assist re the link between Calvin and the origins of the C of E.

It just so happened I flipped through the 39 articles this morning and could’nt help noticing how Calvinistic Article XXVIII is (don’t you love it, The Lord’s Supper) – could have been written by Calvin