Common Grounds Online

Jeremy Jones Responds to Frame, Lucas, et. al.

In February 2008, Jeremy Jones  gave the second talk, "Renewing Theology,"  at the Denominational Renewal (DR) conference.  The transcript is not available due to a publishing contract, but you may listen to the audio of Jeremy's talk by clicking (here).

This is the second week of a five week forum scrutinizing the five talks given at DR. For more on the structure of the five week forum at CGO on this conference, click (here).

During the week of September 22-25 we will host essays from John Frame, Sean Michael Lucas, Howard Brown, and Michael Walker in response to Jeremy Jones' talk. Today, September 26,  Jeremy responds to his respondents.

We welcome discussion that is both robust and gracious. I [Glenn] will moderate all comments and those comments that exemplify graciousness and love for one's brothers and sisters will be approved. First and last name, and one's current, valid email address are required for comments. Also, please focus on Jeremy's  talk and/or the response essay.

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Jeremy Jones is an associate pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Memphis. He was the RUF campus minister at Southern Mississippi and then Emory.

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Thanks to Glenn for hosting and all the other participants for responding; it’s been encouraging to see this discussion take place.

I want to do two things in this response: give some context for the original Denominational Renewal talks that may assist everyone in understanding them better. And respond to a couple of the issues raised this week during the discussion of my presentation.

All of the talks we’re interacting with via Common Grounds were first given at a conference held last spring in St. Louis. The “Conversation on Denominational Renewal” started with an opening introduction given by Joe Novenson (based on a brief talk given by Jeff White at Covenant Seminary earlier that day). This intro set the table and tone for the conference and made clear our purpose: to outline a theological vision for the future of the PCA. Our explicit intention was not to organize as some political action group, nor did we wish to wade into current denominational “hot button” debates (FV/NPP, etc) and argue for one side rather than another. In our understanding, the more specific doctrinal debates within the PCA are often the result of conflicting theological visions that exist in our church. Until we can identify, discuss, and debate these alternative visions, the different factions in the PCA will keep talking past each other.

We wanted to start a conversation at this deeper level.

Michael Walker Responds to Jeremy Jones' "Renewing Theology"

In February 2008, Jeremy Jones  gave the second talk, "Renewing Theology,"  at the Denominational Renewal (DR) conference.  The transcript is not available due to a publishing contract, but you may listen to the audio of Jeremy's talk by clicking (here).

This is the second week of a five week forum scrutinizing the five talks given at DR. For more on the structure of the five week forum at CGO on this conference, click (here).

During the week of September 22-25 we will host essays from John Frame, Sean Michael Lucas, Howard Brown, and Michael Walker in response to Jeremy Jones' talk. On Friday, September 26,  Jeremy will respond to his respondents.

We welcome discussion that is both robust and gracious. I [Glenn] will moderate all comments and those comments that exemplify graciousness and love for one's brothers and sisters will be approved. First and last name, and one's current, valid email address are required for comments. Also, please focus on Jeremy's  talk and/or the response essay.

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Michael R. Walker is the Theologian-in-Residence at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, TX.  He is the former Executive Director of Presbyterians For Renewal and a Ph.D. Candidate in History of Doctrine at Princeton Theological Seminary.  The title of his dissertation is John Calvin's Pursuit of Happiness. His blog is at www.regulafidei.com.

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As an outsider to the Presbyterian Church in America, it is a privilege to participate in this forum by responding to Jeremy Jones' paper on "Renewing Theology" in the PCA.  My own ecclesial context, namely the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is remarkably different from that of the PCA, in ways that do not require much description for those interested in the present conversation.  Suffice it to say that the PC(USA) is wrestling with all of the same root issues of ecclesial unity touched upon in Jones' paper, though it's much less clear in the PC(USA) that everyone is wrestling in the same arena. The doctrinal ambiguity of the PC(USA) and the rigorous confessional particularity of the PCA have played off of one another to such a degree that those who wish to combine genuine confessional commitments with an openness to further reform find themselves at odds with entrenched forces in their own denomination, whether that is the PCA or the PC(USA).  Unfortunately, this circumstance will not be overcome easily or quickly.

Howard Brown Responds to Jeremy Jones' "Renewing Theology"

In February 2008, Jeremy Jones  gave the second talk, "Renewing Theology,"  at the Denominational Renewal (DR) conference.  The transcript is not available due to a publishing contract, but you may listen to the audio of Jeremy's talk by clicking (here).

This is the second week of a five week forum scrutinizing the five talks given at DR. For more on the structure of the five week forum at CGO on this conference, click (here).

During the week of September 22-25 we will host essays from John Frame, Sean Michael Lucas, Howard Brown, and Michael Walker in response to Jeremy Jones' talk. On Friday, September 26,  Jeremy will respond to his respondents.

We welcome discussion that is both robust and gracious. I [Glenn] will moderate all comments and those comments that exemplify graciousness and love for one's brothers and sisters will be approved. First and last name, and one's current, valid email address are required for comments. Also, please focus on Jeremy's  talk and/or the response essay.

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Howard Brown is the pastor of Christ Central Church in Charlotte, NC. Previously Rev. Brown was a church planting apprentice and assistant pastor at Redemption Fellowship Presbyterian in Atlanta, and he was the senior pastor of Forrest Park Community Church in Baltimore.

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 In calling for theological renewal in the way he does, Jeremy Jones’ is recommending nothing short of a denominational conniption. He successfully rips our reformed theological identity away from the comfort of its pseudo “golden age” of orthodoxy and describes our passionate defense and need for its exclusivity among other reformed traditions as an idolatrous sin of sectarianism. He wisely suggests that we seek a deeper reformation and renewal through a reformed catholicity and its broader theology. His call to this role reversal is revolutionary and prophetic. Jeremy turns our denomination on its head and out comes its cultural talisman, as he quotes- “we are THE church, and others aren’t” or I would add, aren’t as much as we.  

Sean Michael Lucas Responds to Jeremy Jones' "Renewing Theology"

In February 2008, Jeremy Jones  gave the second talk, "Renewing Theology,"  at the Denominational Renewal (DR) conference.  The transcript is not available due to a publishing contract, but you may listen to the audio of Jeremy's talk by clicking (here).

This is the second week of a five week forum scrutinizing the five talks given at DR. For more on the structure of the five week forum at CGO on this conference, click (here).

During the week of September 22-25 we will host essays from John Frame, Sean Michael Lucas, Howard Brown, and Michael Walker in response to Jeremy Jones' talk. On Friday, September 26,  Jeremy will respond to his respondents.

We welcome discussion that is both robust and gracious. I [Glenn] will moderate all comments and those comments that exemplify graciousness and love for one's brothers and sisters will be approved. First and last name, and one's current, valid email address are required for comments. Also, please focus on Jeremy's  talk and/or the response essay.

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Sean Michael Lucas is the Chief Academic Officer and Associate Professor of Church History at Covenant Theological Seminary. He is the author of On Being Presbyterian: Our Beliefs, Practices, and Stories and Robert Lewis Dabney: A Southern Presbyterian Life.

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I’m grateful for the opportunity to respond to Jeremy Jones’ talk on “renewing theology.” Perhaps it might be helpful to start with areas of agreement and then move to some constructive response.

One major area of agreement could be summed up this way: the task of theology is to witness to the apostolic tradition for the present cultural moment. In order to witness, not only must theology seek to understand the apostolic tradition (biblical exegesis/Scripture), it must recognize its relationship to previous witnesses (historical theology/confessional tradition) as well as its current cultural moment. This way of putting it relates Scripture and confession in a hermeneutical spiral that both limits and offers opportunity for theological preservation and creativity. It also relieves us from trying to re-establish some sort of golden age; each age’s witness has something to offer us as we determine how God is calling us to witness to our own age.

John Frame Responds to Jeremy Jones' "Renewing Theology"

In February 2008, Jeremy Jones  gave the second talk, "Renewing Theology,"  at the Denominational Renewal (DR) conference.  The transcript is not available due to a publishing contract, but you may listen to the audio of Jeremy's talk by clicking (here).

This is the second week of a five week forum scrutinizing the five talks given at DR. For more on the structure of the five week forum at CGO on this conference, click (here).

During the week of September 22-25 we will host essays from John Frame, Sean Michael Lucas, Howard Brown, and Michael Walker in response to Jeremy Jones' talk. On Friday, September 26,  Jeremy will respond to his respondents.

We welcome discussion that is both robust and gracious. I [Glenn] will moderate all comments and those comments that exemplify graciousness and love for one's brothers and sisters will be approved. First and last name, and one's current, valid email address are required for comments. Also, please focus on Jeremy's  talk and/or the response essay.

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John Frame is the Chair of Systematic Theology and Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary-Orlando. Formerly  John taught at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and then Westminster Seminary of California. He is the author of many books and articles, including The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, The Doctrine of God, and The Doctrine of the Christian Life.

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I’m very enthusiastic about Jones’s presentation, and I have no substantial criticisms of it. So what can I add? Here are several thoughts:

 1. We need to give more attention to the biblical doctrine of the unity of the church, both spiritual and governmental. In the interest of Reformed Catholicism, we need to see the present denominational differences in the church as an aberration, an anomaly. New Testament church government makes no provision for denominations. When factional spirit begins to emerge in the early church, the New Testament identifies it as sin and describes it as worldly wisdom (1 Cor. 1:10-31, 3:1-4). The birth of new denominations is always the result of sin, either by those who leave, or those who stay, or (more likely) both. So why do we glorify our separateness from other Christians? We should be mourning it instead and seeking to reverse it.

But this will mean that we will have to look at other traditions far more positively, acknowledging and celebrating what is good in them, rather than always trying to tear them down. We must reject the pride that seeks always to make our own group look better than the others.