The guys who don't like CN are the same guys that will bend over backwards to avoid taking any decisive ecclesiastical action either. Which, of course, makes perfect sense. If people start to get the idea that it's possible to wield magisterial authority righteously, it might occur to someone that the same might be true of ecclesiastical authority. Then they might start asking difficult questions about why that isn't happening.
It verily drips with exactly the same sentiments that animate most anti-CN "arguments." Trust the process. Things are happening in the background. Just trust me. We can't possibly take action that the rules do not explicitly require.
He doesn't use any of those words, but he's saying all of those things.
I'm ambivalent about the whole "Save the PCA" bit. Don't really care. But I've got no time whatsoever for this kind of simpering, passive, condescending countersignaling. If anything, responses like Isbell's push me towards thinking that maybe Foster is on to something.
I haven't read Brad's article yet, but I will say, I have had close, intimate relations with some of the people who believe God has called them to save the PCA (from the progressives, I suppose). But watching, reading, and listening to the way they believe they are entitled to treat people (and not just for disagreeing with them), in print, in voice -- even behind closed doors when they think no one can hear them -- leave me wondering: If they are successful in saving the PCA from the progressives, who will save the PCA from them?
It's galling: the people who believe they possess the moral and spiritual authority to lead a denomination they think they must first rescue from the clutches of the progressives, wipe their hind quarters with the 5th and 9th commandments, and weep and wail and throw dust in the air, don the sackcloth over people buying beer and watching sportsball on the Lord's Day.
Hear, hear.
The guys who don't like CN are the same guys that will bend over backwards to avoid taking any decisive ecclesiastical action either. Which, of course, makes perfect sense. If people start to get the idea that it's possible to wield magisterial authority righteously, it might occur to someone that the same might be true of ecclesiastical authority. Then they might start asking difficult questions about why that isn't happening.
Just read Isbell's latest: https://presbycast.substack.com/p/the-pcas-essgate
It verily drips with exactly the same sentiments that animate most anti-CN "arguments." Trust the process. Things are happening in the background. Just trust me. We can't possibly take action that the rules do not explicitly require.
He doesn't use any of those words, but he's saying all of those things.
I'm ambivalent about the whole "Save the PCA" bit. Don't really care. But I've got no time whatsoever for this kind of simpering, passive, condescending countersignaling. If anything, responses like Isbell's push me towards thinking that maybe Foster is on to something.
I haven't read Brad's article yet, but I will say, I have had close, intimate relations with some of the people who believe God has called them to save the PCA (from the progressives, I suppose). But watching, reading, and listening to the way they believe they are entitled to treat people (and not just for disagreeing with them), in print, in voice -- even behind closed doors when they think no one can hear them -- leave me wondering: If they are successful in saving the PCA from the progressives, who will save the PCA from them?
It's galling: the people who believe they possess the moral and spiritual authority to lead a denomination they think they must first rescue from the clutches of the progressives, wipe their hind quarters with the 5th and 9th commandments, and weep and wail and throw dust in the air, don the sackcloth over people buying beer and watching sportsball on the Lord's Day.