That's the question Bruce Ware asked me when we met in Louisville four years ago.  I was visiting a friend who teaches Old Testament there.  Twenty years ago, while we were classmates at Dropsie College, that friend told me how impressed he was with the high regard for Scripture evidenced by Biblical Seminary grads that he met.  Now he breaks the news to me: "Biblical's gone postmodern."

[While I won't digress too much here, Scot McKnight (visiting prof at Biblical Seminary) uses the term "soft postmodern" to describe his position and says it is one of the streams of the emerging church movement, with which Biblical Seminary now identifies.  Personally, I think "selective postmodern" would be a better description; see my paper "The Emerging Churches in the Book of Judges"]

Read more to see what Bruce said about John Franke's mentor Stan Grenz:

[The Grenz / Franke view of Scripture] is outside the bounds of evangelicalism precisely because it denies the exclusive authority of Scripture itself. Bruce Ware, Vice President of the Evangelical Theological Society

Bruce Ware also told me that he didn't consider any theologian more dangerous than Stan Grenz, co-author with Biblical Seminary theology professor John Franke, of Beyond Foundationalism.  Ware said he once asked Grenz, is there any one Christian doctrine that, if a group of people calling themselves "Christian" did not hold to that doctrine, such a position would make clear that that group was not in fact Christian?  Grenz's response was that he did not want to speak in such terms.  You can see the reason for Ware's question when you realize that for Grenz & Franke, the Bible is just one of three sources for theology, and Christianity takes on a different flavor in different communities.  I should add that when I related Grenz's answer to Franke, he thought the answer was very inadequate, that there are many doctrines essential to any community calling itself Christian.

Fall of 2006 and again I'm back on sabbatical, staying at our sending church's mission house, two miles from Biblical Seminary, where I go to use the library while doing research and writing. 

 I wandered over to the Seminary to use the library on September 18, 2006 wondering after my long absence how things were going there.  By chance there was a public talk scheduled by the Seminary's newest professor, who was describing his spiritual journey.  He told about being recently rejected for ordination in the PCA, and about driving away from that meeting with the windows down, the radio on full volume, "screaming at God over and over agin until my voice was hoarse, 'WHAT THE F@@@ DO YOU WANT FROM ME.'"  When it was over I said to the student sitting next to me, "I feel very sorry for you.  When I went to Biblical we could respect all of our professors as men of God. I feel very sorry for you."  The new prof. also mentioned that when he interviewed at the Seminary for the job, Biblical was excited about all the things over which the PCA had problems with him. 

I also found that Biblical Seminary now has as its goal becoming the seminary of choice for the emerging church, which I had never heard of before.  "What's all this strange terminology?" I wondered as I wandered all through those old halls.  Well, there's no short answer to that question, but we'll be trying to answer such questions on this web site.  Stay tuned.  Answering the question "What's going on at Biblical?" is really what this web site is all about, and some of you can help us answer that question as you join the conversation.  We're not saying that everything is bad at Biblical Seminary.  We are concerned not only by things that are going on now, but also by the direction that things are going, and thirdly by the fact that the seminary can't even tell us where it's going!  "Follow me -- just don't ask me where we're going" is not very reassuring from a seminary called "Biblical," is it?

Read or add comments about this item.

No. 1 :

Jon,
Good words. I encountered a similar situation with Grenz at Union University and was deeply troubled. The pervasive changes at BTS have been of abiding concern in more ways than a few.

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Submitted by pastorct • 2007-01-29 13:28:03

No. 2 :

I was wondering when something like this might happen. It has been interesting to watch the pomo crowd backing away from B.C. over the past year or so.

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Submitted by wam957 • 2007-03-08 14:40:25

No. 3 :

weird, the above in not my blog, but I do like the sentiment.

Submitted by wam957 • 2007-03-08 14:42:14

No. 4 :

John:

You mention the Panel discussion I participated in w/ Stan Grenz. Your account is correct, but for the record, here is how I recall it more specifically:

[beginning of account] About 12 years ago or so, I was asked to participate on a panel discussion, held at Northwestern College (St. Paul, MN), made up of Millard Erickson, Roger Olson, Stan Grenz, and me. Grenz shared his vision, which as you know, is virtually identical to the one Franke continues to foster. After each person spoke, the other 3 were permitted questions of him. So, when Grenz finished his presentation, here's my question and his reply (paraphrased, of course, since I don't have a transcript -- but I remember it very well!):

Ware: Dr. Grenz, please tell me if you think that any particular community of faith that calls itself "Christian" MUST hold to any single doctrine of the Christian faith in order RIGHTLY to be considered a Christian community? [He hesitated, so I gave him some examples] For example, must a community that is rightly considered a Christian community believe in the Trinity, or the incarnation, or justification by faith, or the resurrection of Christ -- any one of these or any other?

Grenz: I don't like to think of it this way. I'd rather say that a Christian community, in their reading of the Scriptures and through the direction of the Spirit, simply will come to their own understandings of the Christian faith, but these should largely follow in the well-established traditions that previous Christian communities have also come to see by their reading of Scripture through the direction of the Spirit. [end of account]

I cannot see how this understanding of authority can be considered evangelical. It certainly denies sola Scriptura, since now authority is a "trinity" of Scripture, community, and Holy Spirit. And the relativism inherent in this model is inevitable and unavoidable. No, I'm sorry, this is outside the bounds of evangelicalism precisely because it denies the exclusive authority of Scripture itself.

Bruce A. Ware
Professor of Christian Theology
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

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Submitted by Bruce A Ware • 2007-03-17 13:37:31

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