At this link,
http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2013/08/cigar-smoke-and-mirrors-and-tr.php
Dr. Carl Trueman (fan of the Cultural Marxist Edward Said) steps in it … again. For previous Trueman “stepping in it” see
https://ironink.org/2008/07/a_brief_look_at_trueman_s_look_at_a_refo/
and note the links in the comments.
In Trueman’s most recent offering he aligns himself with the burgeoning R2K movement and seeks to land a left, right combination to the mid-section and jaw of Abraham Kuyper, Kuyperians, and Transformationalist theology in general. I must admit from the outset that I’ve never been a big fan of Dr. Trueman and his recent offering reminds me again why. If he spent as much time lambasting the idolatry of Statism as he does routinely bashing other Christians we might get on better but alas his efforts at Transformationalism are only pointed towards his fellow Christians.
The main problem I have with Dr. Trueman’s article is that it is inherently contradictory and self defeating. Here we have a prominent Christian in the Church exerting all his effort in his column to transform the believers in transformationalism into admitting that transformationalism is not a biblical position. Carl seeks to transform other Christians who believe in transformation to quit believing in transformation. Reading his article is like reading a Cattle Rancher write on the evils of eating steak, or listening to a lecture by a Libertarian on the dangers of individualism. One wonders why Carl is even writing about this subject? Doesn’t the insistence to be done with transformationalism require him to cease with trying to transform the transformationalists into no longer being transformationalist? Dr. Trueman’s article is a classic example of the author hoisting his own petard. One almost next expects Dr. Trueman to create a curriculum for a new Seminary course entitled, “Transforming the Transformationalists as Pursued by the Anti-transformationalist Transformationlists.”
Of course there is more to be disillusioned by then just this in Carl’s piece, though admittedly the above paragraph alone destroys any necessity to take Dr. Trueman seriously. There is also the curiously derisive statement about concerns of the singular ‘Christian Worldview.’ Now, I’m glad to admit that I may not be understanding something here but that sure sounds like it could be a swipe at the idea that there is such a thing as singular truth claims. After all a Christian Worldview is only concerned with teasing out truth claims. Is Dr. Trueman suggesting here that truth is poly-chromatic? Is it possible, according to the good Doctor, that there are many different Christian worldviews that are all equally valid? We used to call that relativism. I’m sure there is some new academic term for it now. Maybe “poly-symphonic Theology?”
Another howler in Carl’s piece is his attack on Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper, like all men, had feet of clay, but the very point that Carl attacks Abraham at is Abraham’s success in effecting Dutch culture in a wholesome direction. According to Dr. Carl, Abraham was a failure in the early 20th century precisely because he is not a success in the early 21st century. Now that is the kind of reasoning that only a Doctor of the Church can arrive at. Maybe this is just as case of Professor envy? But really folks … are we to actually believe that Amsterdam’s harlotry today is proof of the failure of Kuyper’s theology? That’s like saying that the harlotry of the PCUSA today is proof of the failure of B. B. Warfield’s theology. And this chap teaches Seminary students?
Next up is Carl’s bemoaning that a PCA Pastor can’t find rental space because of the PCA’s stand on sodomite marriage. This complaint is akin to some “learned pundit” writing in the 1st century about the obvious problems of St. Paul because he keeps getting thrown out of synagogues. Why if the PCA and St. Paul would just be more reasonable regarding their teaching they wouldn’t have any problem at all at finding rental space or in constantly getting thrown out of synagogues.
Next we have to endure Carl’s pronouncement that there is not one place in the whole country where culture is being transformed at any point where it really counts. That is a statement crafted in and with hubris. How could our good Doctor know such a thing to be true? As he traversed every nook and cranny of the whole country to catalog this as truth? Secondly, even if Carl’s observation were true would it mean that because we are failing we shouldn’t even try? Is current failure proof that future success is hopeless. Mercy … I’m glad that Edison or the Wright Brothers didn’t live by that insightful little proverb, never mind a Calvin or a Machen. Finally, on this score we might ask whether or not we are to take the providence of God into account on these matters. God, in His wisdom, gives and withholds Reformation and so transformation as He sees fit. That God may withhold Reformation for a generation or for several generations doesn’t disprove the reality of Reformation or transformation when God see’s fit to grant it. Could it be that we’ve been living so long without Reformation that suddenly we are concluding that God is never going to give it again so we just need to get used to living with the moral sewage of Amsterdams, Londons and Philadelphias?
Carl then informs us that Tim Keller is the “transformationists’ best shot today.” I don’t know whether to cry in my beer or laugh up my sleeve.
However, I must agree with Carl at one point. I agree that much which passes as transformation is only so much folly. Much of what Keller accomplishes is not transformation in the slightest but just accomplishment of giving a Christian patina to endeavors that are not particularly Christian. (Consider Keller’s recent book “Generous Justice,” to see a Christian overlay put on top of soft Marxist presuppositions.) On this point I give Carl kudos. Much of that which passes as Christian transformation needs desperately transformed in a Christian direction.
Carl ends his manifesto against transformation with an amillennial flourish. In his final paragraph he gives us a Christian Hee Haw version of,
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
It needs to be said in ending that there really is no surprise in Carl finally casting his lot with the R2K boys, since R2K is nothing but militant and “consistent” amillennialism. Carl is amill so what should we expect from an amill except an attempt to transform the transformationalists in an “anti-transformationist” direction?
