Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Perichoresis -> Theses and Polemics -> Worldwide Church of God
Post Info TOPIC: Worldwide Church of God
Caroline


Status: Offline
Posts: 43
Date:
Worldwide Church of God
Permalink  

Hi John;


I've been reading a little about your denomination and the changes you've been going through. I'm very, very impressed. For as long as I can remember, I've been taught that WCG is heretical. Now, I will tell others that that is no longer true. Your motto, "Willing to change for God's gospel" gives me much hope for the whole Christian community. If everyone had the same willingness!


I belong to the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists. We're the Canadian equivalent to the Southern Baptist Convention. We were part of the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec but split about 50 years ago over the issue of biblical inerrancy. Some theologians wanted the freedom to teach the first 11 chapters of Genesis as myth-teaching-truth. They were the same who later advocated Open Theism but that's another discussion! Anyway, the biblical literalits left and became the denomination of which I'm a part of.


Therefore, the 1st core value at my church is biblical inerrancy. The 2nd is belief in the Trinity. And the joke is that Trinity = Father, Son and Holy Bible.


How does your denomination decide what is dogma, what is doctrine and what is opinion? I mean, say, someone were to present a decent case for Open Theism or Universalism, how would the ideas get adopted or rejected?



-- Edited by Caroline at 11:02, 2006-09-05

__________________
Caroline


Status: Offline
Posts: 43
Date:
Permalink  

Also, I have the opinion that anything in our churches can be tweaked to be more inlign with God as revealed by Jesus Christ. I don't believe anything has to be thrown out or fought over tooth and claw. It's a far easier and peaceful process (although maybe slower) of bringing a church around.


For example, I used to be a five-point Calvinist. I grew up in a Presbyterian church, was "saved" on campus by the Navigators and then installed in Baptist chuches. Voila, 5-point Calvinist, born and bred.


Now I believe that Jesus died for the sins of ALL men (and women) so I'm a 4-point Calvinist. Atonement is unlimited. However, I still believe that God's irresistible grace and unconditional election meets us in our total helplessness and depravity and that He has the power to preserve us to the end until all His plans and purposes for us are accomplished. Hence, universalism.


Minor tweak, major result.


My most heroic tweaking effort so far was when I taught Beta, the follow-up to Alpha, which is by Neil Anderson based on Bondage Breaker. If you look up Modern Worldview, you'll see Beta. I'm pomo and I tweaked every chapter of that material.


My biggest failure: Spong's Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism. Disagreed with every page. Gave up tweaking and gave the book away. Unfortunately friend who wanted it eventually left Christianity. Note to self: Our church fathers had it right. In future, burn heretical works.



-- Edited by Caroline at 09:04, 2006-09-04

__________________
stonecypher


Status: Offline
Posts: 8
Date:
Permalink  

Wow, so you guys are sort of like the NORTHERN Baptists.  Fun.  Does your heterodoxy ever hang out for anyone to see?  I can imagine that being a stressful sort of church existence.


I tried to do Alpha a couple years ago, but my pomo self just couldn't manage to get through it without stomach cramps.  I applaud your tweaking abilities.  Tough break on the Spong thing.  I have books like that I ought to get rid of too.



How does your denomination decide what is dogma, what
is doctrine and what is opinion? I mean, say, someone were
to present a decent case for Open Theism or Universalism,
how would the ideas get adopted or rejected?


Well, we're still in the process of codifying how all that works.  From a cultic "Whatever-the-dude-at-the-top-says" system, we're transitioning to an episcopal sort of system, but without voting.  For doctrinal change stuff, any elder can submit a paper to our 'journal for elders,' and that can generate conversation.  If an idea seems to get popular, we have a 'Doctrinal Committee' that can officially launch a study to consider an issue for a possible change to our Statement of Beliefs.  This starts with a Call for Papers to the entire denomination's membership, and the members of the Doctrinal Committee write study papers that are published and discussed in our member newspaper.  And over the course of years, as consensus emerges (or doesn't), the Doctrinal Committee can submit its recommendation for doctrinal change to the 'Council of Elders' (an international body of elders and lay members) which has the power to make the change.  We're ATTEMPTING a participatory and collegial process without resorting to a voting system.


Baxter's stuff is really making the rounds among us.  He will likely be the speaker at one of our upcoming national elder conferences.  Our whole denom has been very influenced by Barth from the beginnings of our Reformation.  I love that I can talk Baxter-sort-of-stuff in my sermons and not (necessarily) get fired!  We are having a big worship conference in Wisconsin in a couple weeks, and I'll be giving a workshop on Hell.  I don't *think* I'll get fired, but I'm sure I will spark some interesting conversations.



__________________
stonecypher


Status: Offline
Posts: 8
Date:
Worldwide Church of God on TULIP
Permalink  

I just dug this up b/c I thought you might find it interesting.  WCG has no official dogma on Calvin's 5 points, but the President of the denomination gave a lecture on his take on it.  So you could say that among us this is not dogma, but is close to being doctrine:


TOTAL DEPRAVITY


We agree with Calvin that God is sovereign but do not agree with the determinism of the hyper-Calvinism that reduces God’s love to a lesser attribute


We agree with Arminius that humanity is given free-will but do not agree that we cannot be saved unless we help God do it.


We use the term “universal sinfulness”


 


UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION


We agree with Calvin that God is Sovereign, but do not agree that he decreed all thought and behavior to the extent that he is the author of sin and evil.


We agree with Arminius that God calls all humans to salvation, but do not agree that any human work contributes to our salvation.


We us the term “universal election”.


 


LIMITED ATONEMENT


We agree with Calvin that Christ’s atonement is sufficient for all humanity but disagree that it only applies to a minority of humanity.


We agree with Arminius that Christ’s atonement is efficient but disagree with any notion that our works will lose or save us.


We use the term “universal atonement” which should not be confused with universalism.


 


IRRESISTIBLE GRACE


We agree with Calvin that God extends his grace to humanity, but we disagree with the notion that God imposes his will on a few to election and human will is insignificant.


We agree with Arminius that God’s grace gives us the ability to respond to his love, but disagree that human will is sufficient to choose God.


We use the term “covenant faithfulness”


 


PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS


We agree with Calvin that the necessity of God’s grace is in his decrees but disagree that assurance is in anything other than redemption in Christ


We agree with Arminius that there is assurance of salvation but disagree that we have to prove it to God or to ourselves.


We use the term “new creation”


 


II.            Joe’s Summary


a.     Calvinists look through the lens of the law.


b.     Arminians look through the lens of free choice.


c.     Barth looks through the lens of Christ.



__________________
Caroline


Status: Offline
Posts: 43
Date:
RE: Worldwide Church of God
Permalink  

stonecypher wrote:


Wow, so you guys are sort of like the NORTHERN Baptists.  Fun.  Does your heterodoxy ever hang out for anyone to see?  I can imagine that being a stressful sort of church existence.


Yup, we put the Fun in Fundamental. Also the Mental. I find that I can say anything as long as I don't use certain words like "Open Theism" or "Postmodern" or "Feminist". For example, I once answered an Alpha leader's question on why there is evil with Boyd's Open Theism which was well received by all. My pastors know and we enjoy debating. Ironically, they have to tread more carefully than I because people just assume that I didn't know I was being heterodox. My pastors won't receive that same grace.


Anyway, I find your denomination's way of discovering what is orthodox awesome. Plain Truth is a prophetic name for you. I also like what your president wrote and how he is finding the Hegelian road between Calvinism and Arminism. Now if I can just nudge him toward universalism........



__________________
stonecypher


Status: Offline
Posts: 8
Date:
RE: "Open Theism"
Permalink  

I attend the seminary that Greg Boyd got kicked out of.    Go me!!!  Kidding, I think Boyd is cool.  And he does a pretty snappy drum solo.


Regarding "Open Theism," most controversy arises over the "open" part.  My only problem with it is the "theism" part.  I'm not a theist; I'm a trinitarian.  BIG difference, and it transforms the whole conversation:



Traditional Theism: God is outside time.
Open Theism: God is in time.
Trinitarianism: Time is in God--the eternally dynamic interrelations of Father, Son and Spirit.



__________________
Caroline


Status: Offline
Posts: 43
Date:
RE: Worldwide Church of God
Permalink  

I didn't know he was kicked out. Was that Princeton or Bethel? I did know he left the ETS before they could officially kick him out.


I'm very intrigued by your statement:



Trinitarianism: Time is in God - the eternally dynamic interrelations of Father, Son and Spirit.


But what does it mean?



__________________
stonecypher


Status: Offline
Posts: 8
Date:
Permalink  

Bethel.  And I guess I don't know for sure that he was kicked out; just last time I checked, it seemed to be surely heading in that direction.


My thoughts about time, eternity, yada yada are still being formed.  They are actually deeply influenced by another teacher I had at Bethel--LeRon Shults, a student of Pannenberg, who was in turn a student of Barth, who was also the teacher of Torrance, who is the teacher of Baxter.  (How many degrees is that?)


The god of the traditional theists has a mind which contains data about all the events that will ever happen, because its god is outside of time and can therefore view the whole "timeline" at once.


The god of the open theists has a mind which contains data about all the events that have already happened, but not future events, since those events have not happened yet, and god is "in time" like the rest of us.  (And I'm aware this is a gross simplification; let me know if it's TOO gross).


But the God of the Bible is neither inside or outside time.  In him all things (including time) live and move and have their being.  All things are from God, through God, and to God.  I like to visualize it like a family teaching a baby to walk:  One stands us up and sends us off toward another One who says "Come on! You can do it!"  And then maybe a third One holds our hands lightly, ready to catch us if we stumble. 


Our Father has set us off on the grand adventure of eternal life.  The Son is our destination (or one could even say he is "pre-destination"), and he calls to us from our own glorified-human future (though a complication of this is that when he talks to us, his references to time end up not making any sense, like "The time is coming and has now come," and "Before Abraham was, I am").  And his own Spirit carries us along toward our future (and the future is Christ and Christ alone.  The various routes we can take to get there--and the people we become along the way--is up to us).  God's omniscience is not a knowing of "things" which are somehow outside of God that he "knows" about.  God's omniscience is the infinite "knowing-one-another" shared in the bond of Father, Son and Spirit. 


Whatever events happen between now and the end (or "the beginning," as C.S. Lewis would say), the future is already set, and that future is Jesus.  The Father knows his Son fully in the fellowship of the Spirit.  When we understand divine omniscience in terms like this, human freedom ceases to be theologically problematic.


How's that for an over-wordy response???


 



__________________
Caroline


Status: Offline
Posts: 43
Date:
Permalink  

Not over-wordy at all since a former pastor made me read Boyd's Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy. He didn't read it himself; he just wanted a summary from me


Your concept of time and God's foreknowledge is quite compatible with Boyd's. I like his version of Open Theism more than say, Pinnock's or Sanders'. I'm not as familiar with their writings but from the little I read, it seems that they feel God doesn't know what is happening beyond the present. Boyd accepts long range prophecy because God is sovereign and has the power to affect events to bring about His eternal plans. In other words, He knows generally how the future will unfold because He has predetermined how the present space-time continuum will end.


Meanwhile, at this present moment in time, whilst I sit here typing, my future actions are probabilities. Sometime later, they will be actualities. God knows those probabilities and I don't think anything I'll do in the forseeable future will unduly surprise him.


I guess where Open Theism and Traditional Theism part ways is in the concept of human choices. Do they really make a difference? OT says yes and I agree. It is not either compatibilist or libertarian free will but both. Some of our choices are predetermined by circumstances beyond our knowledge or control, including God's will. Some of our choices are pivotal turning points in our history. Our choices ripple the cosmos.



__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.
Perichoresis -> Theses and Polemics -> Worldwide Church of God
Tweet this page Post to Digg Post to Del.icio.us


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse 		Powered by ActiveBoard