Mohler Admits Influence From Presbyterian D. James Kennedy
Below is from Brother Bob Ross.Charles
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DR. MOHLER INDEBTED TO PRESBYTERIAN'S INFLUENCE
Bob to Charles:
With the recent passing of Dr. D. James Kennedy, the well-known Florida Presbyterian pastor, Dr. R. Albert Mohler of Southern Seminary has written the following comments on Kennedy on his website:
"My indebtedness to Dr. Kennedy is very personal. I was a young Southern Baptist who as a teenager had serious questions about the big issues of the Christian faith. Dr. Kennedy's ministry at Coral Ridge addressed those big questions. He was unafraid to take on the intellectual challenges of the faith. He was kind to a Baptist teenager, introducing me to Francis Schaeffer and dignifying my questions. He clearly enjoyed talking theology and he was the first person I had ever met who demonstrated this joy. He was kind. I was hooked. In no small way my own calling as a theologian can be traced to Dr. Kennedy's influence. I was inspired by his intellectual engagement and motivated by his vision of excellence for God's glory." [AlbertMohler.com, Wednesday, September 05, 2007]
Perhaps this explains somewhat why Dr. Mohler has such close association with the pedobaptist Presbyterians, as we have noted on this blog. His indebtedness to Kennedy conceivably influences Mohler to be less of a critic of the pedobaptist errors.
The late Dr. Kennedy's seminary, Knox Seminary, has a website which contains some anti-Baptist and anti-premillennial materials. The main theologian, Robert L. Reymond, in his theology book, advocates Hybrid Calvinism, as well as the usual Presbyterian notions about infants.
posted by Charles @ 7:38 PM
14 Comments:
Nothing like using a man's death to get in one more shot at someone you disagree with.
"Mohler admits influence from Presbyterian." And this is noteworthy because...?
Please allow me to ask you two a question, which I think just may get to the heart of the matter: Do you believe pedobaptists are, in fact, fellow Christians, or is it your position that they are not saved? In my opinion, this thread has all the earmarks of Landmarkism.
I cannot wait to receive your response.
PEDOBAPTISTS SAVED?
Mark said:
Do you believe pedobaptists are, in fact, fellow Christians, or is it your position that they are not saved? In my opinion, this thread has all the earmarks of Landmarkism.
You apparently do not understand Landmarkism, nor are you familiar with this blog on the matter of salvation.
No advocate of Landmarkism among the Baptists, to my knowledge, ever related soteriolgy (salvation) to issues which relate to ecclesiolgy.
This blog has always maintained that whosoever believes on Jesus Christ for salvation is saved. This would, of course, apply to any pedobaptist who trusts Christ for salvation.
But how Pedobaptists could reconcile their claim that their children are "regenerated" in infancy and that adults are "born again before and without faith" is, at least to our minds, in conflict with the teaching of passages such as John 3:14-18 and Acts 16:30, 31.
Reply to Anonymous
anonymous said;
Nothing like using a man's death to get in one more shot at someone you disagree with.
I did not use Dr. Kennedy's death, but I simply quoted Dr. Mohler's testimony as to the influence of Dr. Kennedy upon Mohler's theology. Dr. Kennedy's death just happened to be the circumstance which prompted Mohler's testimony, which seems to throw some light on why Mohler seems to be so facinated by pedobaptists.
BECAUSE . . . ?
Mark said...
"Mohler admits influence from Presbyterian." And this is noteworthy because...?
Because it indicates from whence Mohler was influenced toward a certain version of "Calvinism" -- which is apparently Hybrid Calvinism, based on his hiring practices and his association with Hybrid Calvinist Presbyterians.
Men like to claim that they got their theology only "from the Bible," but the fact is, we are all subject to understand the Bible according as we have been taught by others or read their writings, especially in the area of theology.
For instance, my own thinking theologically was greatly influenced by my reading of Spurgeon's sermons almost immediately after I was saved at age 18. If I am in error on something, it is 99% certain that I can show you that same error in Spurgeon. I don't mind saying that thru his sermons and works Spurgeon has been my "mentor" in theology for the past 54 years. Spurgeon came down hard on the pedobaptist errors, and I share his attitude, as well as that of his son, Tom.
I was going thru the 1901 bound volume of The Sword and Trowel, edited by CHS' successor at the Tabernacle, his son Thomas Spurgeon, one of Spurgeon's two preacher-sons, and Tom said in a book review:
"As long as Paedo-baptists support the Romish practice of infant sprinkling, Baptists must protest against it. We are glad, therefore, to see a twopenny pamphlet by 'one of our own men,' Pastor T. Whiteside, entitled Hear the Other Side: a Reply to Rev. R. M. McC. Gilmour's four Sermons on 'Christian Baptism.'
"Our friend has most effectually overthrown the flimsy arguments and unscriptural theories of his Presbyterian neighbor. . . . His booklet will be helpful in spreading the truth about believers's baptism wherever it goes." (The Sword and the Trowel, 1901, page 497).
PEDOBAPTIST ON BAPTISM
Robert L. Reymond, who is listed on the Faculty page of the late Dr. D. James Kennedy's Knox Seminary, has this to say on baptism:
The fact is that there is not a single recorded instance of a baptism in the entire New Testament where immersion followed by emersion is the mode of baptism. The Baptist practice of baptism by immersion is simply based upon faulty exegesis of Scripture. The ordinance should not be represented as signifying Christ’s burial and resurrection (aspects of the accomplished phase of his saving work, which the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper memorializes) but rather his baptismal work (the applicational phase of his saving work). I would conclude therefore that "dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered by pouring, or sprinkling water upon the person."
Robert L. Reymond. “A New Systematic Theology Of The Christian Faith”. Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1998. Pages 923-935.
Dr. Reymond represents what is taught in Dr. Kennedy's seminary. It is opposed to everything Baptists stand for for on immersion and the baptism of believers only.
Brother Bob, Hello!
Tom Ascol said Reymond was the "author of one of the finest systematic theology texts in the last 50 years."
Charles
HYBRID THEOLOGIAN PRAISED BY ASCOL
Charles said...
Tom Ascol said Reymond was the "author of one of the finest systematic theology texts in the last 50 years."
Hybrid Calvinism evidently covers a multitude of errors, so far as Flounder's leader, Tom Ascol, is concerned. The Hybrid Calvinist shibboleth is "born again before faith," and that passes muster with Ascol.
Pedobaptist Reymond says:
By the Spirit’s regenerating work the elect sinner (1) is made spiritually alive, thereby opening and favorably disposing him to the things of the Spirit, which were foolishness to him before (1 Cor. 2:14), (2) is convinced of his sin, (3) is enlightened to the all-sufficiency of the Savior Jesus Christ as he is offered in the gospel, and (4) is renewed in his will, rendering him thereby willing (no sinner is brought to Christ against his will!) and able to embrace Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. In other words, the Spirit’s work makes the sinner willing and able to repent and to believe, but his repenting and his believing per se are not aspects of the effectual call itself. They are his divinely effected responses to God’s effectual call which, taken together, are indicative of his conversion.[Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, page 718].
Reymond herein follows the error of Louis Berkhof, who taught "born again before faith" and admits to differing with Luther, Calvin,
"seventeenth century theology" (i. e. Dort, Westminster Confession and the Puritans) on this subject (Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pages 466, 470, 471).
Ernest Reisinger was a disciple of Hybrid Calvinist, Iain Murray, and of course Ascol was a disciple of Reisinger. So it is understandable that Ascol would endorse the Hybrid Calvinist, Reymond.
As we have noted, all the Hybrids have a "common denominator" -- the modern Presbyterian pedobaptist "ordo salutis" error of "born again before faith," which contradicts the Westminster Confession, the Puritans, John Calvin himself, and of course our Baptist theologians.
We think this mixture of Creedal Calvinism with the non-creedal error of "born again before faith" is properly designated "Hybrid Calvinism."
Well, it's too bad Baptists cannot fellowship with Presbyterians, even though "whosoever believes on Jesus Christ for salvation is saved."
"My children are saved because I say they are!
How dare you Arminian loving, Calvin hating, Baptists try to tell me that is a new/different/unScriptural gospel!"
FELLOWSHIP?
Anonymous said...
Well, it's too bad Baptists cannot fellowship with Presbyterians, even though "whosoever believes on Jesus Christ for salvation is saved."
We do not think that fellowship with a pedobaptist church member who is a believer in the gospel of salvation establishes grounds for sanctioning the ecclesiastical doctrine and practice which the pedobaptist church may advocate. I fellowship a number of pedobaptist believers, but I do not sanction any of their views and practices which I understand to be erroneous.
thanks for you're response.
Have you forgotten that the SBC was in legal trouble several decades ago for copyright infringement of Evangelism Explosion (authored by Dr. Kennedy)? Dr. Mohler is obviously not the only person in the SBC to be influenced by the late pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church.
DR. KENNEDY'S INFLUENCE
Rev. said...
Dr. Mohler is obviously not the only person in the SBC to be influenced by the late pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church.
That is probably true, but the point is that Dr. Mohler specifically cited Dr. Kennedy as having an influence on Mohler's theology, and that this perhaps partly explains why Mohler is rather overly chummey with pedobaptists who advocate "born again before faith," which is the "common denominator" which seems to prevail in Hybrid Calvinist ranks.
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