Better word than "cessationist"? Almost! So close!

by Dan Phillips

Labels are a necessary evil. Few of them really capture a position sufficiently, but the alternatives just don't work. What chafes is the frequent necessity of using a well-known label for the sake of communication, but knowing that with it comes unwanted baggage and connotations.

And so for instance — as I've posed before — what do you call yourself if you unreservedly affirm the sufficiency of Scripture and the Holy Spirit's definition of the nature, role and ministry of His gifts and works? What are you? Decades ago, there wasn't a well-known name, then along comes "cessationism."

And so, though we affirm a robustly positive and vibrant position, we find ourselves stuck with negative label.  We're stuck with describing ourselves by what we don't think is currently happening. If it's a PR battle, we lose from the outset. I tried suggesting a more negative (and more accurate) label for the opposition but, as expected, it went nowhere.

I've long wanted (and called for) a positive word, connoting the robust fullness of the position, the happy and God-honoring affirmation that the Holy Spirit had succeeded in His work. He succeeded in affirming the Gospel by His revelatory and attesting works (Heb. 2:1-4), He succeeded in bringing to completion the process of piecemeal revelation (1 Cor. 13:8-10), He succeeded in producing a Word that contains everything we need to know for salvation and service (2 Tim. 3:15-17).

And then it dawned on me:

SUCCESSIONIST!

What is a Successionist? It's someone who celebrates the the Lord Jesus' success in giving the apostles all the information He wanted to communicate through them (Jn. 16:12-15), who rejoices in the Trinity's success in revealing and attesting the Gospel (Heb. 2:1-4), who affirms and celebrates the Holy Spirit's success in producing a truly sufficient Word (2 Tim. 3:15-17). He is a successionist.

So what if it's a coined word? So was Charismatic. So was Cessationist. So are many theological labels.

Ah, but I fear that my newborn is a stillborn. Though I don't think I've ever heard the term used, it turns out that word has been around for a long, long time, and already has many connotations which have nothing to do with my intent.

Sigh.

Oh well, the search continues.

But next to "too late," two of the saddest words in English have to be...

...so close!

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Why I'm Not Looking for a Movement to Join

by Phil Johnson

What follows is a short excerpt from a message I gave 5 years ago at the Shepherds' Conference. The session was titled, "Dead Right: The Failure of Fundamentalism," and it unleashed a firestorm in the blogosphere. (That was a couple of months before I actually began blogging in earnest.) A transcript of my message was posted at SharperIron.org (an always-interesting fundamentalist blog) just a day or so after I delivered it. A prolonged and very active discussion began at that blog even before the Shepherds' Conference ended that year. When I heard about the SharperIron.org conversation, I visited that blog to supply a more accurate transcript, provide some documentation, and clarify a few of my comments. There I encountered Dave Doran, president of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. He was an articulate and patient critic of my message, and we had an extended conversation on that blog, lasting several weeks. Someone saved most of those posts, and the document (available here) makes fascinating reading even now. Dr. Doran reminisced about that exchange on his blog today, and SharperIron also posted links to the original article and the Doran-Johnson discussion. That led me to the transcript of my message, and the following section stood out to me as blog-worthy. Since I need to do another "Redneck Atheism" post tomorrow, I'm stepping on Dan Phillips's excellent post this afternoon in order to get this online whilst it's still in my head. Enjoy.

   have always preferred independency. I consider myself an independent in every sense. I'm not looking for a movement to join. I belong to [Grace Community] church. That's enough for me. And I'm willing to work alongside anyone and everyone who shares my essential biblical convictions, whether the label they would slap on themselves is "fundamentalist," "evangelical," "strict and particular Baptist," or just plain old "Christian."

Think about the fruits of the various twentieth-century movements. Liberals and theological radicals never did anything but kill churches and turn denominations into spiritual wastelands.

"Fundamentalists" who tied themselves to the movement got sidetracked into fighting and dividing into ever-smaller and less significant factions. They managed to start with the all the right ideas, all the right enemies, and all the best men—and reduce their movement to virtual insignificance in less than a hundred years.

"Moderates" never did anything, period, except gum up the works of denominational discipline, while compromising and clouding everything that ought to be kept crystal-clear.

If you think about it, the twentieth century saw the same pattern repeated that you see throughout all of church history. The true vitality of the church is traceable through the nonconformists, the independents, the true biblical separatists. The true secret of their power is not—and never has been—in earthly organizations, political clout, or visible movements of any kind. Their power is derived from the biblical truth they preach. And the influence of that kind of power has always been what determines the relative health and spiritual vigor of the church.

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The value of ideological epithets

A Word about labels

A note to certain commenters who feel compelled to keep posting the same complaint

(First posted Friday, 12 August 2005)

I wholeheartedly agree that dismissive labels are not valid substitutes for sound arguments, and I do try to write accordingly.

On the other hand, labels can be valid shorthand in cases where the supportive argumentation is already well established.

The postmodern antipathy for any and all labels is patently unreasonable. If a Jehovah's Witness comes to my door claiming that Jesus isn't eternally God but the highest of all created beings and a kind of "god," it is perfectly appropriate for me to label his view Arianism and refer him to the lessons of historical theology for an answer to his heresy. Magnanimity doesn't oblige me to seriously consider his error anew just because he himself doesn't call it "Arianism."

To the degree that today's Open Theists have espoused Socinian or neo-Socinian notions, it is perfectly legitimate to label their ideas accordingly. In some cases, those ideas deserve to be dismissed with extreme prejudice.

If someone seriously does not understand why Socinian tendencies have always been destructive to the church, or why a particular tenet of Socinianism is wrong, or why in the world anyone would label some of the postmodern ideas about the atonement "neo-Socinianism"—just ask, and I will be happy to try to explain why I have employed a certain label, show why the error I've applied the label to is a dangerous idea, or otherwise make whatever argument you feel has been missed.

But if there is a new postmodern rule about "politeness" that in effect forbids us from ever pointing out that certain aberrant theological notions have already been decisively consigned to the dustbin of heterodoxy by the unanimous consensus of Protestant and evangelical history, I did not get that memo.

And if we're now required by the manners-police to drop all our prior objections to serious errors like Pelagianism, eschew all labels, and give serious consideration to every new denial of Original Sin—just because the architects of post-modern theological folly want to call their views something other than "Pelagianism"—then I'm warning you right now: you're not going to think I'm playing nice.

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