# The fruit of the Federal Vision?



## Redaimie

http://web.mac.com/eleysium/iWeb/Site/Elysium/B2DD1BE0-5928-451C-AA6B-21E9A823B95E.html




> article by James Jordan
> 
> Should Anyone Trust the Orthodox Presbyterian Church?
> 
> by James B. Jordan
> 
> The Orthodox Presbyterian Church publishes a monthly magazine called "New Horizons." The February 2007 issue was devoted to essays on justification, on the "New Perspective on Paul," and on the "Federal Vision."
> All of the articles left the impression, when they did not state outright, that there are people around the Reformed and Presbyterian world who are attacking the historic doctrine of justification by faith alone.
> This is a lie. No one has questioned the
> historic Reformed doctrine in any way, shape, or
> form. Nobody connected with the "New Perspective
> on Paul" and nobody connected with the "Federal
> Vision" has in the least compromised the
> historic, Reformed, confessional doctrine of justification.
> Nobody has done so. To assert or to imply otherwise is to lie.
> 
> I repeat: It is to lie.The editors and authors in the February "New Horizons" have lied to their readers, by implication at least.Now, the question is this: Are these men lying because they are wicked and evil, or
> because they are stupid and uncomprehending, or
> because they are lazy and incompetent and simply
> choose to repeat lies they read from 20-somethings in internet blogs? I don't know. I'd like to believe it is because they are lazy and incompetent.





> But when they say that those who disagree or would like to express things differently are "not Reformed" or
> are "denying justification" or are "borderline heretics," they are committing an enormity for which they will answer before God at the last day.




Is calling the entire OPC liars fruit? Are they so sure of themselves that they can claim the wrath of God on all who say they are wrong.
What is the Christian response to this?


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## fredtgreco

Any one who listens to Jordan is a fool. His fruit - found in the crushed lives of congregants that he and others lorded it over - speaks for itself for decades. His commentary, as usual, is laughable. Oh, what a burden to be so much smarter than everyone else.


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## wsw201

Looks like we just heard from the peanut gallery!   

Gotta go with Fred. Jordan is clueless.


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## JKLeoPCA

So from Jordan the current FV rebuttal is a, "Liar, liar, pants on fire," defense?
Seems a bit of a far cry from a theological defense of what was written in the New Horizons articles, but then maybe he was too lazy to write that sort of rebuttal. Look like a lot of smoke screen stuff to me. Reminds me of the Wizard of Oz,.. "Ignore the man behind the curtain!"


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## NaphtaliPress

If someone is going to call a _denomination _like the OPC a bunch of liars, they should probably have a good testimony in keeping the ninth commandment _themselves_. People in glass houses, etc. 
http://www.fpcr.org/blue_banner_articles/tyler_update.htm


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## blhowes

Just to get a little background, who is James B. Jordan? Is he one of the 'key players' in the FV debate?


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## blhowes

> A number of years ago, in the early 1990s, I attended several presbytery meetings of the local OPC presbytery. To my amazement, all the worship events consisted of singing camp songs and children's choruses out of a little pamphlet. There were no psalms, metrical or chanted. There were not even any hymns. There were only childish droolings, sung in a stoned
> mystical fashion. Now, if this cultivated infantilism is characteristic of the OPC as a whole, I can understand why they are no longer capable of theological discourse.


In the debate world, is there a special term used when the debater resorts to this kind of an argument to prove his point?


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## fredtgreco

blhowes said:


> Just to get a little background, who is James B. Jordan? Is he one of the 'key players' in the FV debate?



Bob,

Go to Chris Coldwell's link for background. Jordan lives in a cellophane house. He is one the most prolific writers of teh FV and one who lays the theological foundations with his (generally crazy) exegesis. If you were to pick up the book the Federal Vision, or other such books, the footnotes would be full of Jordan.

(Now awaiting the incessant whining about to begin on various blogs...)


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## DTK

blhowes said:


> Just to get a little background, who is James B. Jordan? Is he one of the 'key players' in the FV debate?


Bob,

He is in the background, sorta behind the scenes, but who many regard as one of the architects, if not the architect, of the FV. There is a great deal about Eastern Orthodoxy that he seems to emphasize. He is very out-spoken and radical. He is not a pastor, but many of the FV pastors take their "cue" from him.

DTK


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## DTK

blhowes said:


> In the debate world, is there a special term used when the debater resorts to this kind of an argument to prove his point?


The illustration he gives comes close to the informal fallacy of "Converse Accident," which is committed when one moves haphazardly from an individual case to a generalization. But in this case, Jordan suspends his remarks on the word "if," and thereby avoids direct application of this fallacy to his argument. These people are in big error, but they're not stupid.

DTK


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## tewilder

blhowes said:


> Just to get a little background, who is James B. Jordan? Is he one of the 'key players' in the FV debate?



Jordan is the conveyor belt from Meredith Kline's crazy symbolic theology and hermeneutics to the Federal Vision's application of this theology. The heart of it is worship and liturgy, which is why Jordan picks up on the OPC's evangelical infantilism in this area. He could have said the same about the PCA. 

Everything depends on doing the right rituals in the right way in order to manipulate the symbolic connection between the upper story and the lower story. That is why the Federal Vision is hermeticism.

Also, as I keep emphasizing, the justification issues are derivative in the Federal Vision theology. Worship and liturgy are the heart. The critics keep claiming that the derivative doctrines are the only issue. Partly because some of the critics share the same Klinite errors.


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## JKLeoPCA

blhowes said:


> In the debate world, is there a special term used when the debater resorts to this kind of an argument to prove his point?



Here is a fun, resource listing of fallacious argument tactics

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#selective

as was already mentioned, see "Argument By Generalization", or as an "Argument By Selective Observation" from the list. You site a negative observation about your opponent, and ignore any positive, and apply it as the focal point of that group. Or just the opposite, site a positive observation about your own group, and ignore the negative, and apply that as the focal point of your group. Yet both arguments fit the post above.


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## Jon Peters

tewilder said:


> Also, as I keep emphasizing, the justification issues are derivative in the Federal Vision theology. Worship and liturgy are the heart. The critics keep claiming that the derivative doctrines are the only issue. Partly because some of the critics share the same Klinite errors.



Can you elaborate on how Klinite errors are affecting the critics?


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## Poimen

Jordan and his friends are bullies (as someone else has written elsewhere). What do you do with a bully? You stand up to him! 

Here is what you do. Claim that the Federal Vision men are heretics even if their soteriological teachings are not heresy.

The word 'heretic' as used in scripture does not only refer to doctrinal aberrations but is also used specifically in reference to causing division. 

Galatians 5:19-21 "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, _strife, seditions, heresies,_ envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

Titus 3:10 "Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition."

As Dr. Pipa has noted: 

"Here again is a place where proponents of the Federal Vision have erred. They ought to have circulated papers for theological discussion amongst ministers, elders, and theologians. They chose to preempt this procedure with public conferences that have greatly disturbed the church. The theological discussion has occurred after the fact.” The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros & Cons, page 281

This, of course, was published four years ago (in August 2003). Has anyone seen these men turn from their ways of division and schism in the church of Christ? Do they care for anything except the following of the seemingly endless parade of young men and woman who stream to their 'cultural centers' for indoctrination? 

May Christ protect His Church from these heretics. May God turn their hearts to repentance to be saved from themselves.


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## javajedi

Jon Peters said:


> Can you elaborate on how Klinite errors are affecting the critics?



 

I'd like to learn more about this as well. Please include an elaboration of what you meant by "_Meredith Kline's crazy symbolic theology and hermeneutics_"

Thanks


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## Semper Fidelis

Poimen said:


> Jordan and his friends are bullies (as someone else has written elsewhere). What do you do with a bully? You stand up to him!
> 
> Here is what you do. Claim that the Federal Vision men are heretics even if their soteriological teachings are not heresy.
> 
> The word 'heretic' as used in scripture does not only refer to doctrinal aberrations but is also used specifically in reference to causing division.
> 
> Galatians 5:19-21 "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, _strife, seditions, heresies,_ envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
> 
> Titus 3:10 "Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition."
> 
> As Dr. Pipa has noted:
> 
> "Here again is a place where proponents of the Federal Vision have erred. They ought to have circulated papers for theological discussion amongst ministers, elders, and theologians. They chose to preempt this procedure with public conferences that have greatly disturbed the church. The theological discussion has occurred after the fact.” The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros & Cons, page 281
> 
> This, of course, was published four years ago (in August 2003). Has anyone seen these men turn from their ways of division and schism in the church of Christ? Do they care for anything except the following of the seemingly endless parade of young men and woman who stream to their 'cultural centers' for indoctrination?
> 
> May Christ protect His Church from these heretics. May God turn their hearts to repentance to be saved from themselves.


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## javajedi

Wow.

Is this guy serious? 

These are great articles and document many things including the rejection by some (Shepard & NT Wright included) of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Not to mention the eqivication they make between *faith* and *fathfulness* [works]. 

How can he say none of this effects the doctrine of justification by faith alone??

BTW, the articles are on-line *here*.

Its interesting that John Robbins says the OPC is done for because we somehow allow this teaching and Jordan claims we're all liars because of the strong stand these articles take against it. Guess that means that the OPC is actually in the right place  [not perfect - and more needs to be done. Part of that is open discussion and training/teaching what this stuff is and where it leads.].


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## tewilder

Jon Peters said:


> Can you elaborate on how Klinite errors are affecting the critics?



Some of them are Klinites. So that have to ignore that whole aspect of things when they go on the warpath against the Federal Vision.


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## Archlute

> *Knucklehead wrote:*
> ...they are lazy and incompetent and simply choose to repeat lies they read from 20-somethings in internet blogs?



Sweet. I'll let VanDrunen know that I'm onto him now - having to troll the Internet for all that stuff he feeds us in class


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## wsw201

Archlute said:


> Sweet. I'll let VanDrunen know that I'm onto him now - having to troll the Internet for all that stuff he feeds us in class



He's probably getting from that Heidlblog done by that Clark guy


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## Poimen

wsw201 said:


> He's probably getting from that Heidlblog done by that Clark guy


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## jenney

> This is a lie.


"This is not true" would be a fair thing to say (though I can't say I agree with it, at least it is fair). To use the pejorative word "lie" is to suggest that one knows the heart intent in a case where he has not presented any evidence of intent to deceive. If he said, "I wrote the editor three times asking for a demonstration of...none of the articles offered any quotes to support the idea that the accused are denying sola fide..." etc it would be fair evidence for, at least, "they aren't telling you the whole story." This just demonstrates that he has no substance in his argument and must therefore resort to ad hominem.



> No one has questioned the
> historic Reformed doctrine in any way, shape, or
> form.



Except when they have.

I love (hate?) reading some of the FV folks who say, "I'm not denying the WCF, but I'm saying we've misrepresented it!" and then go on to deny it. But they say they aren't denying, only clarifying. Then they deny it again.

It reminds me of my three year old who says, "the sky is yellow," and when I say, "it's blue," she replies, "that's what I said. It's yellow."



> Are these men lying
> because they are wicked and evil, or
> because they are stupid and uncomprehending, or
> because they are lazy and incompetent and simply choose to repeat lies they read from 20-somethings in internet blogs?


or because they have stopped beating their wives?

It makes me really angry.  
And I'm not even Presyterian.

jenney


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## tewilder

javajedi said:


> I'd like to learn more about this as well. Please include an elaboration of what you meant by \"_Meredith Kline's crazy symbolic theology and hermeneutics_\"
> 
> Thanks



Look here, for example:

Amazon.com: God, Heaven, and Har Magedon: A Covenantal Tale of Cosmos and Telos: Books: Meredith G. Kline

It could have been written by Jordan himself as far as the methodology goes. And Jordan learned his schtick from Kline's Kingdom Prologue, and Images of the Spirit.

The Table of Contents of the book, May 26, 2006

God, Heaven, and Har Magedon (A Covenantal Tale of Cosmos and Telos) - Meredith G. Kline

[293 pages; with an author's preface]

PART ONE: GOD AND HEAVEN
I - NAMING THE METAWORLD
1. Heaven and Cosmos
2. Heaven: Glory-Temple
Conclusion

II - ALPHA RADIATION: THE CREATION OF HEAVEN
1. The Big Blaze
2. The Endoxation of the Spirit
3. The Spirit and Filiation

III - OMEGA APOCALYPSE: THE CONSUMMATION OF HEAVEN
1. Consummation and Glorification
2. Consummation and Cosmology

a. Prophecies of a Cataclysmic Finis
b. Hypothesis of Basic Cosmic Continuity
c. Hypothesis of Radical Cosmic Restructuring
d. Conclusion

PART TWO: HEAVEN AND HAR MAGEDON
IV - EARTHLY REPLICAS OF HEAVEN
1. Glory Replication
2. Replication in the Genesis Prologue

V - MOUNTAIN OF GOD

1. Eden as Replica of Heaven
2. The Mountain of God in Eden
a. Mount Zaphon and Mount Zion
b. The Original Zion in Eden
c. Sacramental Icon of Heaven

VI - HAR MAGEDON: THE MOUNT OF ASSEMBLY
1. The Meaning of Har Magedon
a. The Hebraisti Clue in Rev 16:16
b. Har Mo'ed, Mount of Assembly
2. Har Mo'ed - Mount Zaphon/Zion - Har Magedon
3. The Gathering Against Zion

Conclusion

PART THREE: HAR MAGEDON WARFARE: AN ESCHATOLOGICAL MEGASTRUCTURE

VII - ERUPTION OF THE HAR MAGEDON CONFLICT
1. Sabbath, Eschatology, and Covenant
2. Covenantal Proposal of Sabbath Grant
3. Covenant and Har Magedon Conflict

VIII - MESSIAH: THE COMING VICTOR OF HAR MAGEDON
1. Decretive Inauguration of Redemptive Holy War
2. Eternal Covenant of the Father and the Son
3. The Lord's Covenant of Grace with His People
4. The Har Magedon Pattern in Premessianic Typology

IX - ARARAT: OLD WORLD TYPE OF HAR MAGEDON
1. The Ark Covenant
2. Righteous Noah, Covenant Grantee
3. Covenant Community in the Interval
4. Antichrist Crisis
5. Parousia-Judgment and Gathering
6. Kingdom Consummation on Ararat

X - ZION: NEW WORLD TYPE OF HAR MAGEDON
1. The Abrahmic Covenant
a. Introduction
b. From Ararat to Abraham
c. Covenant of Promise
d. Two-stage Fulfillment

The King
The People
The Land

2. Obedient Abraham, Covenant Grantee
3. Covenant Community in the Interim
a. The 430 Years
b. Pilgrims and Good Neighbors
c. Continuing Remnant
d. Covenant Family Polity
e. Altars and Divine Presence

4. Antichrist Crisis
a. Pseudo-Har Magedon at Babel
b. Pharaonic Antichrist

5. Divine Judgment
a. Parousia
b. Redemptive Judgment
c. Gathering of the Kingdom People to Mount Zion

6. Kingdom Consummation: Inauguration of the Typal Kingdom at Sinai
a. Introduction
b. Covenantal Constituting
c. Enthronement of the Covenant Lord
d. Re-creation

7. Kingdom Consummation: Culmination of the Typal Kingdom on Zion
a. Introduction: Sinai Covenant and Abrahamic Promise
b. Occupation of the Kingdom Land

Prophetic Victory Hymn
Moses-Joshua: Conquest Phase
Judges: Consolidation Phase

c. The Theocratic Monarchy
The Promised King
Conquest and Victor's Palace
Davidic Covenant
Temple Construction, a Re-creation
Enthronement of the King of Glory on Zion

XI - HAR MAGEDON IN THE MESSIANIC FINALE
1. Danielic Preview
a. Introduction
b. Daniel 2
c. Daniel 9

2. Christ, Covenant Grantee and Guarantor
a. Introduction: Covenant Theology
b. Har Magedon Setting
c. Defence of Har Magedon
d. Conquest of the Dragon
Revelation 12
Revelation 20
e. Lord of the New Covenant

3. New Covenant Interim
a. Introduction
b. The 3 1/2 Years Symbol
Daniel 9
Daniel 7
Daniel 12
Daniel 2
Revelation 11
Revelation 12
Revelation 13

c. The Interim and Millennialism
d. The Millennium Symbol (Rev 20:1-6)
Millennial Nomenclature
Church Age Millennium
Pre-Kingdom Millennium
e. Conclusion

4. The Battle of Har Magedon
a. Introduction
b. The Antichrist Crisis

Global Challenge
Satan and Antichrist
Gog of Magog and the Apocalypse
Millennial Implications

c. The Parousia Day
Origins
Day of Covenant Judgment
Sabbatical Symbol
Day of Christ
Revelation 1:10 and the Sabbath
Octave Day Assemblies

d. Har Magedon Gatherings
Pre-Parousia Gatherings
Dual Parousia Gathering
Gathering of the Elect
Gathering of the Reprobate

5. Consummation of the Har Magedon Kingdom
a. Catharsis
Ethnic Cleansing
Deconstruction of Human Culture
Decontamination of the World of Nature

b. Pleroma
Glorification-Metamorphoses
Ekklesia Pleroma
Parousia Pleroma
Christ: Mediator of Pleroma Union
Final Epiphany: The Theanthropic Principle

6. The Gospel of Har Magedon
APPENDICES

Appendix A: Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony
Appendix B: Har Magedon: The End of the Millennium
Appendix C: Death, Leviathan, and the Martyrs: Isaiah 24:1-27:1 

-----------------

What this sort of thing does is that it tips the typology axis.

Instead of having shadow and fulfillment on the axis of time with the work of Christ being shadowed (past) and fulfilled (afterwards), you have an upper story/lower story with the axis being vertical, with symbols in creation and the realities in heaven. What this does is promote static theologies, favoring monocovenantalism with its covenant leveling.

Then once you flatten out covenant change, then you need to explain all the change language in the Bible some other way. That is what the New Perspectives on Paul is about. It gives an alternative way of explaining covenant change as simply an inclusiveness that allows the gentiles to join together with the removal of the excluding covenant boundaries markers.

Also, this upper story/lower story typology axis promotes ritualism. If the typology is not about the foreshadowing of future realities, which are now accomplished and so the role the types if finished, but is instead an imaging in creation of the permanent things above, the representational role of the types and symbols of the things above remains. And so the types and symbold continue to do what they always did and the ritual use of them is permanently valid, and must be recovered in worship today.

That is why Federal Vision theology of worship turns on such things recapitulating the Tabernacle. That it was it takes the form of Covenant Renewal services. 

Now, Klinites like the people at Westminster Seminary California like this Federal Vision worship, and so we get a strange idea about the Federal Vision from them that it is only the derivative doctrines, such as the recasting of justification, that are the bad FV stuff. But it really starts here with symbol and ritual.

The Federal Vision people have not done much more than take elements that were already around in the OPC and put them together in new ways:

1) Attack on the covenant of works because the language is not in Genesis: John Murray

2) Attack on the visible/invisible church distinction because the language is not that of the Bible: John Murray

3) A generalized playing off of the language of the Bible against the ideas of the Bible as organized in the Confessions: this is an extension by Norman Shepherd of what Murray started.

4) Playing up paradox in theology, so that logical contradictions to the Confessions are a mark of truth: Van Til

5) Engaging in typically Arminian exegesis of Biblical passages to promote the contradiction and paradox: Van Til

6) Conflating faith and works: Van Til

7) A vertical axis typology and wild symbolic theology: Meredith Kline.

What the Federal Vision did was push these pieces around together with some other old ideas from Dutch Reformed churches until they started to work as a new system, much like those Trasformer toys that change between trucks and robots.

The Federal Vision is the legitimate firstborn child of the OPC, and its deviant theologies that have been tolerated throughout the entire existence of the denomination.

Reactions: Informative 1


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## javajedi

Thanks tewilder, I'll have chew on this for a bit...


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## Theoretical

tewilder said:


> Look here, for example:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/God-Heaven-Ha..._bbs_sr_1/104-5108754-8139923?ie=UTF8&s=books
> 
> It could have been written by Jordan himself as far as the methodology goes. And Jordan learned his schtick from Kline's Kingdom Prologue, and Images of the Spirit.
> 
> The Table of Contents of the book, May 26, 2006
> 
> God, Heaven, and Har Magedon (A Covenantal Tale of Cosmos and Telos) - Meredith G. Kline
> 
> [293 pages; with an author's preface]
> 
> PART ONE: GOD AND HEAVEN
> I - NAMING THE METAWORLD
> 1. Heaven and Cosmos
> 2. Heaven: Glory-Temple
> Conclusion
> 
> II - ALPHA RADIATION: THE CREATION OF HEAVEN
> 1. The Big Blaze
> 2. The Endoxation of the Spirit
> 3. The Spirit and Filiation
> 
> III - OMEGA APOCALYPSE: THE CONSUMMATION OF HEAVEN
> 1. Consummation and Glorification
> 2. Consummation and Cosmology
> 
> a. Prophecies of a Cataclysmic Finis
> b. Hypothesis of Basic Cosmic Continuity
> c. Hypothesis of Radical Cosmic Restructuring
> d. Conclusion
> 
> PART TWO: HEAVEN AND HAR MAGEDON
> IV - EARTHLY REPLICAS OF HEAVEN
> 1. Glory Replication
> 2. Replication in the Genesis Prologue
> 
> V - MOUNTAIN OF GOD
> 
> 1. Eden as Replica of Heaven
> 2. The Mountain of God in Eden
> a. Mount Zaphon and Mount Zion
> b. The Original Zion in Eden
> c. Sacramental Icon of Heaven
> 
> VI - HAR MAGEDON: THE MOUNT OF ASSEMBLY
> 1. The Meaning of Har Magedon
> a. The Hebraisti Clue in Rev 16:16
> b. Har Mo'ed, Mount of Assembly
> 2. Har Mo'ed - Mount Zaphon/Zion - Har Magedon
> 3. The Gathering Against Zion
> 
> Conclusion
> 
> PART THREE: HAR MAGEDON WARFARE: AN ESCHATOLOGICAL MEGASTRUCTURE
> 
> VII - ERUPTION OF THE HAR MAGEDON CONFLICT
> 1. Sabbath, Eschatology, and Covenant
> 2. Covenantal Proposal of Sabbath Grant
> 3. Covenant and Har Magedon Conflict
> 
> VIII - MESSIAH: THE COMING VICTOR OF HAR MAGEDON
> 1. Decretive Inauguration of Redemptive Holy War
> 2. Eternal Covenant of the Father and the Son
> 3. The Lord's Covenant of Grace with His People
> 4. The Har Magedon Pattern in Premessianic Typology
> 
> IX - ARARAT: OLD WORLD TYPE OF HAR MAGEDON
> 1. The Ark Covenant
> 2. Righteous Noah, Covenant Grantee
> 3. Covenant Community in the Interval
> 4. Antichrist Crisis
> 5. Parousia-Judgment and Gathering
> 6. Kingdom Consummation on Ararat
> 
> X - ZION: NEW WORLD TYPE OF HAR MAGEDON
> 1. The Abrahmic Covenant
> a. Introduction
> b. From Ararat to Abraham
> c. Covenant of Promise
> d. Two-stage Fulfillment
> 
> The King
> The People
> The Land
> 
> 2. Obedient Abraham, Covenant Grantee
> 3. Covenant Community in the Interim
> a. The 430 Years
> b. Pilgrims and Good Neighbors
> c. Continuing Remnant
> d. Covenant Family Polity
> e. Altars and Divine Presence
> 
> 4. Antichrist Crisis
> a. Pseudo-Har Magedon at Babel
> b. Pharaonic Antichrist
> 
> 5. Divine Judgment
> a. Parousia
> b. Redemptive Judgment
> c. Gathering of the Kingdom People to Mount Zion
> 
> 6. Kingdom Consummation: Inauguration of the Typal Kingdom at Sinai
> a. Introduction
> b. Covenantal Constituting
> c. Enthronement of the Covenant Lord
> d. Re-creation
> 
> 7. Kingdom Consummation: Culmination of the Typal Kingdom on Zion
> a. Introduction: Sinai Covenant and Abrahamic Promise
> b. Occupation of the Kingdom Land
> 
> Prophetic Victory Hymn
> Moses-Joshua: Conquest Phase
> Judges: Consolidation Phase
> 
> c. The Theocratic Monarchy
> The Promised King
> Conquest and Victor's Palace
> Davidic Covenant
> Temple Construction, a Re-creation
> Enthronement of the King of Glory on Zion
> 
> XI - HAR MAGEDON IN THE MESSIANIC FINALE
> 1. Danielic Preview
> a. Introduction
> b. Daniel 2
> c. Daniel 9
> 
> 2. Christ, Covenant Grantee and Guarantor
> a. Introduction: Covenant Theology
> b. Har Magedon Setting
> c. Defence of Har Magedon
> d. Conquest of the Dragon
> Revelation 12
> Revelation 20
> e. Lord of the New Covenant
> 
> 3. New Covenant Interim
> a. Introduction
> b. The 3 1/2 Years Symbol
> Daniel 9
> Daniel 7
> Daniel 12
> Daniel 2
> Revelation 11
> Revelation 12
> Revelation 13
> 
> c. The Interim and Millennialism
> d. The Millennium Symbol (Rev 20:1-6)
> Millennial Nomenclature
> Church Age Millennium
> Pre-Kingdom Millennium
> e. Conclusion
> 
> 4. The Battle of Har Magedon
> a. Introduction
> b. The Antichrist Crisis
> 
> Global Challenge
> Satan and Antichrist
> Gog of Magog and the Apocalypse
> Millennial Implications
> 
> c. The Parousia Day
> Origins
> Day of Covenant Judgment
> Sabbatical Symbol
> Day of Christ
> Revelation 1:10 and the Sabbath
> Octave Day Assemblies
> 
> d. Har Magedon Gatherings
> Pre-Parousia Gatherings
> Dual Parousia Gathering
> Gathering of the Elect
> Gathering of the Reprobate
> 
> 5. Consummation of the Har Magedon Kingdom
> a. Catharsis
> Ethnic Cleansing
> Deconstruction of Human Culture
> Decontamination of the World of Nature
> 
> b. Pleroma
> Glorification-Metamorphoses
> Ekklesia Pleroma
> Parousia Pleroma
> Christ: Mediator of Pleroma Union
> Final Epiphany: The Theanthropic Principle
> 
> 6. The Gospel of Har Magedon
> APPENDICES
> 
> Appendix A: Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony
> Appendix B: Har Magedon: The End of the Millennium
> Appendix C: Death, Leviathan, and the Martyrs: Isaiah 24:1-27:1
> 
> -----------------
> 
> What this sort of thing does is that it tips the typology axis.
> 
> Instead of having shadow and fulfillment on the axis of time with the work of Christ being shadowed (past) and fulfilled (afterwards), you have an upper story/lower story with the axis being vertical, with symbols in creation and the realities in heaven. What this does is promote static theologies, favoring monocovenantalism with its covenant leveling.
> 
> Then once you flatten out covenant change, then you need to explain all the change language in the Bible some other way. That is what the New Perspectives on Paul is about. It gives an alternative way of explaining covenant change as simply an inclusiveness that allows the gentiles to join together with the removal of the excluding covenant boundaries markers.
> 
> Also, this upper story/lower story typology axis promotes ritualism. If the typology is not about the foreshadowing of future realities, which are now accomplished and so the role the types if finished, but is instead an imaging in creation of the permanent things above, the representational role of the types and symbols of the things above remains. And so the types and symbold continue to do what they always did and the ritual use of them is permanently valid, and must be recovered in worship today.
> 
> That is why Federal Vision theology of worship turns on such things recapitulating the Tabernacle. That it was it takes the form of Covenant Renewal services.
> 
> Now, Klinites like the people at Westminster Seminary California like this Federal Vision worship, and so we get a strange idea about the Federal Vision from them that it is only the derivative doctrines, such as the recasting of justification, that are the bad FV stuff. But it really starts here with symbol and ritual.
> 
> The Federal Vision people have not done much more than take elements that were already around in the OPC and put them together in new ways:
> 
> 1) Attack on the covenant of works because the language is not in Genesis: John Murray
> 
> 2) Attack on the visible/invisible church distinction because the language is not that of the Bible: John Murray
> 
> 3) A generalized playing off of the language of the Bible against the ideas of the Bible as organized in the Confessions: this is an extension by Norman Shepherd of what Murray started.
> 
> 4) Playing up paradox in theology, so that logical contradictions to the Confessions are a mark of truth: Van Til
> 
> 5) Engaging in typically Arminian exegesis of Biblical passages to promote the contradiction and paradox: Van Til
> 
> 6) Conflating faith and works: Van Til
> 
> 7) A vertical axis typology and wild symbolic theology: Meredith Kline.
> 
> What the Federal Vision did was push these pieces around together with some other old ideas from Dutch Reformed churches until they started to work as a new system, much like those Trasformer toys that change between trucks and robots.
> 
> The Federal Vision is the legitimate firstborn child of the OPC, and its deviant theologies that have been tolerated throughout the entire existence of the denomination.



 Very interesting and thoroughly disturbing to consider. I'm not sure what to make of these things, to say the least.


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## Theoretical

Theoretical said:


> Very interesting and thoroughly disturbing to consider. I'm not sure what to make of these things, to say the least.


Could this be partly why the URCNA pastors on the Sinners and Saints podcast http://www.start.urclearning.org/category/content-type/sinners-and-saints/ are rather critical of WSC?

I'm not trying to start a bad fight here - I'm just seriously wondering.


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## Semper Fidelis

Wow! This is going to be an interesting discussion to say the least...


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## Pilgrim

SemperFideles said:


> Wow! This is going to be an interesting discussion to say the least...


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## Jon Peters

tewilder said:


> 4) Playing up paradox in theology, so that logical contradictions to the Confessions are a mark of truth: Van Til
> 
> 5) Engaging in typically Arminian exegesis of Biblical passages to promote the contradiction and paradox: Van Til
> 
> 6) Conflating faith and works: Van Til



Thanks for your response but could you elaborate a bit on these?


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## fredtgreco

Jon Peters said:


> Thanks for your response but could you elaborate a bit on these?



Easy.

1. Van Til = ruiner of the faith, author of all evil, etc.

2. Clark = always right.


When in doubt about #2, consult #3, which is:

3. Robbins = always right.


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## Civbert

fredtgreco said:


> Easy.
> 
> 1. Van Til = ruiner of the faith, author of all evil, etc.
> 
> 2. Clark = always right.
> 
> 
> When in doubt about #2, consult #3, which is:
> 
> 3. Robbins = always right.




Your response sounds a lot like Jordon's response.


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## RamistThomist

Bahnsen critique of Kline's methodology.


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## tewilder

Jon Peters said:


> Thanks for your response but could you elaborate a bit on these?



I.e. about:

4) Playing up paradox in theology, so that logical contradictions to the Confessions are a mark of truth: Van Til

5) Engaging in typically Arminian exegesis of Biblical passages to promote the contradiction and paradox: Van Til

6) Conflating faith and works: Van Til

---------------

For 4 and 5 the best place to start is Herman Hoeksema's series of articles, I believe in The Standard Bearer, which were republished by the PRC seminary, and later brought back into print by the Trinity Foundation, The Clark-Van Til Controversy. This came out in the 1940s, I think, and while it gets started on the Clark business toward the end it it more concerned with Van Til and company and their paradox theology, and what Hoeksema argues is outright Arminianism. He also discuses their exegesis.

And of course various followers of extreme Schilderite views (i.e. taking some of his tendencies beyond what he ever said), of Shepherd, of the New Perspectives, etc. have invoked Van Til over the years when they were cornered with some argument that their views were logically contrary to the Confessions. Contradiction, they protest, is a good thing! So taught Van Til and they learned that at Westminster Seminary! Note that some Canadian Reformed people were arguing this way about the covenant views long before the Federal Vision reared its head.

As for 6, this is Van Til's own argument and sole point in defense of Shepherd at one of his examinations. 

See: http://www.vantil.info/articles/cvt_shepherd.html
and note that Frame was in on this also.

"Here faith and works are identical. Not similar but identical. The work is faith; faith is work." Van Til's own words.

Reactions: Informative 1


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## RamistThomist

Van Til critqued some aspects of Schilder in *Common Grace and the Gospel.* So he can't be called an extreme Schilderite (not saying you said that, I am just distinguishing from the Schilderites and Van Til). I am not denying his defense of Shepherd, just throwing in a few pennies here and there.


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## tewilder

fredtgreco said:


> Easy.
> 
> 1. Van Til = ruiner of the faith, author of all evil, etc.
> 
> 2. Clark = always right.
> 
> When in doubt about #2, consult #3, which is:
> 
> 3. Robbins = always right.



Both Van Til and Clark were hopelessly out of touch and irrelevant by the 1950s, and unfortunately their views have been kept alive by various true believers and irresponsible institutions.


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## tewilder

Draught Horse said:


> Van Til critqued some aspects of Schilder in *Common Grace and the Gospel.* So he can't be called an extreme Schilderite (not saying you said that, I am just distinguishing from the Schilderites and Van Til). I am not denying his defense of Shepherd, just throwing in a few pennies here and there.



It is some Canadian Reformed people who combine the two. The Canadian Reformed appear to have taken some of Schilder's themes and run with them in a way that he did not. Schilder, for example, held to the Covenant of Works as basic to the Reformed structure of covenant theology, but the idea got around among some people who thought they were following him the he did not believe in the COW. 

The strange ideas that have blossomed in the Canadian Reformed churches and the surprising parallels to various Klinite and Federal Vision ideas would make for discussion topics in themselves. I think there more to explore here on how odd covenant theologies develop once they become unhinged at one place or another.

Anyway, it is another of my opinions the Kuyper and his common grace (as the foundation of a theology of culture instead of the Covenant of Works) may have been the earliest source of this whole disturbance in covenant theology.


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## RamistThomist

Would you make a causal connection between Van Til and Kline? Many Klineans today (see Robin's "connect the dots theology" on PB) are very critical of Van Til's biblical fervor: that christianity speaks to all of life. Most Van Tillians, similarly (Frame, Bahnsen, Rushdoony, North), were very critical of Kline. Yet Meredith Kline dedicated *The Structure of Biblical Authority* to Van Til.


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## javajedi

javajedi said:


> These are great articles and document many things including the rejection by some (Shepard & NT Wright included) of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Not to mention the eqivication they make between *faith* and *fathfulness* [works].



Just to correct the statement I made above. The New Horizon articles do not mention Shepherd my name. Professer Venema does say this about Wright:

_... he [Wright], like many New Perspective authors, rejects the idea that the justification of believers requires the imputation of Christ's righteousness._​
I had just listened to some lectures by Venema from sermonaudio where he does mention this about Shepherd. 
Hence my confusing the two.


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## tewilder

Draught Horse said:


> Would you make a causal connection between Van Til and Kline? Many Klineans today (see Robin's "connect the dots theology" on PB) are very critical of Van Til's biblical fervor: that christianity speaks to all of life. Most Van Tillians, similarly (Frame, Bahnsen, Rushdoony, North), were very critical of Kline. Yet Meredith Kline dedicated *The Structure of Biblical Authority* to Van Til.



I am not saying that there is a causal connection, merely that it is another thing that came along and got into the mix.

There is a great chapter on all these developments in Jorge Ruiz's doctoral dissertation, but I have not worked through it properly myself, partly because Amazon doesn't seem to manage to send me the French dictionary I ordered last fall.

North and other Reconstructionists were critical of Kline's arguments against Bahnsen's theolomy, but used his covenant treaty stuff (or rather Mendenhal's which somehow Kline gets credit for). Also at this time Jordan was going around recommending Kline's books, Images of the Spirit especially. Jordan and Bahnsen did not agree at all on hermeneutics, especially regarding this so-called interprative maximalism. 

Robins, by the way, was lined up to supply one of the books in North's Biblical Blueprints for Christian Reconstruction series, but his manuscript was turned down. (The job then went to Jordan, and his book got rejected, too!) Robins loves to print stuff by the monocovenantal Protestant Reformed people, who in turn are cited by Jordan as authorities for his ideas! 

So this business doesn't come down to who is pals and who is feudin'. It is more a matter of the Federal Vision assembling the worst of the oddball ideas in play in a way that made a new system. They are not done yet either. There are too many incoherencies remaining and something has got to give sooner or later. For example, two different and incompatible ideas of what a covenant is.

Outside of the PCA and OPC where the FV people have to circle the wagons and fight as a team, I don't they they would hold together as a coherent movement.


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## ChristianTrader

fredtgreco said:


> Easy.
> 
> 1. Van Til = ruiner of the faith, author of all evil, etc.
> 
> 2. Clark = always right.
> 
> 
> When in doubt about #2, consult #3, which is:
> 
> 3. Robbins = always right.



I lean towards thinking that Mr. Wilder is quite wrong about Van Til but he is definitely not a Clarkian.

CT


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## JKLeoPCA

All methodologies aside, I'd be very happy to see (but never will) the FV guys and the NPP guys come out with their own Theological Dictionaries, so all the "quibbling" over words, and nuances can stop. It’s getting really annoying to keep reading about who is calling who a liar, based off of reading the wrong books, by their authors, the wrong way. Luther at least looked over his works, and answered "Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me."


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## Theoretical

JKLeoPCA said:


> All methodologies aside, I'd be very happy to see (but never will) the FV guys and the NPP guys come out with their own Theological Dictionaries, so all the "quibbling" over words, and nuances can stop. It’s getting really annoying to keep reading about who is calling who a liar, based off of reading the wrong books, by their authors, the wrong way. Luther at least looked over his works, and answered "Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me."


That's a great contrast! I would definitely appreciate at least a glossary of what they are trying to say, that they themselves write.


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## JKLeoPCA

Theoretical said:


> That's a great contrast! I would definitely appreciate at least a glossary of what they are trying to say, that they themselves write.



NO joke !! I just can't stand reading any more about their positions, when as soon as you think you know (or read) how they define a term, or doctrine,.. no,.. no,.. no,.. you have to back up and get another nuance from some other book or article, or your misinterpreting the whole thing. Come on, give me a break! I didn't have this much trouble in High School with trying to understand the nuances in poetry.


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## Semper Fidelis

Agreed John. I've been musing about this very subject. In the recent thread about the historic use of the term _conditional election_, it was very easy to understand how Owen used the term. People might initially recoil at the term if it has fallen out of common usage today but, after reading him, we know he's not talking the way the FV movement is. 

I had posted the interaction that Rev. Winzer had on this subject with some of us on one of the FV blogs. Rev. Winzer was explaining that the term was historically Reformed. They liked that part. What they didn't like was when he concluded, from the FV's own writings, that they were applying the benefits of the truly elect to the conditionally elect. He was useful as a tool to obscure, temporarily, that they're teaching heterodoxy. "Look," they could cry, "conditional election is a Reformed term!" Rev. Winzer was amused that they were quoting him because in the same context he was condemning their teaching.

Why can't they just define what _they_ mean by conditional election. They just talk about it having a _sense_ to it like real election. Maybe it's not Diet Pepsi where there are no calories but it's like Pepsi One with 1 calorie.

What I find so dreadful about their tactics is precisely what you point out: they won't simply define their terms. They acknowledge they are not like Owen so where do they stand on that term? 

Personally, I don't think they want to answer the question. It is much easier for them to simply keep saying: "Nope that's not it either."

By the way, did we meet when I visited TX in December?


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## JKLeoPCA

SemperFideles said:


> Why can't they just define what _they_ mean by conditional election. They just talk about it having a _sense_ to it like real election. Maybe it's not Diet Pepsi where there are no calories but it's like Pepsi One with 1 calorie.
> 
> What I find so dreadful about their tactics is precisely what you point out: they won't simply define their terms. They acknowledge they are not like Owen so where do they stand on that term?
> 
> Personally, I don't think they want to answer the question. It is much easier for them to simply keep saying: "Nope that's not it either."
> 
> By the way, did we meet when I visited TX in December?



First, I love the Pepsi analogy ! I'm a big fan of analogies and illustrations. Second. Yes, I do believe we did meet back in Dec. I'd post a pic so you can put a face with the name, but I'm still quibbling with how that works. haha. 

This has been my argument from the beginning! If they have something so important to add, define it, so everyone can incorporate it into theological discussion in a sound way. It makes almost every discussion about FV or NPP fruitless and very unedifying, because it has no hope of leaving you with a clear and solid standing on just what the position is. Too much sleight of hand, or rather, sleight of nuances. So I’ll wait for the Theological Dictionary to come out.


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## tewilder

JKLeoPCA said:


> All methodologies aside, I'd be very happy to see (but never will) the FV guys and the NPP guys come out with their own Theological Dictionaries, so all the "quibbling" over words, and nuances can stop. It’s getting really annoying to keep reading about who is calling who a liar, based off of reading the wrong books, by their authors, the wrong way. Luther at least looked over his works, and answered "Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me."



Very true.

Notice, however, that this is not true just of these people, but of the Emergents and others. This is the contemporary mind. 

So what we are facing in a larger shift. In the era in which the Confessions were written there was a match between the way people were trained to think by their educations and the way they expressed ideas in the Confessions. That is no longer the case. The way of thinking of the Confessions does not fit the culture. People are inclined to think that the problem is the Confessions, that there is something culture-bound and wrong about them. 

I think that is the larger problem, and that it explains some other things, such as why their is such an affinity between some of the FV people and the Emergents and groups like that.


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## tewilder

JKLeoPCA said:


> This has been my argument from the beginning! If they have something so important to add, define it, so everyone can incorporate it into theological discussion in a sound way. It makes almost every discussion about FV or NPP fruitless and very unedifying, because it has no hope of leaving you with a clear and solid standing on just what the position is. Too much sleight of hand, or rather, sleight of nuances. So I’ll wait for the Theological Dictionary to come out.



First, as an aside, the link to the Jordan essay that started off this topic is now dead. Wonder why. http://www.puritanboard.com/images/smilies/smug.gif


Let's think, however, why the Theological Dictionary or Systematic Theology is unlikely to come from them. 

1) The FV method is to use Confessional language, or when that is not available, some statement from an unimpeachable old Reformed theologian to mouth their own ideas through. In other words, they have employed deception from the beginning, and a switch to clarity would be a revolution for them.

2) I have noticed that FV, NPP and Shepherd people claim to pull off great improvements of clarifications in one part of theology, when what they have done is to move all the problems to a different area of theology that they are not dealing with. This is not possible while engaging in clarity and systematic thought.

3) A large amount of self-deception is involved on the part of some of the FV people. Their very commitment requires that they not think clearly. 

4) There are a variety of incoherent elements in the FV theology. I think the most striking is the use of a Schilder type of idea of covenant, as membership in the visible church, which is public, formal, judicial (consisting of being entered into the church records by the elders upon baptism) and external, and another idea of covenant, a la Ralph Smith, that is relational, mystical and hidden, consisting of participation in the divine life of the Trinity.

5) There are also cultural, or sociological divisions in the FV. There are those who were educated in seminaries, especially in the older days, who were initiated early into the ideas of Van Til, and who have a background in Christian Reconstruction, and there are those who were educated in universities, were initiated into deconstruction and post-modernism, and feel attracted to the Emergents.

What holds the FV together may be that they are a subculture within Presbyterianism, and that gives them a common identity based on us vs. them sort of thinking. Put them outside the Presbyterian churches, and this sense of common identity and ties would be much diminished, the FV people would go their separate ways ecclesiastically and theologically.


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## wsw201

I'm not going to hold my breath for the FV Dictionary either or any formal systematic. These folks don't like being restricted to the definitions and terminology of the Standards (though many of these men have vowed to adopt and receive these Standards as their own confession of what the Scriptures faithfully teach), so why would they ever want to restrict themselves to any type of formal dictionary or system of thought? It's a lot more stimulating to be cutting edge and playing "Reformed Theologian" bingo.

Going back to the Bible; not being restricted by man made confessions that don't cover enough of what the Scriptures actually teach, is really nothing new. These type of attacks on the Reformed Church have been going on for centuries. Old Side / New Side, Old School / New School, and the various other "movements" such as the rise of Arminianism and liberalism. Now its FV and NPP. How many times will the Church ignore its own history?


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## Redaimie

> tewilder said:
> 
> 
> 
> First, as an aside, the link to the Jordan essay that started off this topic is now dead. Wonder why.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I saw that the link was no longer there today, that's good it was outrageous.
> 
> I have been thinking about this & have come to the conclusion that is wasn't just the author of that article. I mean surf through the blogs & they call those who appose FV theology "rabid anti FV", or liars is a recurring theme & one blog has a picture of a man with a long nose in reference to Guy Waters. The FV/NPP think these things about those who don't agree with them so that article was just a natural response. It's a recurring theme & it's done publicly for all to read on the internet & it's not like you can contact all these people & say stop this.
> 
> I wish they would write something that says what they believe minus the name calling, a dictionary of their terms as was mentioned (in print) would be a great start.
Click to expand...


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## NaphtaliPress

FYI. While the link given for the Jordan article is not working, I have been informed the article is in print in the January 2007 issue of _Biblical Horizons_.


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## Redaimie

Really, is there a link to it on-line?


This thread has been linked on a blog which is why the view count is so big.

http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh....html#5913589043366360887#5913589043366360887

It's the February 21, 2007 post.


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