Favorite Non Reformed Theologian

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Hi:

Paris Reidhead - Ten Shekels and a Shirt convicts me every time I hear it:

SermonAudio.com - Ten Shekels and a Shirt - HIFI

-CH

Robert,
I listened to Paris Reidhead's Ten Shekels and a Shirt back in the mid 1970's! It truly is a convicting message. I still have the cassette tape. I had some of his other tapes as well. He's good, you just have to push the Arminianism aside.
Thanks for the reminder!
Jim
 
I'd have to say Paul Washer. (He calls himself a 'biblicist', not a 'Calvinist' and I'm putting him on this list b/c I've heard him say he'd "never baptise a baby." Go figure.) ;)

I haven't heard much from Tozer, but heard the following quote attributed to him and really liked it:

A.W. Tozer : I can tell how much God you have by how much entertainment you need.
 
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I use to listen to J. Vernon McGee every evening while doing the dishes. I enjoyed listening to his southern drawl. The man was a mess theologically but he sure wanted people to know Christ.

I used to enjoy McGee . J. Vernon McGee started out a Presbyterian if memory serves me aright. He was a real mix of Calvinism, Arminianism and Dispensationalism in his radio days.
 
Wow! I didn't think he was Reformed, but I assumed he was at least a Calvinist. He fills in for Mohler on his program when he's out. I wouldn't think Mohler would want a non-Calvinist doing that. :think:

That's exactly where I got the idea he was a Calvinist. There were people who would call asking about the doctrines of grace and all that, and he would help them think with him as to how he defines certain words, what limits he puts on human will, etc. I would be interested in seeing something recent he's said or written to show he's not a Calvinist.

And even then I wouldn't believe him. He just needs to come out of the closet and admit he's a 5-pointer! :lol:



I went to Moody Bible Church for about 6 months, I thought they were somewhat reformed leaning, or at least calvinistic. I was always on the edge, wondering if they were or not. Then an easter sermon removed all doubt when I heard Dr. Lutzer say.. something like (and this is not a direct quote) "Jesus is standing, knocking at the door of your heart why won't you let him in?"

I still thing he is a very good preacher though. But I left his church soon after that and joined a presbyterian one. :)

Obviously there's some disconnect at work between his belief and practice. Either that or he has changed his views. In The Doctrines That Divide he defends Calvinistic soteriology.
 
Reformingstudent;423379 C.S. Lewis denied total depravity? I did not know that. Is that the stand his church denomination takes as well I wonder? I don't really know any thing about the Anglican church or what they teach other than it is going in the wrong direction from what I see and hear on the news.[/SIZE said:

Most Anglicans, even high church anglo-catholics, believe in total depravity in the same sence that Luther did.
The Anglican 39 Articles are a reformed document though many have strayed far from their roots.
 
Just wanted to know if anyone here has a favorite teacher/preacher they like to hear sometimes who may not be Reformed in their theology.
I got to the point that all I ever listen to is Reformed sermons from Sermon Audio or Renewing your Mind and any where else I can find them. I find it difficult to listen to my former favorites any more but I still like to listen to Irvin Lutzer at times. My one time favorite preacher was E.V. Hill. John Ankerberg was another I liked even though he was mostly a teacher. I feel like I have grown some since becoming Reformed in my theology I find it hard listening to things I sometimes feel I have out grown. Is that being too prideful? I am just learning like everyone else (at a some what slower pace of course :lol:) and want to grow in my understanding of the things of the Lord.
Any way that was just a thought I had. I also liked reading books by (dare I say it?) Dave Hunt. See I have come a long way. :lol:

Define 'Reformed'. :worms::worms::worms::worms:


I have benefited greatly from the preaching of Calvary Chapel's Jon Courson.
 
A.W. Tozer

:ditto:

Though i stopped listening to any of his sermons after he said something particularly disagreed with, along the lines of denying Total Depravity. (That was also the thing which first put me off C S Lewis.)



Yeah, I am leery when listening to him because of his belief in the 'second work of grace', but he has some very good things to say on Christian living. His good outweighs his bad, in my opinion.
 
Reformingstudent;423379 C.S. Lewis denied total depravity? I did not know that. Is that the stand his church denomination takes as well I wonder? I don't really know any thing about the Anglican church or what they teach other than it is going in the wrong direction from what I see and hear on the news.[/SIZE said:

Most Anglicans, even high church anglo-catholics, believe in total depravity in the same sense that Luther did.
The Anglican 39 Articles are a reformed document though many have strayed far from their roots.

I haven't been an Anglican for over a decade, but unfortunately I doubt this is true. Some Anglo-Catholics hold to Total Depravity in some sense, after all the RC Church and the Ecumenical creeds uphold total depravity in some sense. But many ACs regard the 39 Articles as an outdated, irrelevant document, useful for historical purposes only, if that. And total depravity is one of the first doctrines they deny.

As for C S Lewis, the older I get, the more issues I have with his writings. I actually find that his denial of TD is the root of many other errors; for example, if you believe that the unregenerated man is capable of good works, it is a small step to claim that he does not belong in Hell, as only a perfectly rotten man would deserve that, and then to see some kind of good in all kinds of religions, whereby Muslims or Hindus can get to Heaven because of the good they did despite their ignorance. From there, he can hardly not accept Catholics and Orthodox as his fellow believers.

Oddly enough, I was an Anglican, and an as yet unconverted teenager, when I first read Lewis' denial of TD and thought "that's not correct." I'm sure I had never heard the phrase "total depravity" in my life, though I may have read the 39 Articles by that stage.
 
My favorite is St. Thomas Aquinas.

I have not read a great deal of him, but I plan to. Where should I start? :)

Well, with primary material you kind of have to go with him. Problem is it usually isn't cheap.

However, Peter Kreeft has given a compendium of Thomas' work. It is Summa of the Summa. It is an abridged edition of the Summa Theologiae. Its strength is that you get to read Thomas and it has Kreeft's wonderful footnotes. The weakness is it seems choppy at times.
 
Adam Clarke's Commentary is often entertaining. Of his commentary C. H. Spurgeon wrote:

Adam Clarke is the great annotator of our Wesleyan friends; and they have no reason to be ashamed of him, for he takes rank among the chief of expositors. His mind was evidently fascinated by the singularities of learning, and hence his commentary is rather too much of an old curiosity shop, but it is filled with valuable rarities, such as none but a great man could have collected...If you consider Clarke wanting in unction, do not read him for savour but for criticism, and then you will not be disappointed.
--Commenting on Commentaries (page 10).
 
Just wanted to know if anyone here has a favorite teacher/preacher they like to hear sometimes who may not be Reformed in their theology.
I got to the point that all I ever listen to is Reformed sermons from Sermon Audio or Renewing your Mind and any where else I can find them. I find it difficult to listen to my former favorites any more but I still like to listen to Irvin Lutzer at times. My one time favorite preacher was E.V. Hill. John Ankerberg was another I liked even though he was mostly a teacher. I feel like I have grown some since becoming Reformed in my theology I find it hard listening to things I sometimes feel I have out grown. Is that being too prideful? I am just learning like everyone else (at a some what slower pace of course :lol:) and want to grow in my understanding of the things of the Lord.
Any way that was just a thought I had. I also liked reading books by (dare I say it?) Dave Hunt. See I have come a long way. :lol:

Define 'Reformed'. :worms::worms::worms::worms:


I have benefited greatly from the preaching of Calvary Chapel's Jon Courson.

What ever you guys here on the PB tell me it is. Duh! :rolleyes:
:lol:

Just kidding.

Those who believe in the Sovereignty of God, the 5 Solas, the 5 points of Calvinism to start with and have a desire to grow and learn more of the things of God. Not easy believe-ism as taught in many modern churches. Also to some point the desire to worship God in the way that He chooses for us to worship Him not any ole way we please to. Most of all Reformation is a condition of ones heart as well as outward performance. So I guess I would say that "Reformed" means being put in line with the Word of God and all that it teaches.

Really though
 
Define 'Reformed'. :worms::worms::worms::worms:


I have benefited greatly from the preaching of Calvary Chapel's Jon Courson.

What ever you guys here on the PB tell me it is. Duh! :rolleyes:
:lol:

Just kidding.

Those who believe in the Sovereignty of God, the 5 Solas, the 5 points of Calvinism to start with and have a desire to grow and learn more of the things of God. Not easy believe-ism as taught in many modern churches. Also to some point the desire to worship God in the way that He chooses for us to worship Him not any ole way we please to. Most of all Reformation is a condition of ones heart as well as outward performance. So I guess I would say that "Reformed" means being put in line with the Word of God and all that it teaches.

Really though

I would suggest more precise thinking on what you/we really mean by "Reformed" - for the sake of our own understanding, and also for the sake of fruitful discussion with people unfamiliar with aspects of Reformed theology with whom we have opportunities to talk about things.

Here's what I mean: In your post above, you essentially listed as the qualities of being "Reformed" as: 1) divine sovereignty, 2) five Solas, 3) TULIP, 4) a desire to grow in the Lord, 5) a rejection of easy-believism, and 6) at least some recognition of the Regulative Principle. You then (rightly) noted that all of those issues involve the heart just as much as the mind and actions, and summarized them by noting (again, rightly) that they are all in-line with the Word of God.

Now, are those six things you noted all essential elements of Reformed theology? Absolutely! But nothing particularly sets them apart from many other issues that are equally vital to Reformed theology: Some examples are Covenant Theology; the Creator-creature distinction; a rejection of hyper-individualism and a recognition of the central role of the Church in God's plan for His people; the full sufficiency of Scripture for the edification and spiritual knowledge of believers; the centrality of the Cross and the Gospel; a recognition of the value of remembering the wisdom of past generations of believers; God's glory as the highest priority of everything...

I could go on. But the point is that no "list" of a few doctrines or emphases will ever be able to encompass the either the "core" or the "distinctives" of Reformed theology. That is because it is a comprehensive worldview coming from the whole of Scripture, and as can be seen from the various Reformed confessional standards, they don't emphasize, say, the doctrines of grace, or Lordship Salvation, or the Regulative Principle, or other things about worship, any more than it emphasizes other particular elements. To be sure, compared to more foundational doctrines, there are going to be some issues that are more "minor" in application and substance, such as lapsarianism, common grace, millennial views, and theonomy. But at the same time, we will never be able to give an "A, B, C, D..." list and present it to people as the "necessary components" of Reformed theology. I imagine one reason we're all tempted at times to do so is because different doctrines are under more attack than others during different centuries and generations. For instance, until the Synod of Dort, no Reformed church or theologian knew anything of "five points." To be sure, they are effective in explaining to people the Reformed understanding of who does what in salvation, but originally, they only came to be emphasized as a group since they were the five chief doctrines that the Arminians challenged out of the Reformed system of theology as a whole.

You also (again, rightly) identified a piety of heart and a desire to grow in the Lord as a chief and necessary component of Reformed theology, and also pointed out that we indeed understand Reformed theology to ultimately be the natural result of "being put in line with the Word of God and all that it teaches." But the problem with defining it by either of those two criteria is that all evangelical Christians have a desire to grow closer to God, and likewise believe their theology to be most in-line with the Word of God.

So if it's not inclusive enough to explain Reformed theology by the six-part list you initially described, and yet if we have to be more specific than simply saying "the full teaching of the Word of God," what is a good path to take in explaining Reformed theology to people? I would say going to our confessions. Why? I try to describe the basis for that here.
 
Does anyone know if Ravi Zaccharias is Reformed or not?

No. He is an evangelist with the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
that definitely qualifies him as my choice for favorit unreformed theologian/preacher/evangelist/apologist ... whatever kind of label we would want to put on him. I love hearing him speak because he challenges me to think about things. Thinking about everything I have been taught in the past is one way God worked in me for reformation. Ravi helps me to think about evangelism in a whole new way and I like how he can explain almost anything or answer any question with a cross centered approach.
 
I have a real soft spot for Harry A. Ironside, "Holiness- the false and the true" is an amazing book and pretty much anything he wrote is worth reading.
 
Assuming we have to exclude theologians before the Reformation, or the category simply doesn't apply. Therefore, Karl Rahner.
 
That's exactly where I got the idea he was a Calvinist. There were people who would call asking about the doctrines of grace and all that, and he would help them think with him as to how he defines certain words, what limits he puts on human will, etc. I would be interested in seeing something recent he's said or written to show he's not a Calvinist.

And even then I wouldn't believe him. He just needs to come out of the closet and admit he's a 5-pointer! :lol:



I went to Moody Bible Church for about 6 months, I thought they were somewhat reformed leaning, or at least calvinistic. I was always on the edge, wondering if they were or not. Then an easter sermon removed all doubt when I heard Dr. Lutzer say.. something like (and this is not a direct quote) "Jesus is standing, knocking at the door of your heart why won't you let him in?"

I still thing he is a very good preacher though. But I left his church soon after that and joined a presbyterian one. :)

Obviously there's some disconnect at work between his belief and practice. Either that or he has changed his views. In The Doctrines That Divide he defends Calvinistic soteriology.


Dr. Lutzer is a Calvinist. I met him at a Reformation and Revival Conference at First Baptist Church of Carmel, Indiana back in the early to mid 90's. I have even heard him defend Calvinism on Moody Radio when He was the Pastor at Moody. I don't know if he is still there or not.
 
I have a real soft spot for Harry A. Ironside, "Holiness- the false and the true" is an amazing book and pretty much anything he wrote is worth reading.

He is another good one. I don't know whether he was Calvinistic in his soteriology or not. He was dispensationalist, but unlike Chafer et.al. he upheld the Lordship of Christ. He wrote a book titled Unless Ye Repent or something like that that attacked the no lordship teaching.
 
I imagine not many of you guys have never heard of Gil Rugh. I use to listen to him a lot on the radio about 15 years ago. He has a radio program called Sound words. I always appreciated his radio program.

Everyone on the radio that I use to listen to was always dispensational which drove me crazy but that was how it was. I felt I was a man on a island all alone in Indianapolis when I returned from the military service.
 
My favorite is St. Thomas Aquinas.

I have not read a great deal of him, but I plan to. Where should I start? :)

Amazon.com: A Summa of the Summa: Thomas: Books

(a good cheap reading of Aquinas. You get to read him and get Kreeft's insights, but does not do justice to St Thomas' eschatological foundationalism. As John Milbank points out, Kreeft (not by name) and others read a correspondence theory of truth back into Aquinas.

Amazon.com: Truth in Aquinas (Radical Orthodoxy): John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock: Books
(Expensive, but one of the best books I have read. Ultra hard to read, but worth it. Makes the claim that Aquinas held to a neo-platonic ontology of participation over against standard Aristotelian readings of Aquinas)

Amazon.com: The Christian Philosophy Of St Thomas Aquinas: Etienne Gilson: Books

(the basic Thomist treatment of Aquinas. straightfoward)

Amazon.com: After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism: Fergus Kerr: Books

(very easy to read and quite provacative in its suggestions)

Amazon.com: Revolutions in Worldview: Understanding the Flow of Western Thought: W. Andrew Hoffecker: Books

(contains Leithart's essay on medieval theology, easily worth the price of the book)
 
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