Is Doug Wilson a False Teacher?

[MW]

We need critiques that go beyond sociology and hit on the core theological issues. Some would like to uphold Wilson because of his cultural, social, and political views, as if he is holding on to something from the old world that has been lost and needs to be retrieved in the modern day. This is understandable for those who value their Anglo-American identity. It is, after all, a Christian heritage, and it is not to be abandoned to those forces that would like to dismantle the Christian vision for the world. But theologically Wilson presents a cultural view that confuses law and gospel. It is not simply the case that his doctrine of justification by faith is unorthodox, although this must be seen as a serious departure on an ecclesiastical level. But even his "nationalist" ideas of retrieval are amiss. He uses the imagined past of American life to stereotype Old Testament life and laws in distinct terms related to the law-covenant of the OT. In other words, his neonomianism continues to exert itself in his understanding of the family, the church, the society, and the nation. His framework of "blessings and curses," applied nationally, becomes a system where human flourishing is a reward for cultural obedience to a particular reconstruction of OT law. This displaces the free grace of the Gospel and the spiritual nature of the New Covenant. The "blessing" sought becomes temporal, cultural, and national rather than primarily spiritual and eternal. What is "subordinate" in Puritan thought (so far as it shall serve for God's glory and their own good) is raised to a position of priority in Wilson's cultural vision.

 

[RamistThomist]

You don't need Wilson for good cultural critiques, if you just want culture and not the gospel. Any educated Roman Catholic public thinker can run laps around Wilson.

 

[yeutter]

Rev. Doug Wilsons's reasoning by which he defends paedocommunion sounds like Eastern Orthodoxy

 

[darrellmaurina]

Rev. Doug Wilsons's reasoning by which he defends paedocommunion sounds like Eastern Orthodoxy

People who know Doug Wilson better than I do, and know Eastern Orthodoxy better than I do, would be better equipped to answer this.

However, my understanding is that some former CREC members have ended up in Eastern Orthodoxy and the similarities on paedocommunion were part of why. Other issues included a shared view of the need for culture transformation and a desire to be part of the historic Christian tradition that originally led them out of broad evangelicalism into the CREC, and then on to Eastern Orthodoxy.

In the for-whatever-it's-worth category, paedocommunion is one of my "no-gos." I do understand why some Reformed people from Baptist backgrounds have come to a paedocommunionist position. However, the simple fact is that an "over-realized view of the covenant" historically led to presumptive regeneration, the dark side of Kuyper's legacy, and to the Halfway Covenant in Puritan New England.

Both doctrines destroy churches.

An attempt to correct the Baptist error of decisionism -- and to be clear, I am NOT blaming Reformed Baptist but rather the typical Arminian evangelicals -- cannot overcorrect and end up creating new problems.

To eat and drink damnation unto oneself is a dire condition. Paedocommunion, even in the rare but real cases of a soundly converted young child willing to die for his or her faith in Christ, inevitably leads to immature children being pressured into taking communion when they are nowhere near ready.

Allowing for rare exceptions is one thing. Making it the norm is devastating to children.