The Centrality of the Gospel:

My associate, Pastor Doug Williams, and I were privileged to attend the Centrality of the Gospel Conference held in Charleston WV, last Friday and Saturday.
I wish to the Thank Randolph Street Church, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, the musicians--I presume from RSC--and the two speakers, Burk Parsons and Phil Johnson for their ministry to Doug and I.  As the pastor of a small church I was incredibly impressed with the fine job the folk at Randolph did in hosting this conference.
Prior to the conference my only real point of reference with the conference was Phil. Johnson--he is an integral part of John MacArthur's ministry.  I have benefited immensely from Dr. MacArthur's ministry.  I know that Phil has been the editor of most of his books, and I have read some of Phil's postings on various issues of our day and found them to be helpful.  Phil also had the good fortune to marry a friend of mine, Darlene.  So, since the conference was relatively close, I had friends in the Charleston area where I could spend the night (Thanks Marty & Lee), the registration was cheap (The food I ate was worth far more than the price of admission.) and the conference came along at a time when my spirit was thirsty for some preaching on the Gospel of Christ, I attended.  I wasn't disappointed.  On several levels I found it to be a refreshing time.  Thanks to all who made it possible.
As any of you know who follow this blog, my attendance at this conference also intersected with some searching in regard to Fundamentalism, Evangelicalism, and my identity.  (For those who may rightly observe that I'm way to old for an "Identity Crisis," let me say I think I know who I am.  I'm just trying to figure out where that puts me in the nomenclature of Christianity in the 21st Century.  (Note the end of my October 22 post on this blog.)

This conference perhaps made the question more pointed.
The two speakers, in question and answer sessions both kinda seemed to back away from Gospel-Centered as a definition of what the church ought to be.  If I remember correctly, there were suggestions that "Gospel-Centered" is too narrow a focus.  If I understood, I tend to agree with that.
My thoughts/questions were also piqued by a statement in the conferences handout, "The Appalachia region has been long neglected by God-centered, gospel-saturated movements."  If they mean by that there is a need for more, I'll give a hearty "Amen!"  I don't think that is what they meant, though.  It appeared to me that a great deal of ministry that I would regard as Gospel saturated, and God-centered was being ignored or rejected in that comment.  I know a great many ministries in that region which I would regard as God-centered and Gospel-saturated.  Many of these ministries have withstood the inroads of gimmickery that has marked way too much of Evangelicalism.
The same handout contains one of the great old God-centered, Gospel-saturated songs.  "And can it be that I should gain . . ."  I found myself wondering, based on what I saw to be the general ethos of the conference, if the author of that hymn, Charles Wesley, would be considered to be conducting a God-centered, Gospel-saturated ministry?  (Were it only a matter of one 2 day conference I would not raise the question.  This conference is one expression of a considerable movement.)

Let me finish by asking the same question several ways:

• Is Calvinism an integral part of the Gospel?  (One passage from Spurgeon that was shared from the platform would lend me to think that the answer is yes.  Though, the reading of that passage was accompanied with a statement to the effect that in general Spurgeon did not make a big deal of his Calvinism, put Arminians down, etc.
• Did John and Charles Wesley conduct a God-centered, Gospel saturated ministry?
• Is Calvinistic purity a requirement for conducting a God-centered, Gospel saturated ministry?
• Does the kind of statement made in the conference program create a needless and unhelpful division within the body of Christ?

Again I thank all who made the Centrality of the Gospel conference possible.  My heart was blessed.  These folk were incredibly kind and giving.  Thank you.
My questions are sincere. Should anyone enter into dialog, I hope to learn from the exchange.

To God be the glory!

THE NEW PRESODISTS:

The Barna group recently posted some interesting results from a survey related to Calvinism in today's evangelical world. "Is There a "Reformed" Movement in American Churches?"
Those of you who read magazines and blogs have likely noticed descriptions like "The New Calvinists," or, the "Reformed Movement." Until I read this article I was one of those who would have said that the theological wind was blowing in the direction of an emphasis on Divine sovereignty. My thoughts in that regard had to do with the popularity of some writes and preachers who it seems to me are on that end of the spectrum--Piper, Keller, DeYoung, Begg, Harris, and Mohler. A number of magazines have covered the phenomenon, here.

I won't quote any numbers from the survey, you can read it, but, at least it seemed to me, the survey results do not bear out any move toward Geneva. I would appreciate your take on these numbers and observations on the trend, or lack thereof, in general.

There was one aspect of the crunched numbers that reinforced a personal observation--"nobody is any one thing anymore." It used to be that if you identified a trait associated with say Calvinism, or Wesleyanism in a person's Theology, that you could with reasonable confidence conclude that this person also held to most of the other tenets of that Theological system. No more. Note this observation from the survey: "The study found that 31% of pastors who lead churches within traditionally charismatic or Pentecostal denominations were described as Reformed, while 27% identified as Wesleyan/Arminian."

It kind of reminds me of the pastor who went to a pastor's fellowship that had experienced a schism along Calvinist/Arminian lines. When he registered, for no reason that he could identify the receptionist sent him to the Arminian group. Not recognizing him, some of the delegates asked who he was and why he decided to join their part of the fellowship. When he told them that he had no choice, but was sent, they threw him out. Not knowing where else to go, he chose to go to the Calvinist meeting. You can finish the story. :) The moral is there are a lot of folk who don't fit in either end of the convention hall.

Maybe we can help each other understand what is going on.