White-letter Christians: original tweets

I haven't yet devoted a post to this, but a couple of weeks ago on Twitter I unveiled a new term for "Charismatics/'continuationists'/Pentacostals. Here's the original cluster of Tweets, for reference, until I do write more full of an exposition.

Read from the bottom, up:

New, improved prophecy!

Perhaps the greatest single measure of how far well-meaning folks are willing to sell out every last cell of their brains to run cover for false teachers is this argument that now, in the glorious days of fulfillment under the New Covenant, the greater and more glorious version of the thoroughly-documented gift of prophecy has turned into a pathetic hit-and-miss irrelevancy.

Put another way:

Then: types, shadows, anticipations of Christ...and 100%-inerrrant morally-binding prophecy about the realities that move men and nations.

Now: fulfillment, reality, Christ Himself... and errant, safely-ignored, muzzy holy hunches about the most inconsequential trivia imaginable.

In even a marginally healthy church, this chimera would have disappeared under gales of derisive laughter within seconds of its invention.

But that's supposing a marginally healthy church. And there's my crucial miscalculation.

Even better than The Race Card{tm}

If you follow the news, you have seen it happen: whenever anyone of the wrong pigmentation disagrees with our president's policies, or those of certain of his associates, he finds himself accused of racism. Just when you think this may be dead or at least exaggerated, it pops up yet again. The hope is to sideline the logic and force of the criticism and put the critic (A) on the defensive and (B) in an insoluble dilemma (i.e. "Prove you're not racist, on 'three': one, two...").

Such trump-cards are not confined to politics, of course. One of the more egregious is played regularly by Leaky Canoneers.

Perhaps you're new to these parts and unfamiliar with the expression. I invented the term "Leaky Canoneer" to denote the person who formally says that he affirms the completeness, inerrancy, and closed nature of the Biblical canon, but who informally gives the lie to that profession. How? By asserting that God

1. ...continues to speak...
2. ...directly...
3. ...and quotably (or at least paraphrasably)...
4. ...to him...
5. ...apart from Scripture.

I've come at this dozens of times from dozens of angles, both here and at Pyro and elsewhere.

Today's sally is brought to you courtesy of James MacDonald. You'll forgive me for letting you do your own research for links and specifics; we at Pyro (but not we alone) have been pretty much on top of the situation, and sometimes ahead of the curve. Two of my favorite Tree Falling in the Forest posts were on the topic (this and this).

But anyway, James MacDonald decided to feature well-known modalist and word-faith preacher T. D. Jakes as a "Christian leader" on his Elephant Room show. A firestorm of very appropriate concern and criticism arose. MacDonald responded alternately by chest-thumping, backtracking, then more chest-thumping. Many wondered how this guy could be associated with The Gospel Coalition while seeming to be relatively unconcerned about, you know, the gospel.

As usual, Phil Johnson put it best: "The collective leadership of TGC are going to have to decide which is more important: the Gospel, or the Coalition."

Well no, it turns out, they won't.

In a solution that solves nothing, James MacDonald has resigned from TGC leadership, as that leadership has acknowledged.  In making this acknowledgement, however, they only compliment the departing brother, and make no direct reference to his hosting a heretic as a Christian leader. So that problem is unsolved.

What does MacDonald himself say? Oh, this and that, about what you might expect. He's making his priorities pretty clear to everyone, I daresay, and I hope the effect is salutary.

My focus is this bit from MacDonald's post:

See that? MacDonald doesn't want his "minor" leadership role to " to give the impression [the TGC leadership] agree with all God has called me to do."

Let me break that down for you who are keeping score at home:

1. God has "called" James MacDonald to do a number of things.
2. The TGC leadership might not agree with all of those things.
3. Therefore, the TGC leadership might not agree with God.

Nice, huh? They do nothing but compliment their departing heretic-promoting brother, and he responds by accusing them of sinning by not agreeing with him. Because that is the rub, right? God "called" James MacDonald to do certain things. Of this MacDonald entertains and allows no doubt. But the TGC leadership might not agree with those things. Those things that God called him to do.

Which means they don't agree with God.

So what is it when you don't agree with God? Right. Sin.

Nice, huh? And slick! You see, this way MacDonald doesn't have to answer any questions! He's completely off the hook! He doesn't have to explain featuring a heretic, his judgment, his priorities — why, now we know his priorities, according to him: he just wants to do what God tells him to do!

And who can blame him for that?

Unfortunately, much of the leadership of TGC probably can't, because at least some of them accept MacDonald's position at least in principle. God just might be mumbling and hinting and suggesting things apart from Scripture. Who can say?

And let's be very clear on this as well. Do you have a verse in your Bible saying, "And I command James MacDonald to give prominent platforms to men who deny the revealed truths of My nature and play fast and loose with Scripture on the whole"? Mine lacks that verse. This can only mean that God "called" James MacDonald directly, apart from Scripture.

So you can't judge it. See? God wasn't talking to you. He wasn't talking to me.

He was just talking to James.

This is that ugly little absolutely necessary corollary of Leaky Canoneering: adherents can play the "God told me" card and instantly get out of all criticism.

Well, not only that, right? Because now we know that James MacDonald isn't someone so desperate to be popular and well-liked that he'll make unwise (at best) associations to promote himself — no, he's a hero, because he and he alone is listening to the voice of God.

And these other guys? Psh. Carnal! Hidebound. Unspiritual, clearly. Because they might not "agree with all God has called [MacDonald] to do."

So, see? You thought it was James MacDonald who was looking kinda bad?

No, sir; no, ma'am.

It's TGC leadership, and anyone else who disagrees with MacDonald. For treating MacDonald with kid gloves, they get thrown under the bus.

And that, friends and neighbors, is "The 'God Told Me' Card."

Nicely-played, too.

Questions for Doug Wilson

This is a tag-team post with Phil Johnson's terrific essay today at Pyro. Taking on myself to tag-team with Phil has a long and storied history in this blog, pre-dating our partnership at Pyromaniacs. I write assuming that you, Dear Reader, have a familiarity with the issues Phil takes up in that posts, also expanded on in its linked posts.

Necessary background

In center stage we have falsely-named "continuationism" as represented by Mark Driscoll. In the talks recently discussed at Pyromaniacs, Driscoll positions himself thus:

1. He has special powers beyond those of mortal man.
2. These powers are the continued gifts of the Spirit discussed in the New Testament.
3. One of those powers is that he has X-rated movies of his parishioners playing in his head.
4. They're not 100% accurate.
5. Yet, when challenged as to how he knows these things, he says "Jesus told me" — which is to claim that Jesus is saying things directly to Mark Driscoll that He is saying to no one else.
6. Anyone who denies Driscoll's powers is a materialist, and a borderline atheist — or at least a Deist.

Now, Frank called Driscoll on part of this well and fairly, and Phil flatly called Reformed leaders out for giving cover to such malpractice by coddling "continuationism."

In response to Phil, commenter after commenter thoughtfully showed up and proved his point over and over again. I never cease to marvel at the apparent complete lack of self-awareness among such commenters.

But I do marvel at Douglas Wilson adding his name to their number.

In his characteristically wittily and well-written post, Wilson says many wonderful things, in order to say a really bad thing. Wilson has this C. S. Lewis-like ability to phrase things so well that, once he's said them, it's over, he just can't be topped. I love this phrase: Wilson speaks of "a Christian culture where lots of people think that the revelatory gifts are still operating on all eight cylindars [sic] and yet (mysteriously) without the Bible growing in size." Phil and I have been saying that same thing, but Doug Wilson here says it wonderfully well. And Wilson expresses concern over the resultant "ethos" that "continuationism" has created.

Yet...

Yet Pastor Wilson is hosting this man, Mark Driscoll, who not only fosters that "ethos," but (A) does so in pastorally alarming ways, and (B) says anyone who doesn't agree with him on those specific claims is a "materialist." You know, like Owen and Augustine and the Hodges and Machen. Materialists, every one of 'em.

In the meta to Phil's post, commenters and I again and again drew out the practical, pastoral implications of Driscoll's claims. We imagined the aftermath of anyone taking seriously Driscoll's claims to Spirit-given supernatural powers beyond those of mortal man — as Driscoll demands that we take them seriously. We imagined scenes like this, which are necessary results of Driscoll's claims:

Woman: Grandpa, did you sexually molest me when I was a little girl?
Grandpa: What?! No!
Woman: OK. Pastor Driscoll says he saw you do it in a movie Jesus told the Holy Spirit to run in his head. But he also says he's not always right. So, never mind.

Or picture this conversation:

Man: Pastor Mark, I'm having a terrible spiritual struggle. I just have these vivid pictures of naked women in my head, sexual imagery, sexual scenes.

Driscoll: Oh, I have that too, but it's a gift from the Holy Spirit. Are you sure it isn't God showing you something?

Man: Um... I... um, I've never thought of it that way... in fact, I never thought of thinking of it that way... but if that's what my pastor says...

The questions

So here are my specific questions for Pastor Wilson. I don't ask them pugnaciously. The answers aren't all simple, though I think some should be. What troubles me in his post is that Wilson side-steps them; so I bring them up for consideration.

1. What do you make of a pastor saying the Holy Spirit ran X-rated movies in his head by direct revelation from the hand of God? 
2. What do you think of a pastor telling a furious, abusive husband "Jesus told me," referring to a hunch he had about the husband's abuse, then leaving them to sort it out? 
3. Are you saying that these occurrences are examples of your "strange things happen" rationale, as set out in your recent post? 
4. Do you take any responsibility for the certain fact that "continuationists" like Driscoll will use your argument as "cover" for what they do? 
5. Do you see that that was Phil's point? 
6. Are Calvin, Spurgeon, Warfield and you materialists and borderline deists? 
7. Would you ever, ever ordain a man who did or said any of these things even once, and did not repent and show fruits of repentance for some time afterwards? 
8. What do you think about the clear and intended implications of this position, that preaching the whole Word of God is not sufficient for the salvation and sanctification of believers?
9. Should you extend the mantle of respectable leadership to such a man? 
10. Do you think no one has yet tried to persuade Mark Driscoll to leave off his troubling practices before? 
11. Will you have powers of persuasion far beyond those of mortal man?

Final clarification: do I think leaders are always responsible for every error of everyone with whom they associate themselves? In no way. Were that true, no one could associate with anyone. I would barely  associate with myself.

But isn't it apparent that this is not isolated, inconsequential, minor? This isn't something that some people allege Driscoll said or did 30, 20, 10, or even 5 years ago, and then either repented of or never repeated or never talks about as a central. It's something he insists on as an important, defining issue; everyone who doesn't agree with him are materialists, Deists, almost atheists.

It doesn't seem to me that Driscoll has left the option of chuckling, grinning, and shrugging off his actions as "Oh, that Mark, he's such a kidder!"

Hey world! Did you get the memo? This is what Mark Driscoll says you believe!

Mark Driscoll defines really-really affirming the sufficiency of Scripture, and unwillingness to dumb-down the gifts by made-up redefinitions, as "worldliness."

So that means, if one is to take Driscoll seriously, this is what the world believes:

The sixty-six books of the Protestant canon, in their original writings, comprise the verbally inspired, inerrant Word of God.

The thirty-nine books known as the Hebrew Old Testament are God-breathed, products of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, and thus free from error in all that they affirm (cf. Deuteronomy 18:18, 19; Psalms 19:7, 8; 119:89, 142, 151, 160; Matthew 5:17-19; John 10:35; 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20, 21).

Similarly, the twenty-seven books known as the Greek New Testament are the eternally abiding words of Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:35), and are thus the words of God (John 7:16; 12:49). The Holy Spirit enabled the writers both to recall what the Lord said (John 14:26), and to continue to receive His revelation (John 16: 12-15). As a result, the writings of the New Testament are the commandment of the Lord (1 Corinthians 14:37), are Scripture (2 Peter 3:15, 16), and are God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16).

For this reason, the sinner finds the way of salvation through Scripture (Romans 10:17; 2 Timothy 3:15; Hebrews 2: 1-3). The believer is made fruitful (Psalm 1:2, 3) and successful in the will of God (Joshua 1:8), warned and kept from sin (Psalms 19:11; 119:9,11), made holy (John 17:17), given wisdom (Psalm 9:7) and freeing knowledge of the truth (John 8: 31, 32), taught the fear of God (Psalm 119:38), counseled (Psalm 119:24), taught, reproved, corrected, and disciplined in the way righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16) by Scripture. Scripture is, in short, the fully adequate revelation of the person, ways, and will of God.

Wow. Did you know they believed that, Christian? Did you know that you believed that, non-Christian (worldling)? Thus spake the oracle of Washington Seattle, with much chest-thumping and finger-pointing.

Perhaps his manuscript had a marginal note, "Case moribund, ratchet up accusations here"?

Monergism.com lets leaky-Canoneers peddle their goods, BUT...

Most of my readers are probably aware of Monergism.com. It's a pretty wonderful site in many ways, offering articles and sermons and lectures from the broad perspective of Reformed theology.

Now I note that they've got actual representatives of the positions defending both "cessationism" and "continuationism." That is, both men who believe that Scripture is complete and sufficient, and that modern claims to revelatory or attesting sign-gifts are fake and sub-Biblical, and those who want to pretty up the modern claims and sneak in some sort of ongoing semi-revelatory dribble — both, I say, are allowed to present and defend their own positions. In their own voices, with their own arguments.

Interesting, eh? Very interesting.

So I'm immediately wondering: will they have got actual representatives of the positions defending both Covenant Theology and dispensationalism? After all, dispensationalism in no way contrasts with affirming doctrines of grace. Further, the vast majority of dispensationalists stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other Reformed believers in adamantly defending the sufficiency and perspicuity and full authority of Scripture — in contrast to the "continuationist" position.

So one would naturally assume that they, too, would be allowed to present and defend their own approach to Scripture.

(This reasonable openness, for instance, would contrast with the silly obscurantism of the second site discussed here.)

That approach would make sense. It is what clear-eyed rational thinking would move one to expect.

But if I were forced to guess, before checking it out? I'd guess "no." They wouldn't dare let dispensationalists themselves actually present their own view, in their own voices, apart from the caricatured (dare I say "slanderous"?) misrepresentations with which so many "Reformed" tranquilize themselves.

Ah, now I see under Doctrine and Theology a whole section on Covenant Theology. It appears to me that all the speakers are advocates of CT, not critics of it. Okay, so, that's one side.

Oh, but wait. Here it is. I found dispensationalism.

Where is it? Next to "Covenant Theology," as another respectable approach to Scripture?

In your dreams, Phillips.

Ah, no. It is under Heresy and Bad Theology — along with Islam, Open Theism, Postmodernism, Emerging Church, Jehovahs Witnesses, Atheism, Roman Catholicism, and the DaVinci code. Ah, I love the smell of "Reformed" humility and love in the morning.

And yep, what a surprise: far as I can tell, all the speakers are critics of dispensationalism. Not one advocate.

Now that is interesting, isn't it? A position — "continuationism" — that is commonly propped up by such historical and exegetical nuttiness, and very frequently directly causes so much ecclesiastical and personal harm, is presented by its own advocates. Adrian Warnock — a brother who displays an unhealthy obsession with desperate efforts to legitimatize charismaticism, who is so "open" that he can't bring himself to criticize its worst and craziest and most harmful manifestations — he gets to propound his own view.

But dispensationalists cannot be allowed that same respect.

And btw, a huge "Reformed" bogeyman is how supposedly recent dispensationalism is. (I.e. a century or so more recent than Covenant Theology; evidently that was a critical hundred years, emptying the Bible of all previously-undetected wisdom or formulations.)

So help me with the math here. Which is more recent? 1830s? Or 1906?

So Warnock and Piper and Storms get to try their level best to doll up "continuationism" and make it sound Biblical.

But the position held and propounded, to one degree or another, by John MacArthur, S. Lewis Johnson, Alva J. McClain, Eric Sauer, (Spurgeon successor) W. Graham Scroggie, J. Oliver Buswell, Allan A. MacRae, and a host of others — file that one under "Heresy and Bad Theology," and assign it to a hit squad or two.

Sigh.

Pathetic.

Ultimate resource on cessationism

Big title. Pretty good page!

Except —snif! — he doesn't link to any of my many posts on the subject, either here or on Pyro. Or my article!

)c:

You tell me

First, read m'man Phil Johnson's Cessationism Again.

Then, read Dan Edelen's Throwing Stones in Glass Houses of Worship.

Then you tell me:

1. Do you think Dan actually read Phil's post all the way through (as he insists that his readers do, with his post)?
   
2. Are you persuaded by Dan's plea that he "didn’t want to write this post," but that it "need[ed] to be written" because of the contents of Phil's post?
   
3. Do you think the bad experiences Dan claims to have had with Reformed guys is at all analogous to Phil's post?
   

"Cessationism": ragged dress for a rich lady

Why is it that the better words, names, titles are always held by the poorer positions? Why are the better positions so often forced to take leftovers, or tarred by negative words, words that define the position by what it isn't, or by what it rejects?

Take the matter of abortion. If the thought of ripping a living baby to pieces for the high crime of being imperfect or inconvenient doesn't trouble you, what are you? Anti-life? No. Anti-baby? No. Pro-infanticide? No. You're pro-choice. That sounds like a nice, uplifting, affirming, positive thing.

And if you think that babies should be valued and protected, that people really should not be allowed to have babies killed thus, what are you? Pro-life? Well, yes, to yourself. But to most of the world you're anti, you're defined by what you oppose. You're anti-abortion, or even anti-choice.

Take some of the better church names. All of these are great, Biblical names owned by groups either with cultish or at least defective doctrine(s):

The Way
The Church of Christ
The Church of God
Jehovah's Witnesses
Children of God

Assemblies of God
Latter-Day Saints

Churches with more Biblical doctrine are left to style themselves by names highlighting relatively minor issues. Baptist. Presbyterian. Independent Fundamentalist. Evangelical Free. Lutheran.

All this brings me to cessationism.

For years, since leaving Charismatic (ah! another lovely, positive-sounding label!) doctrine for what I believe to be a more Biblical position, I had nothing at all to call myself. I had to describe myself, without a label. That's not altogether bad, of course, but it's not so catchy or memorable. That, or I had to use a negative: non-Charismatic. Thus I couldn't describe what I did believe; I had to describe myself by what I no longer believed.

Then along comes -- drumroll -- "Cessationism." And so yet again, I'm describing myself by what I don't believe, or by what I believe is no longer happening, or used-to-happen-but-no-longer-does. Sigh.

This is sad, to me, because I believe that it is a robust, fulsome, wonderful position. It is the position held by most Biblically-oriented Christians throughout the ages, insofar as they thought about it at all.

Of course, for most of church history they didn't have to get into it too deeply. Prior to 1906, no Christian group seriously argued that revelational gifts were to be expected in Christian circles. Like the modern position that God has a pinpoint will, that if you didn't listen to that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit that the Bible never calls us to seek after, you would buy the wrong brand of beans and end up out of God's three-atom-wide will forever.

So you don't see, in earlier writers, the sort of precise re-examination of texts like 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 that modern times have mae necessary. I don't know if John Owen ever said "Duh!" in his life, but if you'd asked him whether or not the Bible really contains all we need as Christians to know, serve, and glorify God, he might have been tempted to invent it.

But now, tragically (in my view), all this has changed. The notion that the Bible isn't quite complete, isn't quite sufficient; that it contains "[p]robably [only] 95 per cent of all the guidance we need as Christians" (as Pat Robertson wrote), has spread in Christian churches like a nasty rash. No longer is the wildfire advocate on the defensive, expected to defend his position; it is the man or woman who affirms the Bible's sufficiency who is thought extreme and radical and out-of-it.

And we're stuck with the label "Cessationist." Pathetic.

Listen to how I defined the doctrine of Scripture, when I authored a Statement of Faith for a church I labored to plant:

The thirty-nine books known as the Hebrew Old Testament are God-breathed, products of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, and thus free from error in all that they affirm (cf. Deuteronomy 18:18, 19; Psalms 19:7, 8; 119:89, 142, 151, 160; Matthew 5:17-19; John 10:35; 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20, 21).

Similarly, the twenty-seven books known as the Greek New Testament are the eternally abiding words of Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:35), and are thus the words of God (John 7:16; 12:49). The Holy Spirit enabled the writers both to recall what the Lord said (John 14:26), and to continue to receive His revelation (John 16: 12-15). As a result, the writings of the New Testament are the commandment of the Lord (1 Corinthians 14:37), are Scripture (2 Peter 3:15, 16), and are God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16).

For this reason, the sinner finds the way of salvation through Scripture (Romans 10:17; 2 Timothy 3:15; Hebrews 2: 1-3). The believer is made fruitful (Psalm 1:2, 3) and successful in the will of God (Joshua 1:8), warned and kept from sin (Psalms 19:11; 119:9,11), made holy (John 17:17), given wisdom (Psalm 9:7) and freeing knowledge of the truth (John 8: 31, 32), taught the fear of God (Psalm 119:38), counseled (Psalm 119:24), taught, reproved, corrected, and disciplined in the way of righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16) by Scripture. Scripture is, in short, the fully adequate revelation of the person, ways, and will of God.

Does that sound like a negative, or even a defensive position? Does that sound like a what-I-don't-believe position? After all, all it really is is a summarizing, a weaving-together of what the Bible says about itself, what all of us as Christians are called and bound to believe. These Biblical truths are magnificent, glorious, joyous claims that should excite, thrill, bless, embolden, and motivate every Christian to deepening confidence in and reliance upon the Word of God.

In fact, read that over again. Or just read 2 Timothy 3:15-17 alone. Then ask yourself these questions -- which, itself, I think are fatal to the open-Canon position necessarily held de facto by Charismaticism: "What more do I need? What did God leave out? What did He neglect to say?"

After you've seriously thought those through, ask yourself this: "What has almost one hundred years of Charismatic/Pentecostal/open-Canon blithering added to Biblical revelation?"

Let me unpack that a bit. Every day of the week, on TV and in churches and in home fellowships, people are claiming to hear God speak apart from Scripture. People are speaking in God's name. People impersonate God and speak as Isaiah and Jeremiah did: "Thus saith the Lord" (God often still uses Jacobean English, apparently).

What syllable of necessary truth has one hundred years of this nonsense added to Christendom? What new doctrine, what light on an old doctrine, has ever been added by these supposedly revelational activities?

Note, I do not ask what Charismatics have added. There are and have been many fine folks who, in my opinion, are mistaken in this one area, but who have contributed some wonderful labor and teaching, in spite of their Charismaticism. Take Wayne Grudem. When he's not spouting nonsense about semi-hemi-demi revelations still going on through erring-but-genuine prophets, he teaches some wonderful, Biblical doctrine. His Systematic Theology is a great book.
But what have literally hundreds of millions of supposedly prophetic experiences added to the Bible? Have they really filled in that missing 5% that Robertson sees?

Think of it. I just got home from church, where the pastor preached from something written almost 2000 years ago (Ephesians 4). If the Lord tarries, pastors will still preach from that same text 2000 years from now.

But during that same hour, in countless other churches, "the Lord" was "speaking" apart from the Scriptures. Yet I would put good money on the proposition that not one word that "He" "said" will be remembered one year from now, let alone one hundred, or one thousand.

This "open-Canon" position has produced nothing in the last century but meaningless trivia or rehashes of Scripture at best, or distractions and false prophecy at worst. Not a good track record, when the argument is made that the same august Spirit who breathed Genesis 1, Psalm 23, Isaiah 40, and Romans 8 is supposedly speaking through these prophets -- or, as I prefer to call them, "pop-offets."

So, given the richness and fulsomeness of the position, why are we stuck with such a pallid, puny label? Can't someone come up with a better one?

I've been unable. The "closed-Canon" position sounds equally negative, and the same folks who are de facto open-Canoners are de jure closed-Canoners. "Really-closed-Canon"? Nah. How about "sufficient Scripture"? Again, formally many Charismatics affirm that position, whileactually undermining it in fact with every argument for their stance. "Really-sufficient-Scripture"? Nah. "Completed revelation"? Better, but clumsy.

Maybe some unheard-of faithful laborer with a flock of 27 in Nowhere, Missouri has the perfect term. If so, brother, tell me, and I'll spread the word. Because this beautiful lady deserves a beautiful garment, not a burlap bag.

[NOTE: my mind ran down these lines partly due the Phil Johnson starting a related (but different) thread of thought, first with Invasion of the evangelical soothsayers, and then with Rubber prophecies. Be sure to track Phil's upcoming posts on this subject. Don't know whether he's as "hardcore" as I on this issue, but I am sure he'll be worth reading.]

UPDATE: I love the way Dave Ulrick styles the modern Charismatic's un-Biblical notion of prophecy as Two tiers of inspiration. Great read -- go there. In fact, you could say the same for every revelatory or sign gift attested in the New Testament, and anemically imitated today: "you can't have that, but" -- moderns have a pale facsimile, complete with "explanation." They're all "two-tier": the real item, and the modern cheap knock-off.

Jollyblogger wades in as well, bringing the discussion forward with some links, as well as comments of his own.

Phil himself rises from his sneezebed to contribute Spurgeon on private prophecies and new revelation. This Spurgeon-lover found it a fascinating read. Phil both provides passages from CHS used by charismatics to indicate that the great man was in their camp, as well as flat denials that we should look anywhere but to Scripture, or give over the use of our judgment, in walking with the Lord. None of the passages used by the open-Canon set indicate any such thing. At the most, they are times when Spurgeon later came to see that something he did or said was providentially used by God. Not one is an instance of him setting aside his Bible, slapping his mental gearshift into Neutral, and looking to peeps and mutters to tell him what to do.

UPDATE II: Ray over at Observations and Opinions issues A Call to Brotherhood, reminding us to watch our tone in this discussion. It is worth the read if only for this well-worded apothegm: "We are known by our fruits, NOT by our gifts."

UPDATE III: Jollyblogger makes a great contribution on the topic of providence, reflecting a bit of what I said just above but from a slightly different angle, in The Doctrine of Providence and the Charismatic Debate (h-t to the indispensable Phil Johnson who -- and this is really getting on my nerves -- has yet more helpful comments, with specific illustrations (and photos!) to the discussion).

UPDATE IV: Rob Wilkerson has a ton of links to contributions to this discussion in A Running and Terribly Disorganized List of Online Resources for the Charismatic Pillow Fight and A Theological Pillow Fight (Updated 11/11/05) . (Somehow, in all his comprehensiveness, he missed my little widow's mite. Sniff!)