Westminster Theological Seminary: a Calvidispiebaptogelical appreciation

I am enjoying some correspondence with a Westminster Seminary prof, and reflected that some of what I said to him is worth sharing more broadly.

My Master's is from (then) Talbot Theological Seminary, where I had some splendid professors who were far better scholars and brothers than I.

Nonetheless, Westminster Theological Seminary has a very special place in my heart, distinct from any other seminary. This despite the fact that I'm theologically not in exact sync with Westminster, and many of their grads would give me the Angry Eyes, what with me being baptistic and all. (One well-known figure sneers that Calvidispiebaptogelicals such as I are neither Reformed nor Calvinists. Oh well; even we at the back of the bus must be allowed our unrequited love, no?)

Let me explain why I so love Westminster.

WTS is a place where giants have roamed the earth, from its very founding. Any time I'm asked to list the most influential books in my life, two are always J. Gresham Machen's What Is Faith? and Cornelius Van Til's Defense of the Faith. A larger list might include John Murray's Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, and a still-larger list would include E. J. Young's Thy Word Is Truth. To think that men such as those and many others — heroes to me — have taught in those halls... wow. Teaching or studying there would give me the chills if I stopped to think.

Also, I know of no other seminary long in existence that has stayed so true to its charter, without drifting to port. The suspension, then resignation of Peter Enns is an example. To me, what he's written since could hardly better underscore the appropriateness of his release. It is as if Enns has set out to validate WTS' actions. But in a Fuller or such, a figure such as Enns would be celebrated as another passing road sign in the inexorable process of decline.

After I'd written the previous, brother Bayly added this salient note:

Firing professors is a mark of a seminary that's still alive just as excommunication is a mark of a church that is still alive. A few years ago Westminster Theological Seminary in Philly fired Peter Enns for (as I see it) rejecting the authority and inspiration of Scripture.

Therefore, WTS is a "brand-name" that still means something. As Talbot/Biola was making decisions that concerned some of us in the '80s, a classmate said, "I don't want a degree that I'm going to have to explain." I knew exactly what he meant. Fuller came instantly to mind. While Fuller started out as a bastion of Biblical faith and top-notch scholarship, it has morphed into something very different. If you meet a man whose degree is from Fuller, you have to start at the very basics to see what he believes, to see if he's even within rifle range of Biblical faith.

But if you hear that a man got his degree from Westminster, you have a good idea of the framework within which he was taught. This is what Machen had in mind, reeling from his own sadly-declined Princeton. So many decades later, it still stands strong.

So: whether it likes it or not, Westminster Theological Seminary has itself a fan. A Calvinist, baptistic, dispensationalist fan. It may or may not love me, but I sure do love it, and thank God for what it has contributed and continues to contribute to the preaching of the Gospel and the Word of God, and to the defense of the faith.

One hysterical scholar; or, When academics throw hissy-fits

Author and scholar Dr. Ronald S. Hendel has let his membership lapse in the Society for Biblical Literature, and he wants everyone to know about it.

Why? What drove him out?

It always cracks me up when Hugh Hewitt gets a conspiracy theorist on his show, some feverish soul hinting around about a dark and malicious group who is engineering the course of history and the world's miseries.

Hewitt will cut and say "So Bob, Bob, Bob — is it The Jews?"  (Except he pronounces it, "da Jooooooooz.")

Well, Dr. Hendel calls himself a Jew, so those aren't his villains. In Hendel's case, one might say "So Ron, Ron, Ron — is it The Christians?"

Yep.

See, Dr. Hendel is a very religious man, worshiping a very narrow, specialized definition of Reason. In the good doctor's lexicon, "Reason" must exclude, or adopt a dismissive approach to, one certain category of evidence. Hendel does Schleirmacher proud in positing a rigid and vast chasm between faith and facts. One must begin with the assumption that "the religious" is unrelated to reality, unrelated to facts. Anyone not falling within Hendel's very narrow borders cannot be a real scholar, or at least not one fit for a platform in the SBL.

Not even octogenarian OT scholar Bruce Waltke, internationally-acclaimed author of a very solid Hebrew grammar and reams of articles and publications. Why is Waltke disqualified?

Well, Hendel doesn't put it this way, but Waltke is disqualified because he believes the texts they're supposed to be studying. To Dr. Hendel, belief is heresy.

Pause. Isn't that odd? Society for Biblical Literature — but you're only qualified to speak (according to R. Hendel) if you do not actually believe the Biblical Literature around which you've formed a Society.

Well, of course the doctor's woes go far beyond having to live with the shameful knowledge that Dr. Waltke (horrors!) believes the text he's writing about. No, worse still: there might be people there who care about Hendel's soul, and who try to express their faith.

No! No! Run away! Run away!

This leaves us with the irony that Dr. Hendel's narrow, doctrinaire nut-cases will sit and respectfully listen to his lectures and read his papers. But show them the same respect? Absurd! Ridiculous! Where's the door?

So Dr. Hendel takes his marbles and goes home, leaving the Society to (in his words) "creationists, snake-handlers and faith-healers."

That's right. You know.

Like Bruce Waltke.