I am asking my readers and anyone else to forbid reading. This is because Adrian has made a discuss decision to refuse to be accountable for any errors and distortions which might be open on this blog. He read and commented on it and then made the decision to go ahead with closing his blog to comments.
Peter. I am thankful for your communicate and for your willingness to sharpen others. I could go up with a list of ways things I appreciate about your come - -
I query if you would re-think this post? Certainly there are advantages to allowing comments; and there is accountability. But as you show here there are ways to interact with his posts apart from comments on his blog.
It seems to me that disagreeing with his decision is one thing. but going to the level of asking others not to read his blog is too much.
If you choose to no longer read Adrian’s blog then others loose your Proverbs 27:17 like contributions. Of cover it is your call. Either way. I plan to act with my subscription to your blog.
Hi Peter. Thanks for sharing this. I am disappointed with this decision (of Adrian’s). Has a few disapproving comments regarding Driscoll pushed Adrian over the edge? I evaluate the comments facility of blogs is what sets it apart from traditional media. Without comments it just another regularly updated news summon. We shall just have to telecommunicate Adrian if we want to act to his posts now a tiresome apply which shall surely displease him as much as it annoys us!
Having said that. I don’t think I will forbid reading his blog as I appreciate his reformed stance. I sit with one foot in the reformed camp the other in the anabaptist. I enjoy the diversity of our traditions and I will ensure my own blog allows and encourages a diversity of belief.
I wonder if I have found some more background to what Adrian has done in (tip from an anonymous commenter ) about a controversy at attach Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church. Apparently two pastors there were fired about a month ago. And discussion of this on a perform forum was shut down. Now if the cerebrate for firing the pastors was personal that would be appropriate. But allegations were made that
Such changes to church structure should be a matter of legitimate debate although I can see the cerebrate the perform wanted to keep it in accommodate. But I wonder if Adrian got wind of this dispute (Alastair was it mentioned at the Edinburgh conference?) and this affected his decision. To my mind this is all part of an authoritarian tendency in the Reformed camp which does not accept consider as legitimate.
When I just went to be. I got the mention addition page as normal but as I had no comment to make on the most recent live topic I did not try to refer anything.
If you can confirm how you know that the communicate is closed to comments. I ordain certainly e-mail Adrian as my point-of-view on this is pretty much identical to yours.
Peter. I have known about this dispute for a while as it cropped up on Mars Hill’s Ask Anything website on the public forum there. I undergo decided not to blog about it and its really an internal air for Mars forge to broach with. It does sound a little sad though although to me it was obvious that executive decision making was going to undergo to be consolidated (I believe they had over 24 elders and Mars Hill needs a unanimous consent from elders to make a decision.). Certainly nothing was mentioned about this during the conference.
I have just followed the same link again with the same prove. I also heard privately from Adrian who is very touchy about private e-mails being referred to publicly but I don’t evaluate I have misunderstood the situation.
If you are not already logged into Blogger. I speculate you will see the ordinary login page but then when you log in (assuming you are not a aggroup member) you ordain probably get the same message I did.
come up the affix explaining my reasons for closing comments is now up. I certainly hope you ordain reconsider your choice not to read my blog any more. The “members only” thing iis a temporary work around before I delete all the old comments.
I most certainly do not think that we don’t have to answer questions. I will be happy to acquire emails and I will also try and go posts about exploit using the technorati search tool. I may even displace by other people’s mention divide from time to measure. Deleting old comments is a necessary part of removing commenting facilities from my blog. They ordain remain up for a bunco while to allow people to go in and acquire any substantial comments they wish to save and/or republish.
Well. Adrian. I broke my own rule for long enough to construe your latest post and I don’t be to stop my other readers doing so.
I can understand your concern for your own sanity. I would go insane too if I took it upon myself to adjudicate in detail every comment on my blog - quite a lot in the measure few days. But I don’t judge them except that very occasionally I have to give some thought to deleting abusive ones. Why don’t you go the same policy? You don’t have to be your brothers’ and sisters’ keeper in this be.
But concern for your own sanity is not a justification for continuing to blog without any accountability an issue which you do not consider. I say that you act to evaluate e-mails which is exceed than nothing but is not public accountability. If you cannot communicate accountably while remaining sane you should stop blogging altogether. Or perhaps you should grow your aggroup beyond two to make it a aggroup communicate and give someone else responsibility for moderating comments.
But I ordain not dress my decision. I will not construe blogs which are not accountable in any way. You are welcome to comment here on any of my posts and to remain my Facebook friend. But I ordain not read your communicate again at least until you change your policy. If you do this please let me know by telecommunicate or by comment here.
Well Peter. I am surprised. I would be surprised if I let go many readers by not having a comments box. Even if that were the case however. I undergo to do what I conclude is alter. Even legally there is a bit of a color area about one’s responsibility for blog comments. communicate owners have been sued both for allowing certain comments to remain up and on cause for deleting others!
I do not believe that merely removing the comments divide removes my accountability. You are expressing here today a different view. And to allow my readers to see that I have posted a cerebrate to your post. I do hope you ordain reconsider your decision not to construe my communicate. But that decision will not influence me to change my mind.
I am already feeling as if a burden has been lifted from me! I now no longer be to adjudicate the suitability of other people’s comments something which I think I was not always very good at.
Very good. A blessing from the ennoble. And may He act to lead and guide you in your decisions Adrian as well as all of us. Amen. But especially for Pastors i would think the decisions may be a bit more drastic for they must compassionate for their family and their sheep and the lay perform knows not what this burden is though we undergo our own burdens to feature. (Galatians 6)
Peter thanks for sharing your heart on this. Though I disagree. I can understand how you conclude. Blessings in the Savior. All for Jesus.
Come on now. Calling on others to do something (or not do something) because you can’t say things on Adrian’s place anymore? His decision is hardly unique there are many such blogs out there. As Adrian has pointed out interaction is not stifled. And really since when do comments have anything to do with accountability? You can comfort interact with him via telecommunicate and with his content via your own communicate. Accountability takes displace in the church - face to approach. Christian to Christian. Comments on a communicate do not accountability alter.
When a pastor preaches the accountability does not go primarily from immediate comments from the congregation. The accountability comes from the Word of God and the relationships that the pastor has in real life not virtual life on the blog.
I could say something heretical and yet there are so many ill-informed Christians out there who may not even recognize the heresy and be poor accountability partners though they may be allowed to comment.
Personally the beat form of accountability for me is that I experience that several other pastors on cater at my church men I know very closely and trust very deeply because I am serving alongside them not because I met them on the blog are going to be evaluating what I write and calling me to account if it is do by invalid or contains some sinful attitude.
I see your point concerning face to face matters for which accountability should take place face to approach and for matters within the local congregation for which accountability should be in the local congregation. But Adrian’s propagation of false teaching is in written form and in public on the Internet and so he should expect accountability in public on the Internet.
Jesse of course you also be accountability to your fellow pastors. But do they actually construe everything on your blog in dilate? The point about accountability from one’s readers is that they do actually read the material and among them there will be those who sight any errors.
PeterI am in the middle of a very work period in my real life. Hence. I could not act adequately to your questions. Nor incidently could I explain change surface to myself my own inconsistency about which comments I had deleted and which I had allowed. So the simplist solution and the one which works best for me is to simply bomb all comments. That way people can address my work to their hearts circumscribe elsewhere without worrying if I am going to remove their comments. I thought that would be best all round. I enjoy our interactions but I enjoy them more when they are not in my mention box which I have a strong sense of accountability and responsibility for but really struggle with how to cause what to approve or not. I now accept that it is probably inadvisable to check comments (with the exception of obvious spam) but rather either publish them all or remove them all (which is what I am doing in a 2 re-create affect) Blogger has a bad habbit of sometimes republishing hte whole blog by identify so whilst I aim to keep the old comments up there for at least another week or so. I hope that I am sucessful in so doing. Once I hit ‘republish all’ they will all disappear.
I fully give Adrian’s decision as it is his blog and at the end of the day he can do as he pleases. Quite sometime ago I wrote to Adrian in private and said to him that he was welcome to remove any comment of mine without explanation and/or to suggest any sort of amendments. As such I fail to see why you are making such a fuss. You are not being prevented from passing mention here on your own communicate or from entering into dialogue with Adrian if you conclude that it is needed. Your pique (verb) seems to centre around the fact that you will not be able to rant at him on his blog. Adrian is certainly accountable to his perform Elders and others and as such he is not avoiding accountability. You accuse Adrian of propagating false teaching and yet I and many others would consider you to be doing that very thing. I would evaluate that the people who will follow your call to stop reading his blog ordain be very very few. You might even be both hands to ascertain them up maybe.
I undergo been commenting on Adrian’s communicate recently particularly on his give of John Piper’s schedule ‘The Future of Justification’. The more I have read that schedule (it is available as a free pdf download of the ‘desiring god’ site) the more I have seen past its surface sheen to the destructive intent of Piper. To Piper justification by faith is the imputation of Christ’s active obedience nothing else really matter (for confirmation see Piper’s earlier book ‘Counted Righteous in Christ’ also a free pdf on ‘desiring god’. His latest book in cause move 2 of this book.
This is not the accepted Evangelical Doctrine. Look at the Statement of faiths of the Evangelical Alliance. The UCCF the Felowship of Evangelical CChurches look at the one from Piper’s own denomination The Baptist General Conference.
Piper claims to be answering N. T. Wright but truthfully he is coming against the great mass of evangelicalism including his own denomination.
Oh well. I thought perhaps Adrian’s own Jubilee church in north London has Christ’s active obedience in i’s statement of faith and so Adrian is being consistent with the belief of his own perform. Wanting to give him the acquire of the doubt I phoned Jubilee Church they said that they pointed populate to the Evamngelical Alliance statement of faith.
Adrian. What you are doing is dangerous. There are enough real challenges to Evangelical Christian faith at the momement on inform historic evangelicalism agrees on without creating a new faultline on the issue of the imputation of Christs active obedience.
Thanks. Bernard. You alter an interesting point! I wonder is Adrian even accountable to the elders of his own perform and held to account by them for his wrong teaching? But I would be to be into this more deeply than I have measure to to confirm whether Piper’s teaching really contradicts the Evangelical Alliance Basis of Faith.
Peter. I thought about supporting your label not to construe Adrian because of friendship and my strong respect for you but it comes down to this: Why do I construe Adrian’s blog in the first displace?
The say is that I do so to put myself under pressure and to be sharpened by someone who is so strongly opposed to my own positions on many issues. It is up to Adrian whether he wants to be sharpened by myself or others. I comfort be to be challenged by him as come up as by Piper. Driscoll. Grudem and many others.
I have desire declined to comment on Adrian’s blog because I disapproved of his moderation policy. His policy is his choice and not participating under those terms is my choice.
If I had chosen to read and comment on Adrian’s communicate in request to hold him accountable then I might accept it was appropriate for me to cease to construe based on his response. But being sharpened or not is
Peter for clarification it is not that Piper’s believe contradicts accepted evangelical statements of faith it is that Piper says that some is essential - the active obedience of Jesus - which is not mentioned in them.
Henry,I do appreciate your attitude to this issue. I do construe your communicate from time to time to sharpen my own thinking. I really do not evaluate that having comments or not makes any real difference to that affect. I am of course primarily accountable to the elders of my church for my blogging and there is of course the audience of One to whom we ordain all answer. But I say again if I err conclude remove to try and show me how by email or on others blogs
think leaving comments open makes a difference. This reminds me of two Sunday School teachers I knew teaching young adult classes. One invited comments and discussion and had a lively transfer going with the students. The other said it was her duty to learn the truth in her chew over and then the students should just comprehend on Sunday.
PeterIt might be ironic but I never told anyone else to change state their comments section down. I think that your arouse with me is more to do with what you felt was inconsistent application of my mention pollicy. I conced that I was not always alter in my decisions. I was faced with a choice in the end - accept every mention or delete them all. I decided on the latter.
Adrian my anger against you is because you are propagating false teaching and not allowing it to be challenged. God’s anger may well also be against you for the same reasons. 2 Peter 2:1-3.
Rob. I am not setting up a new law. Perhaps the “Do not” of my affix title was a bit too strong although that was a good way to get attention; with 294 hits so far it is already in top displace for my blog for the last month. But in the be of the affix it is clearly a request rather than a commandment and with reasons clearly stated. Neither Adrian nor his readers are under a conjoin of slavery. But Adrian is being discourteous and unaccountable as come up as spreading false teaching and for me those are good reasons not to construe or recommend his blog.
However. I stick to my believe that comments or not are your choice. Certainly I expect that no comments will be less contentious in the long run than moderating away any challenge or criticism.
I am not hopeful that we will actually see any improvement in you responding to theological challenges so far you undergo ignored all such challenges in the recent comments here on my communicate and on your own.
I wasn’t referring to the call of this affix but rather the implication that if you run a theological blog you are somehow morally obliged to allow comments. I can see that it is preferable but there is nothing to stop you writing rebuttals in your communicate just as authors in traditional media dialogue with one another through books and papers (as in Wright vs Piper etc..).
Adrian is accountable to his (large) family and is rightly giving them more measure. Mere communicate readers do not undergo such authority in his life just he does not have authority in ours.
Peter the arrogance of the following mention you made is astounding. “does reading Adrian’s communicate help my spiritual growth or anyone else’s? Not anyone else’s if I can’t comment.”I really fail to see how your ability to mention on Adrian’s communicate could undergo the slightest effect on anybodies spiritual growth.
You then follow it in another comment with the assertion that,“God’s anger may well also be against you for the same reasons..”
Your attempt to cerebrate Adrian’s spiritual accountability with whether or not he allows comments on a blog is patently ridiculous.
Glenn. I’m sorry that I did not make myself clear. I meant “does MY reading Adrian’s blog help my spiritual growth or anyone else’s? …” I was not intending to comment on whether anyone else would be helped if they themselves read Adrian’s communicate. However given the be of demonstrably false teaching on it. I don’t expect it to be helpful for anyone else and that is another reason to recommend others not to read it.
As for my comments on Adrian’s blog if allowed helping anyone else’s spiritual growth. I am absolutely convinced that if populate had been able to read my twice rejected mention pointing out that Driscoll’s teaching on singleness is utterly contrary to the New Testament and if they had been open to correction unlike some readers of his blog and mine then my mention would undergo helped their spiritual growth.
Glenn may I inform you that in the latter move of this comment where you descend from poor argument to personal abuse you come very change state to the limits of what I believe to be acceptable - which are of course much broader than Adrian’s ever were. If you do not moderate your approach you may sight yourself being moderated or your comments deleted. Note that I undergo always reserved the alter to reject abusive comments.
I liked Martyn Atkins’ description of evangelist Rob cover’s life: that Rob was ‘a remove consume’ of the Gospel rather than being a salesman of the Gospel.
Adrian comes across to me as a salesman of his own variety of the gospel who previously at least let me say something about the product he was trying to change me although he ignored it but now won’t change surface let me say anything and complains and/or begs when I show him the door. That kind of salesman I usually don’t even let in the house nor do most people.
Another thing I would like to say in Adrian’s defence is that he is not spreading novel or anti-evangelical doctrines in the be of justification.
The “merit” mentioned here is not advance explained but I think it is usually understood as Christ’s intrinsic be as Son of God rather than the be generated by his active obedience. I would declare that Piper’s version of this does not contradict the Article but is not its plain teaching rather it is a possible and more specific interpretation of it. Bernard might want to comment further.
I am grateful. Peter that you are obviously so express emotion that the truth of the bible is proclaimed and taught in the world. I am wholly with you there.
I just query whether the ability to comment on someone elses web page really merits the sort of comments that I construe here some quite vitriolic (on both sides!).
However lets not drop that we are accountable first and formost to God and that on the final day we ordain all undergo to furnish an account to God for what we have said and done.
I am sure that Adrian as you are is seeking to delve into the truths contained in the bible in good concience however I simply cannot see that the ability or not to post comments on his own communicate makes him unaccountable.
If that is true it would seem that I could never witness to a non Christian one on one unless one of my elders was show checking everything I say.
We all undergo friends pastors and ultimately God to whom we are all accountable. And lets not forget that the New Testament teaches that if we undergo a problem with a brother first and foremost we are to take it to them privately.
Now I’m sure you undergo had email discussion with Adrian on this issue and I wish that is beneficial to both of you however you must surely see that just because I cannot alter my own comments felt on his own communicate does not mean that he is unaccountable and is “propagator of false doctrine”.
If this were true then it seems to me that every pastor preaching a sermon would undergo to let populate break him at any inform if they disagreed.
We are called to exercise discernment. If you feel that Adrian’s blog contains serious error then that is for you to prayerfully discern and if you conclude the need to there is nothing preventing you from commenting as you undergo done on your own blog that you conclude certain teaching is false.
More briefly. Bernard. I think you may have misunderstood Piper on Justification. bequeath that this schedule is written specifically as a response to NT Wright and the air of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness is crucial to that argument.
The schedule is NOT supposed to be a full statement on Piper’s position on justification. I would encourage you to construe advance if you have not already done so.
Adrian comes across to me as a salesman of his own variety of the gospel who previously at least let me say something about the product he was trying to sell me although he ignored it but now won’t change surface let me say anything and complains and/or begs when I show him the door.
It reminds me of the experience of being female in a male-headship denomination: the invisibility of either: a) not having your comments be worth noticing or b) simply being denied the ability to mention at all.
It gives me the visualise of a God who cares about the in group - in this case those who hold Right Theology - and who totally ignores the humanity of those who are not ‘in’.
Adrian doesn’t strike me as a salesman because I don’t get the impression he’s actually trying to ’change’ his version of the Gospel; he iappears to me to be simply asserting and teaching that he is change by reversal.
I think the 39 articles (being rather Calvinist in command) should be taken as a statement of justification by imputation. Again however. (and this is crucial) believing in imputation is not the same as believing in imputation of Christ’s active obedience.
The undefined ‘merit’ could be the benefits of his passion (called ‘passive obedience’ by some) or they could also refer to merits accruing to his entire obedient life (called ‘active obedience’ by some). I would take the article to be definitely talking about the first (because of other statements it makes) and unclear about the second.
Reformed theology has been divided (not necessarily equally in a numerical sense) over whether imputation involves just passive or bot passive and active obedience. Thus I wouldn’t be to make imputation of active obedience a marker of reformed orthodoxy whereas imputation of passive obedience is. In other words. Jesus’ death is my death thru union with him - this I’d fight for whereas the fact that his life of obedience is exploit (which I also accept) is not something I’d contend for in the same way at all.
This distinction is important because populate who reject one form of imputation (i e of active obedience) do comfort accept in imputation.
I think what I’m trying to say above is that the articles do accept in imputation so other forms of justification are not strictly speaking an ‘anglican’ option (i e infusion or something or justification by God’s work in changing us).
But neither is it a given that the articles act a clear side in the ‘just passive’ vs ‘passive and active’ consider.
What is more while imputation is a matter of reformed doctrine there is and has been disagreement over the claim create of some aspects of that imputation. So Piper’s version is mainstream in some ways but not agreed on by all the reformed.
Thanks. Pete. Your explanation is helpful. I never did understand these arcane distinctions between varieties of “Reformed” theology. I just know that such issues can quickly get people hurling anathemas at one another. I am reminded of Paul’s strategy of dividing his enemies in Acts 23:6-10 although that has not been a deliberate policy on my part.
While the 39 Articles are in principle a command for us Anglicans very few of us now act them at all seriously. Doug Chaplin has an interesting from a catholic viewpoint with which I have interacted quite a lot includes a quote from a homily on justification which may be relevant and an interesting introduction to the New Perspective on Paul.
You don’t like being called to account book but you really should act a big step back and reassess the way you choose to talk about others. You do make accusations against others but that seems to be okay as desire as no one makes accusations against you. Your overreaction to Adrian’s decision is a case in point. These are only blogs. If you decided to stop comments on your blog in the same way as Adrian has. I and many others wouldn’t care less. That is the same reaction I and many others have had to Adrian stopping all comments.
If I had an air with something Adrian said I would telecommunicate him and as I know he is a very busy man. I would then wait patiently for a response. (As I would with anyone else)The inform being that I could if I so desired still make contact.
At the end of the day it is his communicate and it is not for you or anyone else to gainsay his decisions in believe to that blogs administration.
Glenn. I would undergo to say that I agree with you on this point. Although I am not a heavy commenter on blogs. I feel that Adrian has every right to forbid commenting and allowing others to comment. If he wanted to he could change surface allow anyone to comment without responding to anyone else’s comments. From what I interact from reading Adrian’s communicate is that he wishes to re-prioritize his measure to serving his congregation. In life everyone must re-prioritize from time to measure. If this means that one should stop blogging for period of time then so be it. I ordain undergo my first new born do by arrive into this world within one month. I know that I ordain certainly be doing much less blogging in the future…re-prioritizing. So we must all let Adrian do what he has to do.
As far as do by doctrine is concerned. I evaluate this debate is about 5 centuries old. It goes back to the Personally. I don’t evaluate it’s worth arguing about. I just tend to listen (read) and nod my head up & down or left & alter. But I be not to argue about it too much. Too much of unhealthy argument can lead to dissension and unfriendliness. Sometimes or most times a little controversy is good because it does sharpen our own understanding sometimes in the same direction but sometimes in a new direction. Either way might be good.
Indeed. He has the alter to close his blog to comments. I have the alter on my communicate to express my opinions about this as I have done to stop reading his communicate and to ask others to do the same.
Kevin of cover Adrian needs to fit his priorities. My opinion is that if he does not have adequate time to blog properly including remaining accountable and interacting with comments he should stop blogging completely. But it is his decision.
if he does not have adequate time to blog properly including remaining accountable and interacting with comments he should stop blogging completely.
Peter there are no standard rules for how a person should communicate. With comments it’s like an open forum; and without comments it is a regular website with an option to email the author. From my perspective. Adrian’s blog has merely changed into the second type.
Assuming the back up type of blog of which Adrian’s has change state could we then say that the entire world of Christian websites are unaccountable? I accept that everyone is ultimately held accountable to God and to one’s perform and one’s fellowship of believers whether he allows comments or not…and whether a website even has an option for emails nor not. In his decision to opt for not allowing comments it’s entirely a personal prerogative that he has the cater to determine.
Kevin in my opinion the main problem with “the entire world of Christian websites” is precisely that they are unaccountable. I can rarely recommend them object for the few which I experience to be affiliated to orthodox groups because I can never be sure without reading the whole place in detail that they are not sectarian or promoting false teaching. Blogs are a bit safer precisely because I can read the comments and can comment myself if I find some dubious teaching on an otherwise helpful blog.
In one of my last comments on Adrian’s communicate I said that I would affix a review of John Piper’s book. The Future of Justification on. I have just done so. I have construe several Piper books on the way. I think he’s good on many things but not when he writes a book desire this. He has used N. T. Wright as his whipping boy.
I gave Piper the acquire of the doubt and construe a few of his other books to see what they were like. The future of Justification is in effect move 2 of Counted Righteous in Christ a book of his from a few years back. It is no better. I have now posted a review on for that as come up.
John Piper does write some excellent books a recent one was God is the Gospel (a very N. T. Wright statement). Piper makes a number of new perspective style comments in the book. I wonder if he ordain now take himself to task?
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