A Happening in Australia
May 23, 2008
A friend down under tells me that Andy McGowan's book is provoking something of a storm and that an invitation to speak at Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne has been withdrawn.
I confess to struggling with what to make of Andy's The Divine Spiration of Scripture (IVP UK). I've known Andy and his work for the best part of twenty years. He is no liberal and has written stoutly in defence of orthodoxy. And I am trying my best not to be persuaded by the reviews by my friends, Iain D and Martin Downes; but they are men who rarely if ever misspeak on theological issues; and their interpretations have yet to be refuted. This latest book is at best ambiguous and vague on key points; and the use of T F Torrance, a man whose theology (and appalling prose style!) failed to do anything to stem the catastrophic collapse in Christianity within the Church of Scotland, is perplexing to say the least.
The next decade is clearly going to see yet another battle for the Bible, with the tired old liberalism reinventing itself and finding expression in the latest postmodern idiom. Even if Andy's only fault is vagueness and ambiguity (and I think that is an exceptionally charitable reading) such does nothing to help the cause at this moment in time. Again, Andy is no liberal and a valued Christian brother; but PTC have had to take a tough and necessary stand at a point in time when the problem with the boundaries of orthodoxy is not that they are too strict; and the issue with scripture is not that too many have too wooden a view of inspiration but that too many have no coherent view at all. PTC will no doubt be trashed for its stand by the usual -- and perhaps some unusual -- suspects who feel they have a right to interfere in the business of others. But time will, I suspect, demonstrate that PTC has taken the higher, if harder, path.
I confess to struggling with what to make of Andy's The Divine Spiration of Scripture (IVP UK). I've known Andy and his work for the best part of twenty years. He is no liberal and has written stoutly in defence of orthodoxy. And I am trying my best not to be persuaded by the reviews by my friends, Iain D and Martin Downes; but they are men who rarely if ever misspeak on theological issues; and their interpretations have yet to be refuted. This latest book is at best ambiguous and vague on key points; and the use of T F Torrance, a man whose theology (and appalling prose style!) failed to do anything to stem the catastrophic collapse in Christianity within the Church of Scotland, is perplexing to say the least.
The next decade is clearly going to see yet another battle for the Bible, with the tired old liberalism reinventing itself and finding expression in the latest postmodern idiom. Even if Andy's only fault is vagueness and ambiguity (and I think that is an exceptionally charitable reading) such does nothing to help the cause at this moment in time. Again, Andy is no liberal and a valued Christian brother; but PTC have had to take a tough and necessary stand at a point in time when the problem with the boundaries of orthodoxy is not that they are too strict; and the issue with scripture is not that too many have too wooden a view of inspiration but that too many have no coherent view at all. PTC will no doubt be trashed for its stand by the usual -- and perhaps some unusual -- suspects who feel they have a right to interfere in the business of others. But time will, I suspect, demonstrate that PTC has taken the higher, if harder, path.
