But controversy can also provide a teaching moment, not least because the interest of many people is focused on the disputed issues. It is hard to deny that such a moment has arrived. We would like to offer some theological reflections on six conceptual pairings. We have learned over the past few decades that clear thought about the six pairings we are about to comment on is not easy. Others may be able to improve upon our musings, or even correct them. Still, we hope that the following theological reflections will clarify at least a few issues for some people.

1. Persons and Manifestations

What is at stake in the distinction? Toward the end of the second century and right through the third century, a number of thinkers defended a modal Trinity: the one God disclosed in three modes or manifestations. These people were variously called Unitarians, Patripassians (because they believed the Father suffered), or Sabellians (after Sabellius, a presbyter in Ptolemais, c. AD 250). They defended the deity of Christ (and on this one point aligned with historic Christian belief), but they denied personal distinctions in the Godhead. In their view, the one and the same person is simultaneously Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These labels express the different relations that God sustains with the world and the church, just as do other labels (e.g., Creator, King, Sustainer). But one cannot say that God the Creator addresses God the King: there is only one person. So on this view, the one person, God, has revealed himself in various manifestations or modes (hence this view is sometimes called modalism); we are not dealing with one God who has disclosed himself to be three persons, each of whom can and does address the other. It was not long before the church roundly condemned modalism, not least because Scripture is replete with passages in which, for instance, the Father addresses the Son, and the Son the Father.

When orthodox believers sought language to summarize the idea that each person of the Godhead is a self-conscious agent (the Latin category is suppositum intelligens), in the Greek part of the ancient world they first settled on prosōpon ("face"). But the Sabellians understood the same word to mean something like "aspect," and they defended the view that God revealed himself under a threefold aspect. Eventually the orthodox settled on hypostasis. Among the Latin speakers, Christians settled on substantia or persona---and hence our English word "person." (See chart below.) Christian thinkers have argued for centuries exactly how we should understand persona in Latin and "person" in English, but the very least that had to be affirmed was the deeply entrenched biblical reality that the "persons" of the Godhead interact with one another, address one another, love one another, in a "personal" way.

Terms Expressing God's Oneness and Threeness

(This chart is from John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God, A Theology of Lordship [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2002], 697; see pp. 696-705.) Of course, the doctrine of the Trinity is much richer than these few lines suggest. As Christians in the third and fourth century studied the biblical evidence, they insisted that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit express necessary, internal, and eternal relations in the Godhead. Today, of course, we sometimes quickly summarize the doctrine of the Trinity: the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and there is but one God. That is true as far as it goes, but it does not guard very well against modalism. The early church taught "that the Father eternally, necessarily, and incomprehensibly communicates the divine essence to the Son without division or change so that the Son shares an equality of nature with the Father yet is also distinct from the Father" (this is the careful summary of Keith E. Johnson, "Augustine, Eternal Generation, and Evangelical Trinitarianism," TrinJ 32 [2011]: 141-163). The language of "communication" was judged crucial: the essence is absolute and communicable, and the early church fathers spoke of this communication in terms of the eternal generation of the Son, while the person is incommunicable, i.e., it cannot be shared. So while one joyfully confesses that the Son is God and the Father is God, the church throughout its history has equally insisted that the Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son. The church needs a robust Trinitarianism to avoid modalism on the one hand and tritheism on the other.

Had we the space and time, it would be delightful to justify this synthesis by providing the exegesis of many passages, and then extend the discussion from Father and Son to the Spirit. Someone might ask, "But what does it matter?" The answer is twofold: (1) If this summary accurately captures at least some of the glorious truth of the nature of the Godhead, to abandon it is to abandon a true understanding of God. If we are to worship God aright, we must worship him as he is, as he has disclosed himself to us. The only alternative is to worship a god who is progressively false as our understanding skews away from the truth. (2) Various truths connected with the gospel itself become incoherent if one abandons robust Trinitarianism. The Father sends the Son; the Son demonstrates his love for the Father by obeying him all the way to the cross; the Son addresses his Father in the anguished cry, "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?"; the Father gives the elect to the Son; in the plan of God, the Son propitiates the wrath of God and expiates sin; in the wake of his ascension and session at the Father's right hand, the Son reigns as the Father's mediatorial king until he has crushed all opponents, when he will turn the entire scope over to his Father; indeed, when the Son "offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death . . . he was heard because of his reverent submission" (Heb 5:7). None of these relational displays---and there are many others in the drama of redemption---is coherent under modalism. These relations are tied up with the nature of the Godhead. It is not surprising that those who adopt modalism habitually slide toward a diminished gospel.

In his Institutes, John Calvin sums it up: "Say that in the one essence of God there is a trinity of persons: you will say in one word what Scripture says, and cut short empty talkativeness." He then adds that, in his experience, those who "persistently quarrel" over these words "nurse a secret poison" (I.13.5).

2. Biblicism One and Biblicism Two

In the recent Elephant Room (hereafter ER2), T. D. Jakes says that he affirms that God is three persons, but he prefers to speak of three manifestations---and then he provides a text to justify this conclusion: "God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim 3:16 KJV). As Pastor Jakes points out, that is what Paul says, and surely we do not want to write Paul off as a modalist, do we? Isn't Pastor Jakes making a biblical argument? Don't Christians want to defend such committed biblicism?

It is important to untangle this argument in two steps.

First, Pastor Jakes says that he affirms that God is three persons. In ER2, he affirms it again, somewhat laconically, when asked the question directly. We are delighted to hear it. Moreover, he states that some Oneness Pentecostals now think him a heretic because of it. Of course, the Oneness Pentecostal movement has various strands. Some think of him as a heretic, while others in the movement think he is acceptable, even heroic, because at the same time he says he prefers to speak of three manifestations. That must be very reassuring to "soft" Oneness Pentecostals. But the response is deeply disturbing. What does Pastor Jakes mean?

He might mean one of several things. We'll mention three. (a) He may mean, "Words don't matter very much; I can go with 'persons' or 'manifestations,' and I prefer the latter." As one commentator has put it, "It's just semantics." But words do matter, because they are used to express truth and falsehood. In our first pairing, we tried to show that our very understanding of God is bound up with these words, and with it the gospel. Historically, the expressions have not meant the same thing. If Pastor Jakes can use either expression, which one does he mean? (b) He might mean that he is a Trinitarian, but that he prefers the language of manifestations. But why does he prefer the latter terminology? Because he is unaware of the historic debates and their doctrinal significance? Because he wants to appeal to the "soft" Oneness folk? And if the latter, how is he weaning them away from false doctrine if he continues to use the terminology that is associated in their minds with Oneness theology? (c) Or is he really a modalist who concedes "person" language now and then, even though he prefers "manifestations," in order to be acceptable in a wider circle?

The short answer is, we don't know.

In a much-quoted statement deriving from 2000, Pastor Jakes says he believes that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have "distinct and separate functions. . . . [E]ach has individual attributes." Let's give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment. It would be good to ask him some other questions, such as, "Do you think the Son existed, as the Son, before he was sent by his Father into the world [John 3:17]?" Just when our sense of charity hopes that Pastor Jakes really is Trinitarian in his thought but sadly untaught, he adds (in that same 2000 interview) that the discussion is guilty of "splitting hairs" and "semantics": no one is dying for lack of theology---they die for lack of love. Suddenly all our questions surface again. Of course people can die for lack of love; but they can also die for lack of theology. If our theology of God is very wide of the mark, we are believing in a false god. And Paul knows that a "gospel" that is no gospel at all is dangerous, and even dares to pronounce an anathema on those who preach a false gospel (Gal 1:8-9). We no more dare excuse bad or slippery theology in the name of love than we dare excuse brittle lovelessness in the name of orthodoxy.

Meanwhile, we remain uncertain if Pastor Jakes holds to a robust Trinitarianism or not. Sometimes he seems to, as when he observes, quite rightly, that the Father addresses the Son at his baptism. But then again, he prefers to speak of manifestations.

That brings us to the second step: his appeal to 1 Timothy 3:16. "God was manifest in the flesh" (KJV): apparently Pastor Jakes, not to mention some of his post-ER2 supporters, thinks this line supports his preference for three manifestations rather than three persons. It does no such thing; this is scandalously bad exegesis. Note: (a) For this verse to support the preference for manifestations terminology, it would have to support the proposition that God was manifest in the Father, God was manifest in the Son, and God was manifest in the Spirit---for that is what the "manifestations" terminology, applied to the Godhead, is all about. (b) In other words, the "manifest" verb in 1 Timothy 3:16 is not a technical expression justifying three "manifestations," but common language that means God displayed himself in the flesh or expressed himself in the flesh or appeared in the flesh. That is why the NIV renders the passage, "He appeared in the flesh." Should we conclude that this rendering, perfectly accurate, justifies a theory of three appearances?

Now we are getting to the nub of the issue in this second pairing. There is a kind of appeal to Scripture, a kind of biblicism---let's call it Biblicism One---that seems to bow to what Scripture says but does not listen to the text very closely and is almost entirely uninformed by how thoughtful Christians have wrestled with these same texts for centuries. There is another kind of biblicism---let's call it Biblicism Two---that understands the final authority in divine revelation to lie in Scripture traceable to the God who has given it, but understands also that accurate understanding of that Scripture is never supported by bad exegesis and always enriched by the work of Christian thinkers who have gone before.

Here is where the distinction becomes interesting. Neither the terminology of "manifestations" preferred by Oneness Pentecostals and other modalists nor the terminology of "persons" supported by historic creeds is directly used in Scripture. Where does it come from? It comes from thinkers two or three centuries after the New Testament was written who were doing their best to summarize large tracks of biblical themes and texts in faithful, accurate summaries, even if the terminology was not directly dependent on the terminology of a specific verse or two. History has shown, for the reasons briefly set forth in our first pairing, that the terminology of "manifestations" was soundly trounced and declared heretical: it simply could not be squared with what the Bible says. The "persons" terminology prevailed (along with words like "subsistence") not because it derived directly from usage in the biblical documents themselves, but because it could be shown that this terminology did a great job of summarizing what the Bible actually says.

If you don't like this example, it is easy to find others. The doctrine of justification, for example, was not invented in Reformation times. Tom Oden (The Justification Reader [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002]) has amply demonstrated how justification was discussed in the patristic period. Nevertheless, in God's providence the disputes of sixteenth-century Europe provided much more intense study of these matters than what was undertaken in previous centuries. The result was much more exegetical rigor and theological synthesis. Just as the Christological and Trinitarian disputes of the third and fourth centuries generated syntheses that were actually grounded in the Bible and designed to reject false teaching, so the justification debates did something analogous in the sixteenth century. Just as the Christological debates generated theological terms like "essence" and "person," belonging to the domain of systematic theology yet actually reflecting faithful biblical synthesis, so the justification debates generated theological terms that analyzed "faith" under rubrics like notitia (the content of faith), assensus (confidence that this faith-content is true), and fiducia (trust in the true content of faith such that it changes how you live).

To attempt theological interpretation without reference to such developments is part and parcel of Biblicism One; to attempt theological interpretation that is self-consciously aware of such developments and takes them into account is part and parcel of Biblicism Two. We hasten to add that both Biblicism One and Biblicism Two insist that final authority rests with the Bible. All the theological syntheses are in principle revisible. Yet the best of these creeds and confessions have been grounded in such widespread study, discussion, debate, and testing against Scripture that to ignore them tends to cut oneself off from the entire history of Christian confessionalism. The Bible remains theoretically authoritative (Biblicism One), but in fact it is being manipulated and pummeled by private interpretations cut off from the common heritage of all Christians.

Some months ago, James MacDonald wrote:

I affirm the doctrine of the Trinity as I find it in Scripture. I believe it is clearly presented but not detailed or nuanced. I believe God is very happy with His Word as given to us and does not wish to update or clarify anything that He has purposefully left opaque. Somethings [sic] are stark and immensely clear, such as the deity of Jesus Christ; others are taught but shrouded in mystery, such as the Trinity. I do not trace my beliefs to creedal statements that seek clarity on things the Bible clouds with mystery. I do not require T. D. Jakes or anyone else to define the details of Trinitarianism the way that I might. His [Jakes's] website states clearly that he believes God has existed eternally in three manifestations.

This, of course, is Biblicism One. As a statement about the location of final authority, it is as admirable as Biblicism Two. The thing to note is that it uses the language of "three manifestations," which is not found in Scripture, so while claiming the authority of Biblicism One it is nevertheless sanctioning post-biblical categories. We simply cannot escape the fact that our linguistic labels are shaped by prior discussion. But if the statement had taken into account the detailed discussions about "manifestations" that have informed Christian reflection since the fourth century, the author would have insisted that "manifestations" is not an acceptable way to talk about the Godhead, and that there are detailed reasons for preferring "persons"---reasons that are grounded not in arbitrary or personal semantic preference, but in words that have been used to summarize large swaths of Christian teaching about God and which are faithful to this synthesis.

Several Christians challenged James on these matters, and James accepted the correction with humility and grace, and soon came down off that ledge. We want to give him full credit for that. Not all Christian leaders could have accepted the correction as well, and we are only bringing it up as an instructive example. Yet that is the ledge on which T. D. Jakes seems currently to be perched. His commitment to Biblicism One does not mean that he is, in the best sense, "biblical," and his handling of 1 Timothy 3:16 on a topic of this importance is not reassuring.

3. Prosperity Gospel and Empowerment

ER2 addressed many pastorally interesting and useful topics. Quite a number of commentators, however, have expressed disappointment that no one pushed T. D. Jakes on his apparent support for the prosperity gospel.

Pastor Jakes prefers to think that what he is preaching is a kind of empowerment to oppressed people rather than a prosperity gospel. The distinction is an important one. The Bible supports a certain kind of empowerment; indeed, one and the same gospel tends to build up the oppressed and slap down the haughty. On the one hand, James 1:9 says, "Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position." Believers who are dirt poor, ill, dismissed as nothing in society, are nevertheless already children of the King of kings, and will, with Lazarus, one day lie on Abraham's bosom (Luke 16:19-37). On the other hand, James 1:10-11 says, "But the rich should take pride in their humiliation [Isn't that a delightful phrase, worthy of much reflection?]---since they will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business." At least some applications of the gospel will be a little different where there is a congregation of broken, indigent people as compared with where there is a congregation of wealthy, successful people.

Yet it is easy to hide a prosperity gospel under the much more acceptable banner of merely empowering the broken. There are two ways to tell. First, discover whether the eternal and universal realities of the gospel "once for all entrusted to God's holy people" (Jude 3)---not just some of them---lie at the center of what is being preached. Second, find out how much of the "empowerment" focuses on material health and prosperity in this life. Since his breakthrough book, Woman, Thou Art Loosed, Pastor Jakes has left an impressive trail of books and downloads to enable you to assess such matters for yourself. Moreover, the 9Marks website offers penetrating and careful reviews of most the books that Pastor Jakes has written. As far as the evidence goes, we do not see how it is unfair to characterize the burden of much of his ministry as a combination of prosperity gospel and moralizing personal improvement.

4. Love and Truth

A fair bit has been posted on the lovelessness of TGC in general and of some of its members in particular. We cannot help but notice that there are two categories of charges that contradict each other somewhat. On the one hand, we love issues more than people; we should be reconcilers, not haters; we are called to love one another, and we are failing in this regard. On the other hand, quite a few bloggers have criticized TGC for being too silent: in a word, we are cowards instead of standing up for the truth, caving in to megachurch pastors instead of speaking the truth.

We are not above reproach in either direction. All of us will answer to God on the last day; on a much shorter scale, the Council of the Coalition will certainly weigh very carefully at our May meeting what we have and have not done. What we are quite certain of, however, is that the apostle who so movingly writes 1 Corinthians 13 also writes many things about the non-negotiability of the truth of the gospel. He can be surprisingly patient with preachers with bad motives provided that what they preach is the gospel (Phil 1), but when the Jesus who is being preached is "a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached," Paul can label the preachers "false apostles" who are "masquerading as apostles of Christ" (2 Cor 11) and insist that the Corinthians expel them.

What that means, of course, is that Christian leaders are charged with discerning when and how the tough line must be taken. Even when discipline is demanded, it should never be vituperative. But to appeal to the many passages that exhort us to love without simultaneously thinking through the many passages that bind us to uphold the truth is not only one-sided, it is in danger of being manipulative: if you do not agree with me, you are unloving. Of course, the manipulation can run the other way: if you do not reject this person or this position, you do not care for the truth.

The most recent biography Iain Murray has written is the life of Archibald Brown, one of the successors of Charles Spurgeon. Murray gives us a thumb-nail sketch of the Downgrade controversy (something he filled out in more detail in his earlier volume, The Forgotten Spurgeon). Spurgeon, Brown, and others were increasingly concerned by the effect of German rationalism on Baptist churches in England. What is so striking is how often their opponents charged Spurgeon and his friends with lovelessness, arrogance, old-fashioned small-mindedness---often in a singularly unloving way---without ever engaging the matters of substance. Here, for example, is the Nonconformist and Independent for 17 November, 1887: "Mr Spurgeon and those who follow him seem to be intent upon accentuating the differences of Nonconformists, instead of seeking to draw nearer to each other by unity with their Lord." So the issue Spurgeon thought important is not taken up, but Spurgeon himself is divisive. It is easy to multiply historical examples of this sort.

Those who take up important theological issues must do so in love, examining their own hearts, avoiding snarkiness and oneupmanship; those who appeal to love and unity need to actually engage with the issues, refusing to duck them.

5. Racism and Playing the Race Card

Doubtless this is the most delicate, sensitive, and complicated of the issues that have arisen, and we do not want to add to the confusion by saying too much or too little, or by writing with the wrong tone. But it would be irresponsible if we said nothing.

About three weeks ago the majority of the African American Council members of TGC made it clear that they felt the white members, not least the leadership, were more sensitive to white theological issues than to black theological issues. After all, TGC had mounted an informed, careful, and bold response to Rob Bell when the incipient universalism of his latest book started to receive national attention and threaten the truth of Scripture and the nature of the gospel. Our African American brothers pointed out, however, that Rob Bell is not perceived to be a great threat in African American circles. But these brothers felt pretty strongly that T. D. Jakes is a huge issue in their circles. On this issue, they thought, TGC was insensitive to what they thought of as a much greater threat.

There were about ten of us involved in those discussions. As soon as matters were articulated like that, the white men among us could not help but see that the charge was justified. Insensitivity on matters of race can be such a subtle thing. By and large, white Christian leaders tend to think that racism is no longer a huge issue, while black Christian leaders tend to think it remains a huge issue: even our perceptions of the significance of the problem are not on the same page. But in this case we caught a glimpse of something that we knew theoretically, but were now seeing up front: there is still a lot of hidden culpable insensitivity around until we are no less eager to engage the "other's" concerns than our own.

Of course, the issue was complicated by at least two other factors. First, not all African American members saw things the same way. But why should that surprise us? Not all white Christians see things the same way, either. Still, the clear majority of our African American brothers on the Council let us know, rightly, that they were upset. And we judged we had clearly been in the wrong. Second, in one way, of course, this issue was different from Rob Bell's book, in that there had been no member of the Council who was committed to exploring how acceptable Rob Bell's theology might be within historic confessionalism, but there were some members of the Council who were committed to exploring T. D. Jakes in this way. But that meant, of course, that the racial insensitivity issue that the majority of our African American brothers on the Council brought up was linked with Jakes's modalist heritage and his prosperity gospel, which in the words of a couple of them, was "ravaging" the black churches. From their perspective, some of them had paid considerable cost for publicly standing against Pastor Jakes. They had done so precisely because their minds and hearts had been captured by the glorious gospel of the blessed God---and when they needed the most support, the white brothers were letting them down. Suddenly all the theological "pairings" we have articulated in this blogpost were linked together.

Subtleties and ironies surfaced everywhere in the subsequent developments. Some wanted to give T. D. Jakes a pass on the ground that African American churches are more interested in redemption than creeds. That's a bit like giving Jonathan Edwards a pass on slavery because he was a man of his own time and class. All of us must hold one another to the standard of God's most holy Word. In fact, it is a kind of insult to Pastor Jakes to give him a pass because of his ethnicity.

It will serve no good purpose to provide a detailed step-by-step account of all that unfolded from that point on. But we must insist in the strongest terms that the white Council members acted not only out of doctrinal and pastoral concerns, but newly aware that we had flubbed the racism test and were trying to make things right. Equally, the African American Council members, far from kowtowing to white concerns, were themselves acting out of their deepest doctrinal and pastoral commitments---commitments for which some of them had already paid a considerable price. It does them---not to say historic Christian confessionalism---an enormous disservice to charge them with betraying their ethnicity. Historic Christian confessionalism is not the private playground of middle-aged white guys. Have we forgotten that the most brilliant and influential thinker in the fourth century when many of the Trinitarian controversies came to resolution was a North African by the name of Augustine?

6. Private and Public

For our purposes, this topic has at least three dimensions.

First, talking with T. D. Jakes in ER2 has been cast as listening to someone first before we say anything critical of him. Relationships precede evaluation. Anyone who ventures a critical evaluation of Pastor Jakes before ER2 is simply being judgmental. With respect, this argument does not hold up to either Scripture or reason. Pastor Jakes is not a private individual about whom some people might have heard a few negative things. If that were the case, it would be imperative to uncover the truth before passing on what would in that case be nothing more than gossip. Pastor Jakes, however, is a public individual. He himself publishes his views in various media; they circulate widely. He is read and heard around the world. Not long ago in a Christian bookshop in South Africa, one of the writers of this article discovered that the author with the greatest number of books on the shelf was T. D. Jakes. It is the responsibility of Christian pastors to become aware of such a preacher and teacher if his works are significantly influencing their own flocks. To imagine that no fair evaluation is possible before an ER2-type public event does not square with apostolic practice. When in 2 Corinthians 10-13 Paul learns of interlopers who are preaching another Jesus, he does not begin by arranging a fireside chat. The content and direction of the interlopers' ministry is already public, and Paul confronts it.

Second, one might well ask, "But isn't it different when someone seems to be leaving the camp of a demonstrably false theology, and becoming more orthodox? Isn't this sort of public discussion in that case very helpful?" Perhaps. In our view, however, there is a better way. A quarter of a century ago, one of us was involved, with other Christian leaders, in several intense, probing discussions with leaders of a major cult. Neither side wanted these discussions to be public; they took place behind closed doors, without cameras or reporters. The cultists were wanting serious discussions with us because their own reading of Scripture was gradually bringing them around to historic confessional orthodoxy. In due course they went public on their own terms, and brought out many of their followers into evangelicalism. That development would not have taken place had the discussions been held in the open.

It is surely a wise and strategic thing to engage in probing conversations with many people with views very dissimilar to our own---not only Christians, but non-Christians, too. And many of our Council members are involved in such discussions, partly in function of normal human friendships, partly in function of Christian witness. Sometimes discussions take place with gifted orators whose theology is still a bit wonky: there is always a place for a Priscilla and an Aquila to teach an Apollos to understand the way of God a little better than he has understood it so far, and there is always a place for a Paul to reason with pagan philosophers in the Areopagus. Many of us are so involved. But that is a bit different from trying to reform another's theology in a public setting where the trappings and attitudes largely suggest everyone is already on the same side.

Third, as useful as it is on so many fronts, the internet is not notable for fostering discretion in this arena. Bloggers who have no idea of how many hours have been spent in private conversation to win someone to a better way often write with instantaneous public appraisals and unfettered language. They invariably think they write with prophetic insight; sometimes, at least, the contempt displayed is simply sinful. A colleague recently reminded one of us how Calvin set up four organizations in Geneva: the Company of Preachers, the Congregation, the Ordinary Censure, and the Consistory, each with its own responsibilities and assignments. It is the third that is of interest here: the Ordinary Censure brought together the area pastors four times a year, behind closed doors, where they addressed one another with their perceptions of another's false teaching, dealt with personality conflicts, and the like. The aim was to work things out, hold one another accountable, and bring correction and healing. Each of those four meetings was scheduled one week before the quarterly celebration of the Lord's Table. The accountability was remarkable---and it was possible, at least in part, because of the regularity and privacy of the Ordinary Censure. This was not designed to skirt the biblical instruction that where there is public accusation against an elder that is found to be justified, the elder is to be reproved before everyone (1 Tim 5:19-20), but it was designed to be a mutually correcting and restorative venue before matters had progressed that far.

We conclude by reiterating what we said in the opening lines. The purpose of this post is not to provide a re-hash of recent events, still less to assign blame. It is to provide some theological and pastoral reflection on the interlocking issues with which we have been wrestling.

You, our readers, bring great joy to our work. Last year you tallied more than 23 million pageviews on our site. We monitor our statistics if only to understand your interests and learn how we can more effectively serve you. The Gospel Coalition is a community project, and you further our goals of renewing faith in Christ and reforming ministry practices by contributing articles, commenting on posts, and recommending resources to your friends. Your feedback helps us know which issues to cover, conversations to foster, and voices to feature.

New Staff

Today is particularly exciting in the life of our community. We've been preparing many months to take the next step that will position The Gospel Coalition to fulfill our mission: "to renew the contemporary church in the ancient gospel of Christ so that we truly speak and live for him in a way that clearly communicates to our age." So today we unveil a tweaked homepage design that we hope will more effectively feature the breadth of resources we publish on a daily basis. We're especially hopeful you'll enjoy our new You Should Know feature. We're seeking to build on the success of Right Now, which aims to direct you toward crucial and often encouraging articles around the Web each day. You Should Know will likewise help you browse the blogosphere and breaking news, but our editors will also weigh in with a couple paragraphs of context to help you understand why you should know about these stories.

To spearhead this news feature, we've hired Joe Carter as a new editor. You may know Joe from his previous work as web editor of First Things magazine and co-author of How to Argue Like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway). He serves as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. Joe will also write and edit longer articles on our site, bringing years of varied experience and keen evangelical insight to our expanding editorial initiatives. If you see a news story our community should know about, please send the link to joe.carter *at* thegospelcoalition.org.

New Bloggers

We also know that many of you visit our site several times each day to benefit from the excellent work of our bloggers. They direct us toward inspiring videos, challenge us with insightful commentary, and inform us of upcoming books and events. Today we welcome two new bloggers we believe will become regular stops on your daily reading tour. Trevin Wax has been blogging since the fall of 2006 at Kingdom People. Many of you already know him as the managing editor of The Gospel Project, a gospel-centered small group curriculum for all ages that focuses on the grand narrative of Scripture, and as author of the books Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals and Counterfeit Gospels: Rediscovering the Good News in a World of False Hope. We're excited to feature his steady stream of challenging, encouraging, and Christ-exalting writing on missions, ministry, and much more.

Jared C. Wilson has been blogging at The Gospel-Driven Church since the summer of 2007. The pastor of Middletown Springs Community Church in Middletown Springs, Vermont, Jared brings to our site a passion to spread gospel wakefulness in the evangelical church. His blogging expands on many of the themes featured in his growing library of books and study guides: Gospel Wakefulness, Your Jesus Is Too Safe, Abide, Seven Daily Sins, and Gospel Deeps. He also wrote the soon-to-be published book The Explicit Gospel with Matt Chandler. We've linked so often to Jared's writing that we figured he might as well write for The Gospel Coalition.

The preamble to TGC's foundation documents says, "We yearn to work with all who, in addition to embracing the confession and vision set out here, seek the lordship of Christ over the whole of life with unabashed hope in the power of the Holy Spirit to transform individuals, communities, and cultures." The new staff and bloggers share these commitments, so together we trust the triune God to revive his church by the power of the gospel. Join us in welcoming these new ministry partners and praying to this end!

The Gospel Coalition recently released our mobile apps for Android, iPhone, and iPad with the hopes that they will help you access our videos, articles, book reviews, and links on the go. The app was created by a talented group of Christians called Subsplash. We asked Subsplash principal Tim Turner to tell us more about how they serve the church by creating mobile apps.

The early bird registration rate for The Gospel Coalition national women's conference in Orlando ends in two days.

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We hope to see you in Florida this summer!

1. D. A. Carson | Editorial: Spiritual Disciplines
2. Jonathan Gibson | Jonathan Edwards: A Missionary?
3. Andrew Moody | That All May Honour the Son: Holding Out for a Deeper Christocentrism
4. Rodney J. Decker | An Evaluation of the 2011 Edition of the New International Version
5. Melvin Tinker | Friends: The One with Jesus, Martha, and Mary;  An Answer to Kierkegaard
6. 71 Book Reviews

Old Testament | 4 reviews

New Testament | 19 reviews

history and historical theology | 6 reviews

systematic theology and bioethics | 19 reviews

ethics and pastoralia | 9 reviews

missions and culture | 14 reviews

The apps are designed to help you follow the various feeds we use to populate our website. For example, you can access the Right Now section for the latest news or individual blogs such as TGC Voices, Justin Taylor, or Kevin DeYoung (other blogs coming soon). You an also access book reviews, videos, tweets and other types of content. The iPad app stands out in terms of design and usability, especially for watching videos.

So download the app and let us know what you think. We know there is a lot of room for improvement, but this is just a first step---a desire to serve you with a better mobile experience. In the next update, we will be providing access to new content as well as adding other handy tools like a share feature. Note: the Android app will not include the completed overview screen for two more months. Instead, it will feature the TGC Voices blog as a default.

Check out the images below for a preview of what the app looks like. We hope you like it!

Whatever else The Gospel Coalition has or has not done, it has not prohibited mutual criticism among Council members. We disagree not only on some historic dogmatic matters (e.g., baptism, church governance) but also on an array of pastoral judgments (e.g., multisite churches, approaches to evangelism)---which are of course themselves grounded in our respective understandings of theological issues. On some matters where all Council members are on the same "side" (e.g., complementarianism), we find ourselves in somewhat different places when it comes to implementing our shared theological commitments. At the same time, the richness and detail of our Confessional Statement and our Theological Vision for Ministry demonstrate that we wish to avoid lowest-common-denominator theology. But how do we negotiate the difficult occasions when our foundation documents appear to be skirted, or where boundaries become too porous?

We would like to offer seven reflections on these matters.

(1) From the beginning TGC has distinguished between a boundary-bounded set and a center-bounded set. In the former, you establish boundaries to determine who is "in" and who is "outside" the set---whether the set of true believers, or the set of faithful Presbyterians, or the set of evangelicals, or any other set. For the boundary to have any hope of doing its job, it has to be well defined. If the definitions are sloppy, the boundary keeps getting pushed farther and farther out. For example, suppose we were to say that an evangelical is someone who believes in inerrancy. That may be true, but by itself it is almost useless as a boundary-setting criterion for evangelicalism, since many other people espouse inerrancy who on other criteria are not evangelicals (e.g., Jehovah's Witnesses). Moreover, someone might point to an individual who believes that Jesus died to bear our sin and satisfy the wrath of God, that he rose from the dead, that he is coming at the end of the age to establish resurrection existence in the new heaven and the new earth, that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, who has personally placed his or her faith in the Lord Jesus, but who holds to a fairly high view of Scripture without subscribing to inerrancy: is that person an evangelical? How much deviation on any point do we allow before we insist the person is not an evangelical? Discussions of this sort lead some writers to declare that there is no widely accepted doctrinal definition of evangelical. The same exercise could be undertaken with definitions of Presbyterian, Baptist, or any number of other flags. Nevertheless in boundary-bounded sets, the attempt is made to provide a boundary that defines who is "in" and who is "out"---and there is usually quite a bit of pressure to keep expanding that boundary, with the result that it easily becomes painfully porous, even meaningless.

Sometimes this way of thinking leads to hopelessly bad questions such as "What is the least I must believe in order to be called an evangelical?"---the answer to which often generates reductionistic approaches to evangelism and horribly emaciated lowest-common-denominator versions of the gospel. Why not rather ask, "How can I give a theologically rich definition of evangelicalism that faithfully reflects the whole counsel of God?" Worse, inside the boundary there is so little agreed tough-minded confessionalism that love for the truth and a deep knowledge of the Bible and historical and systematic theology are rarely encouraged.

By contrast, center-bounded sets don't worry too much about who is "in" and "out" at the periphery. Instead, there is a robust definition at the center. For TGC, the center is defined by our Confessional Statement (CS) and Theological Vision for Ministry (TVM) and sustained by the Council members. There we expect unreserved commitment to these foundation documents. As for others, we often have to explain that people cannot "join" the Coalition. Individuals and churches may choose to identify themselves with us and use the thousands of resources on our site, but Council members do not fall into paroxysms of doubt as to whether or not this individual or that church truly belongs to TGC: we are not a denomination, and we do not have the resources to engage in the kind of vetting at the periphery that a boundary-bounded set demands. At the margins there are many who love part of what we stand for and not other parts. They too are welcome to use our material. At the center, however, we expect robust allegiance.

(2) If someone on our Council espouses something not in line with our CS and TVM, that person is challenged. In other words, at the center there is unqualified accountability. That does not necessarily mean that there are only two options: either we decide that what the person espoused is acceptable, so we defend him, or we decide it is not, so we throw him under the bus. There may be a redemptive option: attempting to enable the brother in question to see the error of his ways and publicly turn from those ways toward greater fidelity. Alternatively, if the brother chooses not to conform unreservedly to the CS and the TVM, we might ask him for his resignation from the Council. If he were to refuse to resign, there is machinery in place to force the issue, all the way to a vote in the Council, which is final. Or again, if the brother accepted correction, but every six months or so drifted into another nasty instance of foot-in-mouth disease, showing a disappointing self-distancing from the CS and the TVM, always reliably unreliable, the Council might well ask him for his resignation.

(3) The kind of allegiance to the gospel and the Scriptures we expect at the center, expressed in our CS and TVM, extends beyond mere personal allegiance. All of us have witnessed politicians who claim they are opposed to abortion, for instance, but who vote the other way because, they say, they do not want to impose their beliefs on others. History is replete with seminary presidents and deans who are personally orthodox but who appoint faculty members who are not. The most recent kerfuffle in TGC was initially precipitated when James MacDonald (as he has acknowledged), though he espoused the doctrine of the Trinity classically understood, gave the impression that other formulations might be acceptable---formulations that sounded a great deal like modalism (Sabellianism). James has turned away from some of what he wrote: a modalist God, he has told some of us repeatedly, cannot save. James was not the first to be challenged on something he said, and will doubtless not be the last. So far as our CS and TVM are concerned, Council members must not be "in process of re-thinking" fundamental matters: for us, they are settled.

(4) Within these bounds, Council members discharge ministries that are highly diverse, with their own networks, specific aims, and relationships with many people outside the Council. Sometimes these relationships make other Council members uncomfortable. A Council member may choose to participate in discussions with an organization known for its laxness in doctrine and practice. He may do so in order to serve as a voice for faithful Christian confessionalism within that organization. Looking at this ministry, other Council members might evaluate things differently and warn the participating Council member that he is merely being used: it would be wiser for to avoid the association. But those are judgment calls. TGC does not normally take any position on whether a Council member's associations are wise or expedient, even though there are not a few Council members who will offer their private judgments out of genuine affection and concern for gospel fidelity and clarity.

(5) One of the things that brought James MacDonald's associations in the Elephant Room into dispute was another factor that cannot be ignored. Many Christian leaders, both within TGC and outside TGC, invite people to their radio broadcasts or podcasts or other forums who are, by their own admission, opposed to the gospel . So a Ravi Zacharias might debate an atheist or an Al Mohler invite a Stanley Fish to an interview. Such sessions are informative, helpful, probing, interesting, and honest. The Christian host makes it clear he is operating out of the framework of unyielding biblical commitments, and then engages those with quite different persuasions. The problem with the Elephant Room was that as initially envisaged it was designed to bring together Christian brothers. To invite someone to such a gathering where that person has not, at the very least, distanced himself from the modalism in which he was reared and which is at odds with Christian convictions in every branch and corner of orthodox Christendom, seemed not only to lack wisdom but to allow tolerance levels to rise to the point where confessionalism is being swamped (see our third point, above). In fact, the design and purposes of the Elephant Room have changed at a rate of speed that eclipsed its mission statement. James has in recent days tried to set the record straight. Many, I suspect, will now wait to see how the hosts of the Elephant Room handle themselves and interact with their guests in the sessions ahead. If they do so with understanding of the truths they discuss, coupled with firmness on the one hand and courtesy on the other, they will go a long way toward stilling doubts. If (God forbid) they were to give the impression that foundational Christian truths do not matter, inevitably serious questions will be raised, and rightly so.

(6) We should offer a brief reflection on confessionalism and conversion. Confessions come in different sizes and degrees of complexity. The longest Christian confession is the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF). But no subscriber to the WCF would say that a person must believe everything in the entire document to be saved. More broadly, I suspect that most Christian pastors would concur that that it is possible to be saved without believing in the doctrine of the Trinity: young children, for instance, or fresh adult converts from illiterate and biblically illiterate backgrounds might be hard-pressed to articulate the doctrine accurately. In exactly the same way, a person may truly trust Christ without being able to articulate the doctrine of justification. In neither case, however, does this mean that the doctrine---of the Trinity, of justification---is of no importance. It would certainly be troubling to find a new (ostensible) believer denying either doctrine; equally, it would be troubling to find a putative believer drifting more and more toward unorthodox beliefs, utterly uncorrectable, perhaps reaching the point of becoming a teacher of doctrine that cannot be squared with Scripture.

This can be teased out a little farther. In some discussion or other, we might claim, rightly, that the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is irrefragably tied up with the gospel. Someone might object, "Surely not! Is an orthodox view of the Trinity necessary for salvation?" In reality, these are two differentiable issues. To say that the doctrine of the Trinity is tied up with the gospel is to make a claim about the structure of the gospel, about what the gospel is, about its content. The doctrine of the Trinity helps to establish the oneness of the purposes of God in the mission of the Son, to demonstrate the intra-Trinitarian love of God that bears so much on what the Son achieves in his death and resurrection (see John 17!), that differentiates the roles of the persons of the Godhead in the plan of redemption, and so forth:  without the doctrine of the Trinity, the entire schema of the gospel would be transmuted into something unrecognizable. A modalist God, then, cannot save---at least not in any NT understanding of salvation. When we assert that the TGC is passionate about the gospel, we are saying something more than that we are passionate to evangelize (though I hope all of us mean at least that): we are passionate about the gospel as it is presented in Scripture. The gospel is not the little bit of the Bible that tips us into the kingdom so that we can get on with our discipleship and doctrine courses, but the big category, the heart of the Bible's storyline, that joyously announces what God has done through his Son for his own glory and for the good of his blood-bought people, the church of the living God. That is why we worry about questions like this: "What is the least that a person must believe so as to be saved?"---implying, perhaps, that that is the gospel. God help us! That sort of approach will guarantee thin gruel. We should be asking, rather, "How can we preach the whole counsel of God, demonstrating in countless ways the matchless richness of the gospel of God, to the end that men and women might be saved and that all should honor the Son even as the Father?"

We suspect that some of the blog exchanges on this subject have slipped past one another in indignant disarray because one party was calling for gospel cohesion and the other was calling for a charitable answer to the question of who may be saved.  The latter question must never be allowed to trim the robust richness of the gospel of God; the former question must not become the necessary and sufficient criterion as to who is saved. And if this reasoning is right, we must train up pastors and evangelists who are not drifting endlessly toward lowest-common-denominator theology, but who love to announce the whole counsel of God.

(7) The blogosphere encourages very rapid responses. Sometimes that enables Christians to   address challenges in a timely way. That was one of the things that happened when Rob Bell's book Love Wins was published. But the blogosphere's very speed sometimes encourages polarized or intemperate responses before enough time has elapsed for faithful and mature thought to put things in perspective. We have learned a great deal from the calibrated responses of TGC Council members and others who have contributed to these serious discussions and who have avoided snarky sarcasm, and we are grateful beyond words.

This month, for example, you'll read Tim Keller on gospel polemics and Ligon Duncan (a Presbyterian) and Thabiti Anyabwile (a Baptist) writing together about baptism and the Lord's Supper. You'll also want to browse the archives of Kategoria, a wonderful journal published in Australia to critique secularism. Looking ahead you'll want to take note of our forthcoming regional conference, Plant New England, held outside Boston and featuring Mark Dever as a speaker.

We hope and pray that this monthly newsletter will make our site more useful, and that this in turn will foster increased gospel-centered reflection and biblically faithful understanding. Thank you for partnering with us to promote gospel centered ministry for the next generation.

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At the 2011 TGC national conference in Chicago, Christ+City organized a post-conference event on "Renewing Our Cities with the Gospel." Below you can watch a video with Tim Keller on "Reaching Your City with the Gospel" [download audio].

You can also listen to or watch more than 60 resources from this year's conference.