The Gospel Coalition

This is the final installment of a 4-part interview with Dr. Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, NC. Click here for Parts 1, 2, and 3.

Trevin Wax: Within the SBC there is much talk about the resurgence of Reformed theology. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of this recent development?

Daniel Akin: The strength in Reformed theology is the healthy biblical perspective on the sovereignty of God. Reformed theology has a high view of the glory of God as the driving principle of all things.

Take the Westminster Catechism, the shorter version: the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Within the Reformed tradition, there tends to be a strong emphasis on confessional theology and understanding what you believe.

The Reformed tradition also has had, historically, a strong focus upon biblical doctrinal preaching. Of course, I would prefer it to be of an expository nature. But it has always had a strong emphasis on biblical and doctrinal preaching.

In its healthier strand, Reformed theology gave way to the modern missionary movement. I don’t hesitate to point out that the father of the modern missionary movement was William Carey, who happened to be a 5-point Calvinist. The father of Baptist missions in America was Adoniram Judson. He was a 5-point Calvinist. You can trace both Carey and Judson’s inspiration for missions back to David Brainerd, who was a 5-point Calvinist. And of course, the most famous Baptist preacher ever, in any context, was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a wonderful gospel preacher who built the largest church in the world at the particular time that he was alive. All of that is something that should be applauded.

What’s the negative? The negative is that there has always been in Reformed theology a strand that unfortunately moves toward fatalism. It also sometimes moves toward antinomianism.

But I’m more concerned about the fatalism strand, because that particular strand then unfortunately devolves into being anti-missionary and anti-evangelistic.

Even today before we talked, I was talking to a friend about two different churches that were looking for student ministers. One church interviewed two young men, and the other interviewed one – all three of whom made it very clear in their interview that they held to Reformed theology.

In one instance, the young man basically said that he did not believe that it would be his responsibility to either teach his student to do evangelism, nor would it be his responsibility to seek to evangelize lost teens and lost young adults. He said that bringing the lost into the body of Christ had at times, in his experience, been problematic and even detrimental. The other two basically just said, “Well, you know evangelism is not a high priority for what we believe we need to be doing in terms of doing student ministry.”

Trevin, not only would I not hire any of the three, to be honest with you, I don’t think any of the three are qualified to be in ministry.

I don’t see how you can have the heart of Jesus who said, “I came to seek and to save that which is lost.” I don’t see how you can have the heart of Jesus who in his final word to his disciples gave his Great Commission found in Matthew 28 and Acts 1. I just find that mindset insane.

So I do recognize that there is that strand within Calvinism that can be very detrimental to the propagation of the gospel.

In fact, when I was at Southern and Jimmy Scroggins was teaching over at Boyce, Jimmy had some students in his personal evangelism class who said they would not fulfill the class assignment of seeking out ways to share their faith on a weekly basis during the semester because, somehow, in their warped way of thinking, they found this to be inconsistent and incompatible with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. To which Dr. Scroggins said, “That is fine. Just recognize that you will fail the class.”

That’s just crazy. That’s Calvinism run amuck. That is really not worth the name of Calvinism. There is that strand within Reformed theology that has been detrimental.

I will quote Dr. Mohler here who says, I never met personally a hyper-Calvinist but I have met some Calvinist who are hyper, and they are more interested in evangelizing for Calvinism than they are the gospel. Those persons tend to not be of much good to anybody.

Trevin Wax: How do you see the relationship between the Southern Baptist Convention and the wider world of evangelicalism?

Daniel Akin: Contentious.

Unfortunately, I fear that the greater world of evangelicalism is shifting and drifting to the left.

I give one example of this. Greg Beale’s most recent book, The Erosion of Inerrancy is basically a critique of those who still claim to be Inerrantists but who, through hermeneutical gymnastics, have basically explained the word away and emptied it of its meaning.

I am gravely concerned about what I see happening in the greater evangelical world. Because Southern Baptists have staked out their claim as to where they are, there is a sense in which we are in a contentious kind of relationship with one aspect of evangelicalism.

On the other hand, do I feel good about the fact that Southern Baptist can participate with and engage movements and conferences like Together for the Gospel? Yes, I think that’s a good thing.

Do I think it is good to have interaction and dialogue with the Resurgence and Acts 29? I’m speaking for this Southern Baptist. Yes, I do.

Some people think this interaction is just horrible. There is still a strand of Southern Baptists that is very parochial and very narrow, a strand that says we need to just bunker down and realize that we don’t need anybody else. We don’t need to interact with anybody else. I think that is an unhealthy strand of SBC life.

I do not think we have to, in any way, surrender our Baptist distinctives, to which I am adamantly committed. I do not think we have to surrender those at all while we engage with like-minded evangelicals who are with us on the gospel, who are with us on penal substitution, who are with us on inerrancy, who are with us on exclusivity.

I received a lot of criticism for my friendship with Mark Driscoll, and for inviting him onto our campus. Do I endorse everything that Mark does? No.

Picking up from his past, would I affirm or applaud the use of profanity in the pulpit? Absolutely not. There is no place for profanity or coarse jesting or crude language in the pulpit. I would never affirm or support that.

I still hold very strongly to total abstinence when it comes to the use of alcohol. I cannot say that alcohol use is a sin, but I can build a pretty good argument in a 21st century American context for the lack of wisdom in supporting an industry that has brought so much sorrow and pain and heartache to so many people. So I do not agree with Mark on that issue.

But am I grateful that Mark has a passion for church planting in the hard places of America? Yes.

Am I grateful for his commitment to inerrancy? Yes.

Penal substitution? Yes.

Exclusivity of the gospel? Yes.

Complimentarianism in terms of gender role and assignment? Yes.

I can think of a number of other persons. People from a Presbyterian background. Others in the Evangelical Free church. Northern evangelicals like John Piper, who is a Baptist though not a Southern Baptist. These are people that I can learn from and be influenced by. So I am grateful for the partnerships that we can have with those individuals.

Even though I am just one Southern Baptist, I believe I represent a fairly large and healthy number, especially generationally.

How much criticism did I get for having Mark Driscoll on my campus from those 40 and under? Almost none.

How much criticism did I get from those 50 and over? Quite a bit.

So some of the controversy might be generational. Again, that does not mean that the older men were wrong, because I do think those that contacted me raised some legitimate concerns. It does not mean that the younger guys are always right, because youthful exuberance just by its very nature lacks a track record of experience and growth and wisdom that comes from living life.

I am not trying to make a value judgment as to who was right or who was wrong. I am just making an empirical observation that most of the younger men are very enthusiastic about some of these partnerships, including those with like Together for the Gospel and others.

A lot of folks over 50 are not only unhappy with my interaction with Mark Driscoll, they are unhappy with my interaction with men like John Piper, Ligon Duncan, or Tim Keller.