This is very poorly considered. Steve, you haven't considered the possibility that they would be teaching and or writing it regardless of the breadth of the audience because they actually believe that this is true (in the same way that your own polemics here testify to what you believe) and whether or not applause was forthcoming would be immaterial. If this is the case - and you have no reason to think it is not, apart from your unsupported assumptions - then your entire criticism is not only misplaced, but slanderous, impugning the motives of hundreds of people simply because you disagree with them.

There is another reason why your criticism is unkindly insufficient. Implicit in the entire second paragraph is the idea that these people you despise do not engage the points of view with which they differ in sufficient depth. A light perusal of any substantial work from any of the authors you cite would prove this assertion baldly wrong.

Again, you have no reason to assume they are doing this for applause, the fact that these works are successful could be as much the effect as the cause of their efforts, and to assume the proliferative results to be the cause is to assume the worst about a brother for no reason at all. Secondly, they engage the opposing arguments as thoroughly as anyone in the field, making them all the more resolute in their positions. If you had read their more substantial works, you would know this.

Nice slap in the face for JT and Crossway, how courteous of y'all.

I suppose Piper, Carson, et al should be like John the Baptist and live out in the desert, thereby assuring that they will not be a part of any group.

I think that if Piper, etc were convinced of a Scriptural truth, they would preach and teach it regardless of their peer group. Regardless, why is everyone so shocked that conservative evangelicals read books that support their convictions? Seems like a no-brainer to me. What I find confusing is why those who don't like Piper, Carson, Crossway, Desiring God, etc. read this blog so religiously.

I cant see that according to 2 Peter 2... what I see is a man tormented by the ungodly & delivered by God. Back in Genesis however, Abraham did say if you go left, I will go right. If you go right I will go left...

I've read a lot of Wright and he seems pretty clear about most things to me, but maybe I'm just as muddle-headed as he is.

Of course, I have no problem with Carson and was not levelling a criticism at him or Piper, or anybody else for that matter. In fact, the very passage Justin is quoting contains the warning: "Some scholars who are very indignant with colleagues who, in their estimation, are far too attracted by the applause of unbelieving academic peers, remain blissfully unaware of how much they have become addicted to the applause of conservative bastions that egg them on."

So Carson knows this. I just think it's a bigger problem right now than folks "going Wright".

On the substantive issue here, Carson has said this sort of thing publicly about Wright (I've heard it in several lectures on the Gospel Coalition site, which Carson has given permission to be posted online), so I suspect it is Wright he is talking about here.

In any case, what he has said publicly about Wright is that Wright agreed with him enough on issues like inerrancy when they were friends in graduate school (they attended Cambridge together for their Ph.D.s), and Wright now publicly derides inerrantists for saying things that, in private when Carson presses him on them, he admits he still agrees with to a large extent. It's not so much that his views are all that off, as Carson sees it, but that he's incredibly embarrassed to call his views by their accurate name. I'm not sure he'd fully endorse something like the Chicago Statement, but he's a lot closer to it than his public denunciations of it would lead you to believe. I get the sense that it's more about his language than his views.

I also get the sense that Carson tries to be very fair to Wright when he talks about his views publicly, even though he does offer criticisms of them. There's a lot about Wright's work that he's very thankful for but also a number of important matters where he thinks Wright's just got entirely the wrong emphasis, even occasionally dismissing central considerations as if they're not worth bothering with. But he insists that he doesn't think Wright actually denies anything central or asserts anything heretical. It's more that he deemphasizes the important and emphasizes side issues or that he avoids plain language because things he believes are usually given terms he really is embarrassed to apply to himself.

Carson's current big project is a commentary on I-III John in a major commentary series on the Greek text (NIGTC). He has published articles in mainstream biblical studies journals and in several Festschrifts for scholars of a fairly liberal stripe, and he has done that sort of thing for his whole career. He's also edited and written books for a mainstream scholarly audience, e.g. his books on Greek accents, verbal aspect theory, and the New Perspective. He speaks regularly at secular colleges and universities, giving evangelistic talks. Pretending he writes and speaks only for evangelicals is just ignoring the evidence.

He's also written quite a lot for evangelical audiences that is not cheered by many evangelicals, e.g. his complementarianism, his Calvinism, his Baptist convictions on baptism, his new covenant theology, his mediating position on charismatic issues, his critique of the emerging stuff, and his defense of so-called gender-inclusive translation. Very few evangelicals would agree with all his views on all those issues. There's no way he's writing to please some conservative majority.

Yes indeed. I just bought a book from Monergism "No One..." by JD Wetterling. It is fine, but hardly deserving of the extended number of gushing endorsements, all from PCA types. Made me realize it is a self-perpetuating community where we say anything we agree with is excellent, regardless of any objective criterion. Book blurbs are out of control anyway. If something is really good, does it need more or less endorsement? I'd argue the latter: quality is self-authenticating.

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Christian academics and clergy positioning themselves for plum posts and honor? I'm shocked!

Lot just barely escaped the Lord's judgement on Sodom because he was a righteous man who had righteous friends.

I think there is a difference between writing/speaking in an attempt to teach and defend the truth of God's word versus writing/speaking with the intention of bolstering one's reputation among a certain peer group. The former is required of faithful Christians, while the latter is "seeking the approval of men instead of God" even if the content of that writing/speaking is orthodox and otherwise edifying. Simply put, we all need to check our motivation when writing, speaking, and blogging. A good reminder that it is all for God's glory, not our own!

The article does seem a bit vaugue….no Scripture either, so it’s hard to get a grasp. Sure there are “many dangers, toils & snares” to avoid in any area of life, but not just the academic…I suppose if we are going to discuss “others” & ignore our own failings then maybe we need to have a rethink…

A question to consider in a heartfelt way…Was Lot a righteous man according to 2 Peter 2?

That's not so bad. N. T. Wright has turned out quite solid on most things that matter, and all while be a very public figure (bishop and parliamentarian).

I tend to agree, since when I saw the title I thought this was going to be about Christian speakers throwing out crowd-pleasers.

Really, D.A. Carson? What Carson cautions evangelicals not to do in the 2nd paragraph is exactly what conservative evangelical scholars (cf. Piper, Carson, Desiring God, Crossway Books) are doing in their teaching and publishing, that they write for a very specific (in Carson's words, "narrow") group of people seeking their "applause."

Take for example Crossway publishing. If you look at the books they publish, these books are for a very specific audience (conservative evangelicals), and these books are often polemical, written against anything that doesn't agree with conservative evangelicalism. The majority of people who read Crossway books (and listen to Piper, Carson, Desiring God, Gospel Coalition) are conservative evangelicals. So I'd say that these guys really are writing for their own demographic, making money off of their own demographic, and in return receiving pats-on-their-own-backs from their own demographic because these readers will cheer and agree with whatever they publish. Essentially, what Carson cautions evangelicals scholars not to put up their scholarship "for sale" has already happened in evangelicalism. I find this to be very troubling since this approach breeds an unwillingness to engage the wider world and a deeper danger of unwilling to learn anything new. (For example, when was the last time you read something from Crossway/Desiring God that entertains the possibility of granting women a more larger/visible role in church leadership?) For Carson to say all of this in his article (including not putting one's own academic work up for sale) is what intellectual dishonest. It's dishonest because Carson et. al. are doing the very thing he calls others not to do.

Joe, I suspected that was who it is.

Anyone who's heard Carson tell this story in various forums knows he's speaking of N.T. Wright.