Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Rick Phillips on Bob Jones Academy and Fundamentalism

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Update: See Rick Phillips’s gracious reply below (comment #2) and clarification on his blog entitled “More on Bob Jones.” He’s a gentleman.

Rick Phillips, who recently became a PCA pastor at Second Presbyterian Church just a few minutes down the road from Bob Jones University, shares his evolving thoughts on fundamentalists after deciding to enroll his children at Bob Jones Elementary School. See his blog post “Fundamentalism, Christian Schooling, and the Antithesis.” (Cf. his follow-up post “The Price Is Not Right.”)

A few thoughts in reply:

  1. I’m delighted to hear Phillips’s thoughts. BJ often gets an unnecessarily bad rap. Phillips is right that (1) BJ is culturally conservative and upholds some relatively strict rules and (2) BJ is straight on what matters most: the gospel.
  2. For what it’s worth, I’d like to point out that BJ is not an Arminian institution. I can see how someone might get this impression based on some of their history (e.g., Bob Jones Sr. was a Methodist), methodology, chapel speakers, and administrators over the years, but I’m not aware of a single Arminian professor who currently teaches on the their undergraduate or graduate Bible faculty; most (or at least many) of the Bible professors are Calvinists of the Amyraldian variety. (I don’t pretend to be an official spokesperson for BJU, but both my wife and I are somewhat familiar with the BJ system. We both earned degrees at BJU, and my wife also attended BJ through seventh grade. For the first two years of our marriage, we lived right next to BJES and passed it nearly every day either in a car or on foot. We each have many friends and family members who have attended BJ ranging from nursery-age up through Ph.D. studies, and I still keep in touch with several of the professors.)

D. A. Carson on “The Gospel of Jesus Christ”

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An edited manuscript of D. A. Carson‘s “The Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-19)” is now available at The Gospel Coalition site. Carson preached this message in May at The Gospel Coalition’s first conference: video | audio.

Other resources at TGC site: articles (including an RSS feed for new articles), audio & video (including interviews), foundational documents.

The Gospel Coalition Interviews

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The Gospel Coalition now has dozens of short video interview clips available. Four men, at least in the interviews posted so far, answer various questions: D. A. Carson, Tim Keller, John Piper, and Mark Driscoll. I reserved a few hours today to watch these, and it was well worth the time—regardless of whether one completely agrees with every viewpoint expressed. Some of the clips are especially thoughtful and moving, especially those by Carson and Piper. (Cf. TGC’s articles, audio & video, foundational documents, and stakeholders.)

John Glynn’s “Commentary and Reference Survey”

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Last night I finished reading an excellent resource: John Glynn, Commentary and Reference Survey: A Comprehensive Guide to Biblical Studies and Theological Resources (10th ed.; revised and updated; with a foreword by Darrell L. Bock; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 380 pp. (See also Glynn’s website, which includes a couple reviews of his book.) Glynn’s Survey is a superb source for tracking what works are available for biblical studies. Glynn is a bit thin on evaluation (Other than occasional interjections, about the extent of his evaluations is bolding his most recommended resources.), and nearly everyone will have some quibbles with his judgments. The book, however, is primarily a compilation of resources, not a commentary on resources. It it not, therefore, in the same category as, say, D. A. Carson’s New Testament Commentary Survey. Glynn lists the options for biblical studies in general, but Carson analyzes specific NT commentaries. Glynn devotes only one chapter (pp. 145-201) to NT commentaries, but Carson’s whole book is devoted to it. I’m grateful for Glynn’s useful tool.

Planet Earth: A Theological Documentary

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Last month one of my close friends emailed me a link to a 14-minute video that serves as a preview for the recently released Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series (also available in HD DVD and Blu-ray). After reading more about this BBC series, I became aware of another BBC series released a few years ago called The Blue Planet: Seas of Life.

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Jenni and I had the opportunity to watch these series, and they are excellent! Over the last three years, we have checked out a few dozen nature DVDs from the library (e.g., many produced by IMAX), but none of those compares to Planet Earth! Wow. It includes five DVDs: the first four contain eleven 50-minute episodes, and the fifth contains three episodes on “the future” and environmentalism. The last ten minutes or so of the eleven episodes on disks 1-4 share interesting stories about what the film crew endured to secure such unusual footage. (Warning: Occasionally a crew member’s speech is a bit offensive.) The footage on the main episodes is stunningly majestic and detailed, colorful and brilliant. The vistas are breathtaking. I learned something new in every episode, usually viewing (1) fascinating animals and plants on God’s earth that I never knew existed and (2) behavior by well-known organisms that shocked me because I had never heard of such things (e.g., a pride of lions attacking an elephant).

In preparation for watching these, we listened to John Piper’s sermon “The Pleasure of God in Creation,” which Piper later published as this chapter in The Pleasures of God, my favorite book by Piper. Thrilling! Moving! Worshipful! Watching first-class films about God’s planet is a worshipful experience—even if the people who make the films have entirely different agendas! How many more reasons do we have to praise God than did the authors of Scripture, whose knowledge of God’s earth was significantly limited in comparison to ours today? Piper calls Ranger Rick “a theological journal,” and I think it is appropriate to call Planet Earth a theological documentary.

Related: Piper on “Planet Earth”