Beyond the economic concerns are the religious questions that seep through the story from start to finish. Hatcher is wise to transport us to the medieval world of Christianity by making a priest the main character. Through the eyes of “Master John” and the stories of his parishioners, we learn how important it was to help a loved one experience a “good death.” We get a feel for life in a world in which everyone was alert to spirits, good and bad, where superstition and magic mixed with Christian rituals and practices—a pre-Reformation world where bad actors preyed upon the spiritual insecurities of the townsfolk….

Near the beginning of the pandemic last year, in the middle of that initial lockdown, I read John Barry’s The Great Influenza, the greatest single book on the flu that ravaged the world just over a 100 ago. Whenever I mentioned that book, people looked at me funny. Trevin, isn’t it weird to read about an older pandemic when you can just watch the news? Aren’t you overloaded with bad news already? Why revisit the tragedy of 1918–20?
I’m not the only weird one. Several people have since recommended Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, a fictional account of an epidemic in London in 1665 that captures something of the fear and isolation of the time.
I find it oddly comforting to revisit past plagues, perhaps because it gives me greater perspective so that I see through the silliness of describing our current moment with a word like “unprecedented.” When you look back to how your ancestors endured similar challenges, you find today’s tragedy less frightening. You feel a little less alone, and a little more grateful that you live in modern times.
The Black Death
That brings me to Richard Hatcher’s The Black Death: A Personal History, a book unlike anything I’ve ever read. It’s a work of fiction that comes from the pen of an historian who has devoted much of his life to researching the conditions and the results of the Bubonic plague that swept through Europe in the mid–1300s, leaving an estimated one-third to one-half of the population dead. Hatcher seeks to inhabit the world of the 1300s, and he writes as if he were a scholar of that era who sought to recount the effects of “the pestilence” in a particular English town.
As you’d expect, Hatcher’s book describes the preventive measures, the onset of symptoms, proposed treatments, and almost inevitable death that followed. But The Black Death also considers the pre- and post-pandemic lives of people in the countryside. How did they prepare? How did they cope? How did they respond when their loved ones died? How did rich and poor alike deal with fields lying fallow and cottages in disrepair? How did the town respond to the problem of whole families wiped out by the plague and the subsequent disputes over inheritance, and land, work, and wages?
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There is a world of difference between identifying our sin so as to mortify it and identifying by our sin as a component part of our Christian identity. Every Christian is called to identify his sin, take it to the cross in faith and repentance, and ask God for an increase of grace to war against the desires of the flesh. Far from singling out our brothers and sisters who struggle with SSA we are simply calling on them to join the rest of us who are no less committed to being renewed in the whole man after the image of Christ.

The approval of Overtures 23 and 37 at the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) General Assembly (GA) in St. Louis, Missouri was a watershed moment in the history of the PCA. To the surprise of many, Overtures 23 and 37 received overwhelming support at GA; Overture 23 passed by a vote of 1438 to 417 and Overture 37–1130 to 692. It wasn’t even close (77% and 62%). Denominational conservatives went home feeling as though they’d scored a game-winning touchdown when, in fact, the encouraging results of GA are more akin to a first down than a touchdown—there is still a lot of ground left to cover.
In order to amend the Book of Church Order (BCO) two-thirds of the denomination’s presbyteries need to vote in favor of these overtures, and the 2022 GA in Birmingham, Ala., will need to pass the overtures by a simple majority vote. So, as important as the 48th General Assembly was, if the overtures are indeed approved by the presbyteries, the 49th GA will prove to be even more pivotal for the future of our denomination.
Of late, the National Partnership (a group of progressive-minded elders within the PCA whose members voiced their full-throated opposition to Overtures 23 and 37 on the GA floor) are making something of a goal-line stand. Hoping to dissuade presbyteries from voting in favor of the proposed BCO amendments, the National Partnership released a public document titled, “National Partnership Public Advice for Voting on Overtures 23, 37” (hereafter PA) While I do not share their concerns, I sincerely appreciate the NP’s transparency in making their reservations public. Lord willing, the process of iron-sharpening iron will prepare us all for profitable debate both at the presbytery level and at next year’s GA.
There have already been a number of helpful resources produced that offer reasons to vote in favor of Overtures 23 and 37 (hereafter O 23 & O 37). TEs Dr. Dominic Aquila and Fred Greco provide a dialogue on the merits of O 23 & O 37. Additionally, TE Todd Pruitt’s GA wrap-up at Ref 21 provides information to understand the issues at play in the O 23 & O 37 debate.
My intention for this series is to address common objections raised in the PA and on social media. Since GA, I have had friendly correspondence with several brothers who are opposed to O 23 & O 37. Though we still do not agree, interacting with these brothers has proven helpful to me in assuming best motives and clarifying my own thinking on the issues at hand. These conversations together with the PA lead me to believe that there are at least three primary objections to O 23 & O 37 that undergird all others. I call them the “Three “U”s: The overtures, they argue, are: 1. Unclear; 2. Unnecessary; and 3. Unloving. Each article will address one “U” with the hope of bringing clarity to what feels like a dizzying array of dissent. It is my sincere hope that my brothers in the PCA will receive these critiques in the manner that they are intended—in brotherly love for them and those sheep under their care.
The First “U”—Unclear
The introductory paragraph of the PA aims to erode the reader’s confidence in O 23 & O 37 by suggesting that the language of the overtures is open to “broad interpretation.” “Many in the PCA are divided on the meaning of the overtures…The proper interpretation of the BCO is based on the words as written, not as they may have been intended. The GA did not adopt reasons, much less codify reasons, for these revisions. Any Overture that immediately instigates this much constitutional confusion is unworthy of our Standards.”[1]
Elsewhere the document reads, “The proposed addition to BCO 21 (O37) fails to provide clarity about what constitutes the disqualifying self-profession” (II. 1).
“This creates an ambiguity in BCO 16-4 that no one perceived in the heat of the moment. The ambiguity is caused by the uncertainty of the word “that” after the first parenthesis. Does the “that” which disqualifies from pastoral office refer to what is within the parenthesis; i.e., those who profess an identity “such as, but not limited to, [etc.],” or, does the “that” refer to the explanatory clauses following it: i.e., those who profess an identity “such as but not limited to ‘gay Christian,’ ‘same sex attracted Christian,’ ‘homosexual Christian,’ are disqualified only if they express their identity in ways contrary to the standards?” (II. 2).
Having served on the Overtures Committee (OC) and agreeing to reconvene for the purpose of perfecting the language of Overture 23, the assertion that no one caught the perceived ambiguity “in the heat of the moment” gives the impression that the OC was guilty of a rush job. The fact of the matter is that commissioners debated O23 & O 37 for hours and down to the level of punctation and syntax. There is not a jot or a tittle that was not fussed over by the OC. Hats off to our intrepid OC chairman, TE Scott Barber, for keeping track of all the moving parts!
To answer the question posed in II. 2 surrounding the word “that” and to give the reader a sense of the care and attention given to the language of O23, the exact wording is copied below:
BCO 16-4. Officers in the Presbyterian Church in America must be above reproach in their walk and Christlike in their character. Those who profess an identity (such as, but not limited to, “gay Christian,” “same sex attracted Christian,” “homosexual Christian,” or like terms) that undermines or contradicts their identity as new creations in Christ, either by denying the sinfulness of fallen desires (such as, but not limited to, same sex attraction), or by denying the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, or by failing to pursue Spirit-empowered victory over their sinful temptations, inclinations, and actions are not qualified for ordained office.
To clarify, the “that” above does not set up a situation in which it is permissible for a PCA officer to continue to identify himself by his remaining sinfulness (i.e., “gay Christian,” “same-sex attracted Christian,” “homosexual Christian,” or like terms) even if he refrains from the behaviors listed thereafter (1. denying the sinfulness of the fallen desire 2. denying the reality and hope of progressive sanctification 3. failing to pursue Spirit-empowered victory). Why? Because continuing to identify ourselves by our remaining sinfulness necessarily “undermines and contradicts our identities as new creations in Christ.”
We must be clear, there is a world of difference between identifying our sin so as to mortify it and identifying by our sin as a component part of our Christian identity. Every Christian is called to identify his sin, take it to the cross in faith and repentance, and ask God for an increase of grace to war against the desires of the flesh. Far from singling out our brothers and sisters who struggle with SSA we are simply calling on them to join the rest of us who are no less committed to being renewed in the whole man after the image of Christ.
According to the PA, O23 is guilty of introducing “magic words” into our tests for ministers and officers. But this is not the case; forbidding men from identifying themselves by their remaining sinfulness is simply bringing the words of Scripture to bear in our examination process.
Consider the words of the Apostle Paul, “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:9b-11). To the Ephesians Paul wrote, “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints” (Eph 5:3).
Furthermore, as our Confession of Faith teaches, when we are adopted by God we are “taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God; and have His name put upon us” (WCF 12). What a precious privilege, to have God as our Father, to be called by his name! In light of such a privilege, why then would we sully this new identity by continuing to identify ourselves by the sins for which Christ died? Paul wrote, “such we were some of you” not “and so you will remain forever.” Therefore, Christians ought to steer clear of terminology that gives the impression that Christ’s blood hasn’t cleansed them from all their sin. “Gay Christian” and like terms do exactly that.
But, what about the Ad Interim Committee Report on Human Sexuality (hereafter AIC)? The PA quotes the AIC, “In practical and plain terms, the issue of terminology is more likely a matter for shepherding in wisdom, and not in and of itself grounds for discipline” (p. 30). Does this sentence make our objections to one identifying himself by his remaining sinfulness litigious? Are we looking to trap examinees in their words? Certainly not.
To better understand the AIC quote above we need to keep in mind its original context. This quotation falls under the AIC section titled, “Biblical Perspectives For Pastoral Care—Discipleship, Identity, and Terminology.” This section offers practical advice to shepherds on how to effectively care for sheep who struggle with SSA. The context is pastoral care, not theological examinations nor the language that ought or ought not to be used therein. In the paragraph immediately preceding the selected quote, the AIC states:
There is an understandable desire among some celibate Christians who identify as gay to utilize the common parlance of our culture as a missional or apologetic tool, hoping to redefine for our culture a way of being gay that in fact submits those desires to the lordship of Christ. However, there is a substantial corresponding risk of syncretism in such an approach. This potential danger toward syncretism can manifest as an over-identification with the LGBT community (over and against a primary identification with the church) or even the formation of an LGBT subculture within the church. In view of the twin dangers of misunderstanding and syncretism, we believe it is generally unwise to use the language of gay Christian.
Here’s my logic. If the AIC’s recommendation to shepherds is for them to dissuade their sheep from using unwise identifiers like “gay Christian,” then how much more should we expect a man who aspires to be a shepherd to refrain from using these same identifiers? If a man refuses to shed a sinful self-conception in the interest of safeguarding against, at best, misunderstanding, and at worst, syncretism, does he really embody the spiritual qualities laid out in 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and 1 Peter 5 for those who aspire to ordained leadership (e.g., temperate, not quarrelsome, being examples to the flock)? Wouldn’t he be guilty of using unclear language and sowing seeds of confusion among the flock, and not those of who object to his unwise use of terminology?
I argue from the lesser to the greater as I do because James reminds us that all those who rule in the church will be held to a higher standard. James wrote, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1). Notice that James writes this in the context of Christians needing to tame their tongues. Words mattered to James and they ought to matter still, especially to those entrusted with the ministry of the Word and prayer (Acts 6:4). We must be careful not only in what we do, but also in the way we communicate who we are in Christ.
In this post I have dealt with only one side of the “Unclear” coin. In the next article I will maintain that neither O 23 or O 37 as written necessarily disqualify a man who struggles with SSA from being ordained in the PCA.
Stephen Spinnenweber is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Westminster PCA in Jacksonville, Fla.

[1]Please note that all directly quoted statements are in italics, all those underlined are my own.

Finally, one of them pours flammable liquid over the Stranger’s head. They take the small flares they use to light the plant, and set his clothes ablaze. He is burned to ashes before them… he has endured the intolerable smoke to the end without yielding to the Smokers. They do not realize that he will rise again, phoenix-like, from the ashes.

In his book Lessons from the Upper Room, Sinclair Ferguson provides an allegory he titles “The Stranger in Smokeland”—an allegory he says needs little interpretation. For that reason, I will provide it as-is, without commentary. I think you’ll enjoy it.
The Stranger had lived all his life in the Highlands. Here streams of crystal-clear water run; the flowers and vegetation are luxuriant; the mountain air is pure; the atmosphere is unpolluted. No one who lives here has ever died.
But the Stranger’s father had told him of a distant land where the air is polluted, and the inhabitants die young. The pollution and death are caused by a plant the citizens roll into tube-shapes, light, and place in their mouths, and then they inhale its vapors—they do not realize they are poisonous. Instead, they find their highest pleasure in this; they believe it keeps them healthy and that it protects them and is essential to a good life.
The parliament of the country has never enacted a law to this effect, but it is universally regarded as unacceptable for a citizen not to smoke. Now they have become so addicted to the lighted plant that they can no longer smell the odor it leaves on their bodies, their hair, and their clothes. They think that its effect on their skin and eyes enhances their attractiveness.
The Stranger and his father feel pity for this land. They decide that the Stranger should visit it, instruct its people, offer to rid the land of its pollution, and make a treaty for them that will guarantee clean air, good health, and endless life.
And so, the Stranger comes to Smokeland.
The citizens see that the Stranger never smokes. This makes them feel uncomfortable. He begins to talk to them about a land where no one smokes, where the air is fresh, the rivers are crystal clear, and everyone is healthy. He tells them that in this kingdom no one has ever died. He also tells them that his father, who reigns over the land from which he has come, sent him to Smokeland to set its citizens free from smoking and to rid their land of its noxious atmosphere. The air, he promises, will become pure, their breath will become clean, their clothes will no longer be impregnated with the odor of the plant—they will feel like new people altogether!
But instead of admiring his obvious health and listening to his message, the citizens of Smokeland become angry. They refuse to believe the Stranger; they tell him his claims cannot be true. They deny that they are unhealthy; they enjoy the smell of their clothes; they reject his message.
Nevertheless, despite the mounting opposition to him the Stranger continues to speak. He pleads with them to listen. But this simply angers the people. Now they plan to silence him.
One day they surround him, exhaling their smoke, breathing it over him. “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke like us!” they chant.
He refuses, but they insist. And when he still will not smoke, they surround him in even greater numbers. They press in on him, jeering, blowing the smoke of the lighted plant onto his face and into his eyes. They try to push the lighted tubes of it into his mouth. But he refuses to inhale. They persist. His clothes are now reeking from their polluted smoke, his face is surrounded by their exhaling, and he is covered in their spittle. His eyes are watering, and his heart is longing for relief and for the fresh air of home. But he refuses to smoke.
At last, the Smokeland citizens’ anger flares up into mob-rage at the Stranger’s persistence. Some of them seize him and hold him while others begin to stab at his body with their lighted tubes of the noxious plant. Finally, one of them pours flammable liquid over the Stranger’s head. They take the small flares they use to light the plant, and set his clothes ablaze. He is burned to ashes before them… he has endured the intolerable smoke to the end without yielding to the Smokers. They do not realize that he will rise again, phoenix-like, from the ashes.
(You can purchase Lessons from the Upper Room at Ligonier Ministries or Amazon)
Source

“It’s not a culture war, not anymore. There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out…The debates are over now. The Woke brigades won’t battle your ideas. The marketplace of ideas offends them—you offend them. Now, they have the power of termination…[T]he Revolution is here and you’re in it…They follow the motto of that brilliant manager of men, Joseph Stalin, who reasoned quite soundly: ‘No man, no problem.’”

Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò describes the globalist “Great Reset,” devised by Davos billionaires and powerful politicians, as the work of Satan and “Luciferian Globalists.”[1] Protestant American believers warn that “America is writhing in the grip of a full-scale Marxist political and cultural revolution.”[2] Some conclude that the two movements are deeply related. As responsible citizens, Christians must certainly consider what role the church should play in seeking to hold back the progress of godless political power in their own nation.
It may seem unduly sensationalist to describe progressive current politics as Marxist, but wisdom dictates that we think seriously about how the future could pan out. Slow changes can suddenly speed up, causing us to regret not having seen a movement coming. As Mark Bauerlein, professor at Emory University and senior editor of First Things, states: “One moment you’re a citizen of a well-running republic. The next moment you see that the federal government seems unable to fulfill its most basic responsibilities.”[3]
I continue to be motivated by the serious, yet delicate, challenge of showing believers how their faith and gospel witness must be applied to this changing culture, just as Moses warned Israel when going into Canaan. He warned them to be aware of the dangers of living among people who worship false gods, citing the Lord’s judgment: They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols (Deut 32:21).
When I arrived in America for the first time in 1964, as a naive young European, I was struck at both how “Christian” and how anti-Communist America was. Now recent arrivals from China, like Lily Tang-Williams, and from North Korea, like the youthful and brilliant Yeonomi Park, warn that they see much in America that reminds them of the horrendous cultures they left behind. Ms. Park recently studied at Columbia University and was shocked to see that the Marxist ideology she was taught in North Korea was now being taught in every class at this well-respected American school.[4] As I study Critical Race Theory and the antiracism movements of the day, I realize how ideologically Marxist these movements are; yet they are spreading throughout the culture with relative ease and increasing power—even in the country’s churches. These movements are successfully dividing American culture down the middle, in typical Marxist fashion!
Let’s be clear. The Marxist grab for social power has always sought to divide culture into antagonist segments: the oppressors and the oppressed. In Russia the divide was created between the bourgeois oppressors (land and business owners) and the proletariat oppressed (workers). In China the division was made between the “Black” (professionals) and the “Red” (under-class ) Chinese, whom Mao convinced to murder millions of fellow “Black” Chinese. In Cambodia the divide was between the intellectuals (which included anyone wearing glasses – true!) and the agricultural workers, who were roused by the Khmer Rouge and their cruel leader, Pol Pot, to murder nearly a quarter of the Cambodian population. In our time, Marxist-inspired Critical Race Theory divides Western culture into the oppressors (Whites) and the oppressed (Blacks and other minorities). Some leaders of this movement have clearly stated Marxist goals.
This is not new. According to a first-hand witness, black American Manning Johnson, in his book Color, Communism and Common Sense (1958), describes a vast attempt by Soviet and American communists in 1934–35 to undermine faith in American institutions through a program that would convince the general public that America is deeply racist. Mr. Johnson signed up for this revolutionary program. The goal was to create “a common front against the white oppressors.”[5] Johnson documents that the plot to use “Negroes as the [expendable] spearhead” of the undermining of America was created by Stalin in 1928, ten years after the creation of the Commintern (the World Organization of Communism). This was employed by “the top white communist leaders” hypocritically playing the idea of racial conflict in “a cold-blooded struggle for power” to “advance the cause of Communism” in America.[6] The goal was “to make the white man’s system, the white man’s government, responsible for everything.” He noted: “Smear is a cardinal technique,” seeking to “divide America” that can only be called “a propaganda hoax.”[7] “Black rebellion was what Moscow wanted. Bloody racial conflict would split America. During the confusion, demoralization and panic would set in.”[8] Apparently, the movement had little time for black people. Marx dismissed the black race as much closer to the animal kingdom.[9] Finally understanding his role as a pawn, Manning abandoned the program.
As Black Lives Matter (ironically awarded the Nobel Peace prize of 2021) ultimately shows, the controversy over racism is not so much an attempt at purging real racism as it is a Marxist-driven attempt to divide our culture between the oppressed Blacks and their White oppressors, in order to overthrow civilized Judeo-Christian American culture. The accusation that police brutality is causing black genocide has been shown to be false,[10] but BLM’s self-definition as emerging from Marxism is certain. Using racism as its cover story, Marxism pushes forward with its goal to divide America and to cause a revolution that will “upset the set-up!” An anonymous first-hand ex-participant in BLM (like Manning Johnson, years earlier) states: “I have seen this [racist] ideology up close and seen how it consumes and even destroys people, while dehumanizing anyone who dissents.”[11] In other words, BLM’s Marxism is an essential part of the neo-Marxist revival that seeks to bring an end to traditional Western civilization by the age-old technique of antagonistic cultural division.
Ibram X. Kendi, founder of Boston University’s Center for Antiracism Research was recently given a $10 million “no strings attached” grant by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.[12 ] This is a clear example of “woke capitalism,”[13] by which Dorsey uses his financial power to promote his vision of social justice while silencing opposing views on his Twitter platform, thereby undermining the democratic process. This money will help create a U. S. Department of Antiracism, with the power to overturn any law or policy at any level of government if the department determines that such policies do not contribute vigorously enough to antiracist theory. With the subjective notion of “equity” as the defining term, such a branch of government could, by fiat, redefine public morality. Fallible, omnipotent, moral busybodies will apply inscrutable rules to everyone except themselves. Nothing could be more Marxist! Ironically, Kendi, richly supported by successful businessmen and profiting hugely from the free market system, has announced that he opposes capitalism and free enterprise: “To love racism,” he states, “is to end up loving capitalism.”[14] Equity now determines action, and we will define what it is
Professor Bauerlein understands precisely where we now are.
“It’s not a culture war, not anymore. There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out…The debates are over now. The Woke brigades won’t battle your ideas. The marketplace of ideas offends them—you offend them. Now, they have the power of termination…[T]he Revolution is here and you’re in it…They follow the motto of that brilliant manager of men, Joseph Stalin, who reasoned quite soundly: ‘No man, no problem.’”[15]
Stalin had many of his dissenting colleagues shot through the head. With cancel culture, it is now, as Bauerlein perceptively observes: “No conservatives, no problem.”[16] Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, and a careful social analyst, says, reflecting on Norway’s recent law declaring illegal speech against transgenderism, even at home:[17] “Free speech in the United States these days is becoming described as a danger that needs to be controlled as opposed to a traditional value that defines this country as a democracy.… [F]ree speech…is under fire and may even be a minority view today.”[18] He refers to President Biden who selected Richard Stengel to take the “team lead” position on the US Agency for Global Media. “Stengel has been one of the most controversial figures calling for censorship and speech controls, a person who rejects the very essence of free speech. He promises the “unity” of a nation silenced by government speech codes and censorship.”[19] He is one of those who knows what equity is.
If this is true, we may be increasingly close to the situation of the German church in the 1930s. It watched the political rise of Hitler and the promotion of NAZI ideology. Individual Catholics and Protestants spoke out, but the church made no public opposition to antisemitism or to state-sanctioned violence against the Jews.[20] After 1945, the silence and even complicity of the church during the Holocaust produced major issues of guilt and recrimination. We may ask, without any sense of superiority: What should the German church have done to stop the slaughter of 6 million Jews, a bloodbath going on right under its nose?
Now is the time to ask what our Christian response must be to a dangerous political program that seeks to the divide culture and may well end up in far more physical violence than we have yet seen. May God grant us wisdom to face such a possible cultural future, not in order to produce a “Christian nation” but out of respect for God and for those made in his image. Yet while we live in this fallen world, we must also defend biblical principles of sound living, and of fair and polite discussion. We have the blessing of a First Amendment, which we would do well to defend. We must also defend the rule of law, any policy that promotes the nobility of the individual, normative male/female distinctions, and defense of the pre-born.
Clearly, truth must speak to power, whatever response it receives—even if it is a violent one. We must preach the gospel fervently both to the oppressors and the oppressed, for we all share a world temporarily under the oppression of the Evil one. We have true peace with God only through the suffering, sacrifice, death and resurrection of our coming King. We must make known the truth about God, the good Creator, whose common grace is extended to everyone and whose special grace is shown to all who will hear and respond to the saving death of his Son, which will produce the redemption of the entire creation (Romans 8:18–21), for God’s final glory—and for perfect, divinely defined, equity.
Dr. Peter Jones is scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary California and associate pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Escondido, Calif. He is director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism. This article is used with permission.

[1]WND LINK: “…corrupt civil and church authorities have joined forces to exploit the coronavirus pandemic in their quest to bolster global sovereignty.”[2] “How Big Tech, Big Media, lying Democrats, deep staters and vote fraudsters cheated Trump – and America,” WND (September 02, 2021).[3]AM GREATNESS LINK, see also FRONT PAGE MAG LINK[4] Alex Newman, “Critical Race Theory: Marxist Poison Infecting America,” The New American (August, 9, 2021), 11-17.[5] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism and Common Sense (Martino Fine Books,1958), 7 and 15.[6] Johnson, ibid, 37.[7] Johnson, ibid., 44, 52 and 54.[8]FREE REPUBLIC LINK Joseph Hippolito BLM, Antifa and the Communist Strategy to Destroy the United States Frontpagemagazine | Sep 24, 2020 |[9] According to the recently deceased Walter Williams, see NEWS HERALD LINK[10] The BLM myth is turning the many encounters law enforcement had with African-Americans in 2019 into a racist genocide. In fact, only 9 unarmed blacks were killed by police in 2019 and, according to police records, a majority of the fatal encounters were the outcome of fully justified police actions of self-defense. In the same year, 19 unarmed whites were shot dead by police; yet no one hears or even seems to care about these victims, because they don’t fit the Left’s narrative of black genocide. 93% of all black homicide victims are killed by other blacks. This is the true genocide that needs to be stopped. Police are NOT waging war on African-Americans. This is a profound lie. This is NOT a nation mired in systemic racism. No one knows leftist radicals better than David Horowitz. He says Black Lives Matter, Antifa and Occupy Wall Street all seek the same thing: a progressive, socialist revolution in America – and they are far closer to achieving it today than ’60s radicals ever were.[11]NEW DISCOURSE LINK[12]BU EDU LINK[13] See Vivek Ramaswamy, Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, (Center Street, NY, 2021), 19.[14] by FRONT PAGE MAG LINK [15] Art.cit.[16] Art.cit.[17]FAITHWIRE LINK[18]THEHILL LINK[19]JONATHANTURLEY LINK[20]ENCYCLOPEDIA LINK

Written by Richard C. Barcellos |
Monday, September 27, 2021
Fesko says, “for those who criticize biblical theology as a novelty, they seem to forget the scriptural maxim that there is nothing new under the sun (Eccl. 1:9)” (474). Though the phrase biblical theology is of modern origin, the hermeneutical concepts and trajectories of what we now call biblical theology are at least as old as the Hebrew canon itself. They also appear in the intertestamental era, the NT, the patristic era, the Middle Ages, and in the Reformation and post-Reformation eras. Biblical theology is older than many think.

In J. V. Fesko’s contribution to a book in honor of Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., he addresses an important issue—the antiquity of biblical theology. He acknowledges that there are some who think biblical theology finds its origin in classical liberalism and rationalism. He quotes Jay Adams as claiming that “Geerhardus Vos rescued it from the liberal theologians” (J. V. Fesko, “On the Antiquity of Biblical Theology” in Lane G. Tipton and Jeffrey C. Waddington, Editors, Resurrection and Eschatology: Theology in the Service of the Church, Essays in Honor of Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. [Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008], 444). Even D. G. Hart claims, “The problem for biblical theology is that it is a recent scholarly effort, originating only in the late nineteenth century” (444). These detractors notwithstanding, Fesko states his thesis as follows:

…it is the thesis of this essay that biblical theology has been a part of the church’s interpretive history from the earliest years, not simply in the patristic period, but stretching back into the very formation of the Old Testament (OT) canon, evidenced in its own intra-canonical interpretation. (445)

Then he adds these words: “In recognizing the antiquity of biblical theology, we will see how fundamental the discipline is to the hermeneutical and theological process” (445). Fesko claims that biblical theology goes all the way back to the OT. He is fully aware that its formal inception occurred in the eighteenth century; that is, as a distinct discipline within, or at least vying for entrance into, the theological encyclopedia. But he also realizes that a concept can be present and functioning in antiquity while the word or phrase we presently use to describe that concept is absent. In other words, he does not fall into the word-concept fallacy.
After reviewing Gabler’s[1] contribution in the early days of biblical theology in the modern era, Fesko then devotes four pages to Geerhardus Vos. The reason is probably two-fold: 1) The book is in honor of Gaffin who is a follower of Vos in the Reformed tradition of biblical theology and 2) Vos is the most important modern figure in terms of shaping biblical theology within the Reformed tradition.
Note two of Fesko’s three “key ideas…in Vos’s understanding of biblical theology” (450). First, “the biblical theologian does not treat the biblical text from merely a historical perspective” (450). This is what the liberals had done. Vos’s concern is to respect the Scriptures as revelation from God. This is why he preferred “the term history of special revelation in lieu of biblical theology” (450). Since Scripture is revelation from God, “the entire corpus is an organic whole” (450). This is why Vos sees biblical theology as “the exhibition of the organic progress of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity” (450).
Second, “unlike Gabler’s understanding of biblical theology, Vos believed the discipline focused on Christ and covenant, which is the manner in which the church learns redemption accomplished and applied” (451). The Bible unfolds itself in a Christ-centered manner via its covenants. Everything before Christ prepares the way for Christ. Fesko quotes Vos as follows, “All Old Testament redemption is but the saving activity of God working toward the realization of this goal [i.e., Christ], the great supernatural prelude to the Incarnation and the Atonement” (451). The various stages of Bible history are redemptive epochs gradually and progressively “unfolding…God’s revelation in Christ…manifested through the various covenants…” (451).
In a section of the chapter entitled BIBLICAL THEOLOGY THROUGHTOUT THE AGES, Fesko seeks to show “how various interpreters throughout the centuries have employed the hermeneutics of biblical theology, which therefore demonstrates the antiquity of the discipline” (453).
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